Payments Giant Stripe Rolls Out Pilot to Test Crypto Payouts With Twitter

On April 22, the payments giant Stripe announced that it is expanding global payouts with crypto assets via a new pilot. Stripe’s crypto executive Karan Sharma revealed crypto payouts for the firm’s Connect service to a select group of Twitter users as the social media platform is Stripe’s first partner.

Stripe revealed on Friday that it plans to allow businesses to pay users in digital currencies via a pilot through Stripe’s Connect service. The company’s first partner is Twitter and crypto payouts will at first start with usd coin (USDC) payments. Starting today, a specific amount of selected crypto users will be paid in USDC if they obtain earnings from Twitter services like Super Follows and Ticketed Spaces.

“With crypto payouts for Connect, Twitter will make it possible for creators who opt in to have their earnings paid out to a cryptocurrency wallet,” Sharma’s blog post explains. “Stripe will handle all crypto-related complexity and operations. No code changes are required, and platforms can avoid taking on the challenges of acquiring, storing, or transferring crypto themselves.”

Both Stripe and Twitter are no strangers to crypto assets, and the social media company introduced crypto tipping at the end of September 2021. While Stripe says the initial crypto support will be USDC, the USDC transfers will be executed via the Polygon network. “[Users] can hold their balance on Polygon, or choose to bridge to Ethereum and exchange it into another currency,” Sharma said. “We plan to add support for additional rails and payout currencies over time.”

Stripe further detailed that the company was eager to share this new feature with other partners. The company has published an integration guide and interested participants can request access to the beta program. “We’re excited about what this represents and about the potential for cryptocurrencies to help solve real-world problems, especially outside of major markets,” Sharma’s blog post concludes. “By the end of the year, [Stripe] plans to support crypto payouts in more than 120 countries.”

What do you think about Stripe’s new payouts in crypto and partnering with Twitter to pilot the program? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.