Crypto exchange Coinbase has developed an open source “Onchain Payment Protocol” to enhance its Commerce product. The protocol currently supports the Ethereum, Polygon and Base blockchain ecosystems.
“Today we are announcing a major update to our Coinbase Commerce product, now built on top of our new open source Onchain Payment Protocol, which provides instant settlement, low fees, and broad asset support to improve the payments experience for merchants and their customers,” said Coinbase Thursday.
Coinbase Commerce was launched in 2018 to let merchants accept crypto payments. To date, thousands of merchants worldwide have received billions of dollars in on-chain payments through the Commerce platform, Coinbase said today. “Yet merchants often struggle with crypto volatility, while consumers find the payment experience daunting,” the company said, adding that the updated Commerce product solves these challenges.
Coinbase builds Onchain Payment Protocol
The updated Commerce product, built on the Onchain Payment Protocol, automatically converts customers’ crypto to the USDC stablecoin, helping to prevent crypto volatility, Coinbase said. The protocol currently supports every wallet and supported token in the Ethereum, Polygon, and Base ecosystems and plans to support more networks “soon.”
“This Commerce update allows users to pay in hundreds of currencies across Ethereum, Base, and Polygon, both native and ERC-20s,” Lauren Dowling, chief payment product developer at Coinbase, told The Block. “Coinbase retail customers can pay in any asset supported by our exchange.”
The update is impactful for merchants, says Dowling, “because it allows you to reach the hundreds of millions of global crypto users willing to pay onchain, accepts payments much cheaper compared to 3%+ credit card fees, and removes crypto exposure. vicissitude.”
Coinbase continues to build in a tough market environment. In August, Coinbase launched Base, a Layer 2 network built on top of Ethereum, using the OP Stack software from another popular Layer 2 network, Optimism. Base is currently the third-largest network in terms of total value, after Arbitrum and Optimism, according to data from DefiLlama.