Solana Pay, a decentralized payment system developed by Solana Labs, has now been integrated with e-commerce platform Shopify. This collaboration will enable countless Shopify businesses to utilize Solana Pay for their crypto transactions, offering zero transaction fees until the end of 2023.
An announcement on Solana’s official profile, referencing a TechCrunch article, stated:
“Solana Pay is now available on Shopify, enabling millions of Shopify entrepreneurs and merchants to process swift, web3-based payments without any transaction fees until 2023.”
Introduced in February 2022, Solana Pay operates on the Solana blockchain. Initially, USDC, the world’s second-largest stablecoin, will be the primary payment method for this integration. Josh Fried from the Solana Foundation explained to TechCrunch that USDC was chosen due to its strong connection to the dollar and regulatory oversight. However, there are plans to potentially include SOL in the future.
SolPay is also accessible via the Solana Saga mobile phone and any device with a Solana wallet. The Saga’s price was recently reduced from its initial $999 to $599.
Benefits of the Solana-Shopify Alliance
Solana’s 11 million active users can now potentially access businesses on Shopify, which, as per TechCrunch, represents 10% of U.S. e-commerce and contributes to $444 billion in global economic activity. To accept payments, businesses will likely need to enable Solana Pay on their merchant dashboards.
Fried emphasized to TechCrunch the significance of payments in the crypto domain, remarking,
“The game-changer for crypto is already here: it’s payments.”
This perspective underscores the move towards decentralized payment systems aiming to cut down transaction expenses for businesses. Traditional credit card processing fees can take up to 5% of a transaction, whereas Solana’s blockchain charges only a fraction of a cent per transaction.
Furthermore, this collaboration might allow merchants to effortlessly establish loyalty programs. As Fried suggests, these reward schemes could involve launching NFT-based loyalty tokens, which are used up when customers make purchases via Solana Pay.
Josh Fried, Solana Foundation’s Head of Commerce Business Development, commented on the integration, saying,
“Integrating Solana Pay with Shopify offers merchants a more efficient payment option, while consumers benefit from the ease of using digital currencies for their purchases from a vast array of Shopify merchants.”
