UK crypto unicorn Blockchain.com teams up with Stripe to power payments

UK crypto firm Blockchain.com has teamed up with Stripe to help bolster its payment offering and get a better handle on protecting against fraud.

Blockchain.com, founded in 2011 and an infrastructure pioneer in Bitcoin, is a platform that offers users ways to buy and use crypto.

The UK firm says that 37 million users have created more than 80 million crypto wallets and transacted more than $1trn on Blockchain.com.

Online payments giant Stripe is to bolster Blockchain.com’s payments offering, as well as help protect against fraud, and improve revenues management.

In particular, the two companies said that Stripe aims to address common crypto purchase challenges, such as fluctuating payment acceptance rates, volatile reliability, as well as improving user experience.

In four weeks, Blockchain.com used Stripe technology to build a new checkout flow that made it possible for users to purchase crypto using card payments.

Since switching to Stripe, Blockchain.com says it has already seen an increase in its payment acceptance rates.

Blockchain.com says it expects rates to further improve as it uses Stripe to provide customers with extra ways of funding their accounts, including Apple Pay and Google Pay.

“It’s daunting for consumers to turn their crypto interest into actual transactions—trust is an imperative,” said Thianh Lu, vice president of product at Blockchain.com. 

“A frictionless user experience is critical to building trust, so we’ve focused on making the process of exchanging fiat for crypto as simple as possible. Stripe’s partnership is instrumental in making that happen.”

Blockchain.com is also using Stripe’s fraud protection tool Stripe Radar.

“While Stripe’s conversion rates are excellent, knowing that Stripe is an engineering-first company that’s constantly innovating is what got our team really excited,” said Lu.

“Stripe is working with many of the most exciting companies and projects in Web3, and supporting the world’s leading crypto brands,” said Will Gaybrick, chief product officer at Stripe.

Earlier this year, Stripe inked a deal with Ford to scale the car maker’s e-commerce business.

In just ten years, Stripe, which was founded by Irish entrepreneur brothers John and Patrick Collison, has risen to become the most valuable US tech start-up with a valuation at its last fundraising of $95bn after it raised $600m.