Killing 100,000 birds with one stone: Shopify adds Coinbase as Bitcoin option for all its stores

E-commerce platform provider Shopify has partnered with Coinbase to enable another way of accepting Bitcoin for its over 100,000 supported online stores.

Shopify aims to help anyone looking to sell a product set up a turnkey e-commerce solution. Merchants use Shopify’s tools for full control over their site’s design and to securely accept credit card payments. They are reportedly Canada’s first startup to reach a $1 billion valuation after the dot.com bubble.

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Until now, clients had the choice of using Shopify Payments, PayPal, and for Bitcoin- BitPay. They can now choose between BitPay and Coinbase for Bitcoin payments. Because Shopify operates in multiple countries, it’s good for clients to have a choice: Coinbase requires a US bank account, while BitPay caters to a more international audience. The two providers also have differing fee structures, which partially depend on total revenues.

Individual clients would still need to go through the account opening process with either Coinbase or BitPay to use their functionality. With their partnerships, Shopify allows for the linking of accounts through their API. The payment option and functionality can then be automatically built into the site without the need for specific treatment by Coinbase/BitPay typically delivered to individual merchants.

If all of Shopify’s supported stores were to enroll, the partnership technically quadruples the number of merchants supported by Coinbase from the current 34,000.