The eCommerce platform Shopify is partnering with payments network Strike to enable its merchants to accept Bitcoin. Basically an addition of BTC payments to Shopify.

Shopify is a Canadian multinational company headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario. It provides an eCommerce platform for online stores and retail point-of-sale systems. The company has reportedly more than one million merchants using their platform worldwide.

In 2006, Tobias Lutke and Scott Lake, two snowboarding enthusiasts, launched an online store to sell snowboard equipment. It was called Snowdevil.

Over the next few years, they built a platform that other merchants could use to create their own stores. They called it Shopify.

In 2009, they released version 1 of the platform and in 2010 they raised $7 million in funding. In 2011 they acquired Select Start Studios to build an iPhone app for Shopify.

In 2012, they raised $15 million in funding and released version 2 of the platform. They also launched the first iPad point-of-sale system for retail stores.

In 2013, they raised another $100 million in funding and updated the platform with new features including product reviews and discount code creation. Later that year, Shopify introduced plans for a POS hardware lineup called Shopify Hardware.

In 2014, Shopify acquired Jet Cooper, a Toronto-based design studio, and launched Kit — an artificial intelligence powered virtual marketing assistant for small businesses.

In 2015, Shopify acquired Boltmade to improve their engineering talent and Tiny Hearts to improve their mobile offering.

Today, more than one million merchants use Shopify to sell their products online or in person from more locations.

According to Macrotrends, a financial market analysis website, Shopify is the world’s 18th largest eCommerce firm, with around $4.6 billion in yearly revenue. 

Its service allows retailers to open an online store in 175 countries. 

Shopify’s stock price has been on a roller coaster recently, falling from a high of $1,690 in November to less than $643 on Friday (April 8) after rising to $780 in mid-March. 

According to the company’s quarterly and annual results report, Shopify stated in February that its platform surpassed $6.3 billion in sales from the start of Black Friday in New Zealand to the conclusion of Cyber Monday in California, up from $5.1 billion in 2020. 

Subscriptions to the Shopify platform increased by 26% year on year to $351.2 million, owing largely to additional merchants joining the platform.

According to the announcement, Strike will enable all of Shopify’s merchants to receive Bitcoin payments from their customers directly into their bank accounts. Shopify said that the partnership with Strike aims to give its merchants more payment options for their businesses as well as enabling them to get paid in Bitcoin without any experience in crypto or volatility risk.

In a blog post, Shopify said that this integration will enable its merchants to accept both U.S. dollar and bitcoin payments via the Strike API, adding that the integration is done through Lightning Labs’ open protocol based on the Bitcoin network.

Shopify, which provides a software-as-a-service platform for online stores and retail point-of-sale systems, has announced that it is working with Strike to integrate Bitcoin acceptance on the Shopify platform.

The payments network Strike, an app developed by the Bitcoin technology company Zap. Strike will allow Shopify merchants to accept bitcoin for any purchase without a fee, and merchants can choose to receive that payment in BTC or fiat.

Shopify announced on November 19 that it is partnering with Strike to allow its millions of merchants globally to accept Bitcoin from their customers. With the announcement, Shopify becomes the latest major business to embrace Bitcoin for payments.

Additionally, as a sign of growing confidence in permissionless cryptocurrencies’ value and utility, Shopify is allowing its merchants to choose if they would like to receive the bitcoin payment in BTC or fiat currency (i.e., U.S. dollar). The option is available through the Strike dashboard on Shopify.

In an interview with Forbes, Jack Mallers, the founder of Zap and creator of Strike, said: “Strike is a consumer payments processor that enables anyone with a bank account in the United States to send and receive money instantly using only a phone number or email address … We are excited about this partnership because it allows us to introduce bitcoin-powered money transfers to millions of new users all over the world who have yet to discover bitcoin’s benefits.”

The integration will allow merchants who use Shopify’s eCommerce platform to accept Bitcoin and get paid directly in their local currency. This would be facilitated through the Strike app, which is available on iOS and Android devices, according to Strike co-founder and CEO Jack Mallers.

“The integration enables us to achieve our mission of bringing Bitcoin mainstream by providing a frictionless, permissionless way for all Shopify merchants to accept Bitcoin,” Mallers said in a statement. “It’s an important step towards making Bitcoin accessible and useful to everyone.”

With this partnership, Shopify joins several other large companies in enabling customers to make purchases using Bitcoin. For example, PayPal Holdings, the parent company of digital payment service PayPal and merchant services company Braintree, last month integrated cryptocurrency payments into its app after acquiring digital asset custodian Curv.

Shopify vice president of payment platforms Loren Padelford told CoinDesk that the integration was completed within a few weeks.

“We had some questions about how we wanted to integrate it,” he said. “We had some concerns about volatility, so we wanted make sure we had a payment flow that worked well for both us and our merchants.”

Although Shopify merchants will be able to use bitcoin through Strike, the company will not hold any cryptocurrency itself. Merchants will also be able to choose whether or not they want to accept bitcoin payments from customers, and can also set their own prices in BTC.

Despite its declining value this year, bitcoin remains a popular payment method for eCommerce companies. In addition to Overstock and Newegg, other companies such as Nordstrom Rack have added support for bitcoin payments after seeing a growing demand among their customers.

