Stripe pulled back from Bitcoin 3 years ago. Now, they are re-entering the crypto sector.
$100 billion company Stripe Hires a new blockchain team to enable encrypted payments for its users. They are looking for four “Staff Engineers” with experience in cryptocurrency. Earlier today, the head of engineers Guillaume Poncin said on Twitter that he’s looking for engineers and designers to “build the future of Web3 payments.”
He outlines that the long-term engineers and designers will likely be tasked with working “on everything from web/mobile user interfaces to backend, payments and identity systems.”
“We hear a growing need from developers and users in that space for better building blocks to accept payments, move funds, exchange between fiat and crypto, etc. By focusing on these problems and needs, we aim to build faster, more trustworthy, and higher quality crypto-enabled experiences.”
Stripe Co-founder John Collison stated on Poncin’s tweet that “Stripe and crypto have grown up at the same time,” while also mentioning that the firm decided to enter the crypto space after observing “exciting” developments in this area:
“We started writing code the year after the Bitcoin paper dropped. We’ve always kept an eye on things (e.g., Bitcoin support 2013-2015) but last few years’ developments (L2s, new chains, stablecoins, DeFi) are particularly exciting.”
Stripe began accepting Bitcoin (BTC) in 2014, but stopped supporting it four years later due to its slow transaction times and high fees. After major companies, including Square, PayPal, Mastercard, and Square, entered the crypto space, Stripe has now decided to start accepting encrypted payments. In a blog placed up from Jan. 23 2018, Stripe mentioned that it would go back to the world of crypto as quickly as crypto payments are “viable,” pointing to the Lightning Network’s development and “high-potential” projects growing on the Ethereum blockchain.
Earlier this year, Collison hinted that the company was looking at crypto again, telling Bloomberg TV:
“If you think of the kind of world that crypto people and we are trying to bring about, I think it’s a very related set of goals.” He added: “We are stuck down at this level where only a fifth of interactions are cross border, crypto is one very exciting direction for trying to solve that.”
