Shopify to pilot USDC payments via Coinbase and Stripe

Shopify will begin letting merchants accept stablecoin payments in USDC starting later this month.

The move was first reported by Fortune on June 12 and marks the company’s most extensive crypto integration to date. Select U.S. merchants will be able to accept USD Coin (USDC), a dollar-pegged stablecoin issued by crypto firm Circle, which recently completed one of the year’s largest IPOs.

The pilot program will begin later this month. Shopify plans to expand stablecoin payments to all merchants across the U.S. and Europe by the end of 2025.

The rollout is powered by a collaboration with Coinbase and Stripe. Coinbase helped Shopify build a custom crypto payments protocol on its Base blockchain, supporting chargebacks, refunds, and other retail-specific complexities. Stripe, one of Shopify’s core payment partners, is embedding stablecoin functionality directly into Shopify’s software stack.

The program will be opt-out, meaning stablecoin payments will be turned on by default. Merchants who prefer not to accept USDC must manually disable the option. Those who do accept it will be eligible for up to 0.5% cash back on USDC transactions. Later this year, customers paying in USDC will also receive cash-back incentives.

“I think other payment processors will look at what Shopify is building and be like, ‘Holy crap,’”  said Jesse Pollak, head of Coinbase’s blockchain and wallet divisions. Shopify chief executive officer Tobias Lütke, also a Coinbase board member, emphasized the company’s alignment with crypto’s core principles during remarks at a Coinbase event on June 12.

While Shopify has long supported crypto through third-party plug-ins, this marks its first native, platform-wide crypto integration. And it comes as stablecoins gain serious traction.

Monthly stablecoin payment volume has surged from $2 billion to over $6.3 billion in the past two years, according to a blog post by Stripe. Companies like Visa, PayPal, JPMorgan, and Deutsche Bank are now building or using stablecoin infrastructure. Apple, Meta, Airbnb, and Google have also explored integrations.

With Shopify now pushing stablecoin functionality into the hands millions of of merchants across 34 countries, digital commerce payments appears to be quietly shifting toward faster, borderless, regulated transactions.