Payment processing service, Stripe, announced in march 2014 that they would start accepting Bitcoin payments. Now, almost a year later, Stripe has finally launched the Bitcoin payment processing facility. The company had an extensive beta test spanning over 60 countries, and the response was very positive. The company which has a massive investment history, with several high profile investors such as Andreessen Horowitz, Peter Thiel and Sequoia Capital to name a few, has finally launched the Bitcoin payment processing service.
You can start accepting Bitcoin through their powerful API or by using their checkout feature. Either way, its very easy to setup and simple to use. This move of facilitating bitcoin payments will surely increase Stripe’s already massive userbase with several popular services such as Shopify, Kickstarter to name a few utilizing Stripe and at the same time, Bitcoin acceptance will increase.
Moreover, the payment processing sector in the Bitcoin ecosystem is becoming more and more competitive with newcomers every now and the, such as ChainPay. There are market leaders such as BitPay and Coinbase and with the entry of Stripe into this sector, things are set to become spicier and competition is set to become much more fiercer. The company charges a meagre 0.5% commission which is very low compared to the 2-3% which credit card services charge.