Shopify’s blog post announcing the new service states that the payment option can be easily added to any merchant’s checkout page by signing up for Strike and just plugging in their API keys. This will make it possible for shoppers using Shopify stores to pay in BTC without having to convert it into fiat first.

The company says that they are excited to be partnering with Strike, who they say enjoys an excellent reputation as a reliable provider of cryptocurrency payment solutions.

Shopify has more than one million active businesses using its platform on a monthly basis. The company claims that these businesses have sold more than $200 billion worth of products and services. The site has been live since 2004, making them an older player in the eCommerce space.

Users of the Shopify platform can now sign up for Strike in-app, enabling them to accept bitcoin payments from customers. Shoppers will be able to make such purchases using a bitcoin wallet on their mobile devices.

Strike said that purchases made using the cryptocurrency will be converted into U.S. dollars at the moment of sale, with no fees charged for the service. Additionally, bitcoin payments are backed by funds held in a regulated financial institution and protected by FDIC insurance up to $250,000, according to the company.

What does this mean? It means that anyone who uses Shopify as their online store provider will now be able to accept bitcoin on their website, with no setup or technical knowledge required.

We’re excited about this development for all of the BTC-accepting stores out there who would love a one-stop-shop to make all their eCommerce happenings easier. Now, instead of building your own site from scratch (or trying to figure out how to add a BTC payment option), you can use Shopify’s easy-to-use interface, and focus on the things you actually care about—like making great products!

When asked about the integration, Shopify’s director of product Satish Kanwar said:

“Shopify has always been committed to delivering a frictionless payment experience for our merchants and their customers. With this partnership and integration with Strike, we can now bring that experience to bitcoin users around the world.”

If you’re not familiar with Strike, it’s an app similar to Paypal that allows users to send and receive money instantly. There are no account limits or fees for sending money, and the recipient gets paid immediately. And because Strike is integrated into Shopify, you don’t have to do anything special to set up your store to accept bitcoin—it’ll be ready for any customers who want to pay with it already!

Strike (also known as Money Button) is a micropayment network that allows users to send and receive digital currency without transaction fees. The service also enables merchants to accept micropayments without transaction fees. The company is based in San Francisco and was founded by Ryan Charles, an employee at Reddit who left after the company reversed course on its decision to support Bitcoin payments.

Strike is a blockchain-based payments network and stablecoin that enables anyone, anywhere to pay or get paid instantly, with zero fees. Strike is designed to be more user-friendly than cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin while providing the same benefits of an open financial system free from control by any company, government or central bank.

Strike’s mission is to remove the friction from modern payments and make sending money as easy as sending a text message. Strike’s technology allows users to send money instantly anywhere in the world — making it easier for people to get paid and get paid faster.

The Strike app supports peer-to-peer person-to-person payments, peer-to-peer business payments, consumer payments on ecommerce sites, and business disbursements.

To make crypto payments work for everyone, Strike has built a stablecoin that lets users send and receive money with zero fees regardless of the currency or payment method used. Strike also enables direct person-to-person payments with no fees, forex fees or other hidden charges.

And because Strike is built on the public Stellar network, it inherits all of the security and decentralization benefits of blockchain technology while being able to support real-world use cases like instant deposits and withdrawals in any currency.

With Strike, you can easily accept Bitcoin payments in your Shopify store—and get access to a whole new suite of features:

Payment routing

With Strike, you can receive Bitcoin payments directly into your bank account in less than 48 hours. There’s no need to wait days to cash out, as is common with other cryptocurrency payment options.

No middleman

Because it’s built on the Lightning Network, there are no middlemen involved in transactions using Strike. That means lower fees for you—and higher profit margins for your business.

Improved security

Strike uses its proprietary technology to improve upon Bitcoin’s already high level of security. You’ll never have to worry about someone taking over your funds or stealing from your account.

It’s worth noting that Strike isn’t just an app. It’s also a network built around the Bitcoin SV blockchain, which has been specifically designed to accommodate high volumes of transactions at low cost.

The Strike app is available on iOS and Android and can be used to send and receive money instantly.

You can connect your bank account to Strike to deposit USD and get started.

Users can sign up for Strike Pay to use their bank account as an “infinite” payment card anywhere in the world.

The Strike app seamlessly integrates Coinbase’s exchange engine and liquidity network, allowing users to buy and sell bitcoin directly from their wallet. The app also offers a dollar-backed stablecoin, USD//Coin (USDC), which lets users make payments without worrying about bitcoin price fluctuation.

With the addition of BTC payments, Shopify has become a one-stop-shop for any merchant who would like to sell online. It gives them the ability to create their own online store and accept all major credit cards, as well as PayPal, and now Bitcoin. Shopify’s pricing model makes it easy for anyone to get started selling online and accepting Bitcoin with no transaction fees!

In conclusion, taking advantage of the new payment methods has a number of benefits:

it provides more efficient service to customers,

it increases average order size,

it increases conversion rate,

and it increases the number of new customers.

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Natasha Dean

With an eye for detail and understanding of this exciting industry. My experience has given me an understanding of crypto trends and how to effectively break them down. I have a soft spot for NFTs and the Metaverse.