The famous crypto wallet MetaMask has officially announced that its US users will be able to use Stripe to make purchases of cryptocurrencies while paying in fiat currency.
Hello foxes
We’re thrilled to announce that our US users will now be able to on-ramp to crypto using @stripe! pic.twitter.com/TGokoxAW8J
— MetaMask
(@MetaMask) October 11, 2023
In other words, it has added Stripe to its fiat currency payment methods.
Stripe
Stripe is a US platform, founded in 2009 in California, that provides online payment systems.
It began as a kind of competitor to PayPal, and in its 14 years of existence has grown to have 8,000 employees and revenues of $12 billion.
It has recently made headlines for its partnership with Twitter, now X.
In fact, since last year it has been partnering with the social network to enable cryptocurrency payments, and this year it was chosen as a partner to distribute to creators the revenue earned from monetization of views.
Stripe is not publicly traded, but according to an estimate last year by the Wall Street Journal it would be worth about $74 billion. It should be noted that a similar estimate made earlier had calculated the value of the company at $95 billion, which would then lose some of its value in 2022. In fact, in November last year it announced the layoff of about 14 percent of its workforce.
Also last year the company had announced collaborations with other major companies, such as Ford Motor Company and Spotify. In particular it is used by the latter specifically to help creators monetize subscriptions, accept payments and donations, and generate recurring revenue streams.
MetaMask news: the crypto wallet and Stripe integration
MetaMask is by far one of the most widely used Ethereum wallets in the world. It actually supports other chains as well, such as Binance Smart Chain, Avalanche, Fantom, and Celo, but it is used primarily in the Ethereum context so much so that it supports as many as three second layers (Polygon, Optimism, and Arbitrum).
Being a browser extension it is used a lot for example for online applications that require cryptocurrency payments or collections.
For some time now, however, it has also allowed the purchase of cryptocurrencies by paying in fiat currency, which is why it offers several fiat currency payment services, such as PayPal.
In addition to PayPal, it also allows payments with Apple Pay and Google Pay, with Coinbase pay, MoonPay, and other similar entities.
Although PayPal’s integration among payment methods is more important than Stripe’s, the latter is particularly interesting right now, as the California-based company is expanding more and more into the crypto world.
While MetaMask is certainly interested primarily in increasing payment options for its users, it is also probably interested in engaging those Stripe users who are most interested in cryptocurrencies, and who are perhaps creators on Spotify or X.
For now Stripe, and the other fiat currency payment methods, can only be used to purchase cryptocurrencies. These then can be withdrawn at any time, partly because MetaMask is actually a non-custodial wallet.
It also allows withdrawal in fiat currencies, but it does not appear that you can already use Stripe for that as well.
MetaMask has 30 million users, and provides connections to over 17,000 Web3 services.
Cryptocurrencies and fiat currencies
Typically, those who buy cryptocurrencies while paying in fiat currencies often do not also do the reverse.
In fact, for those who own cryptocurrencies it turns out to be more convenient to sell in stablecoin, than in actual fiat currency, because moving stablecoin is much easier.
Moreover, nowadays it is very easy to spend stablecoin almost anywhere, thanks to debit cards on cryptocurrency-powered exchanges.
Therefore, integrations such as Stripe’s in MetaMask serve primarily to buy crypto by paying in fiat, and since MetaMask is a noncustodial wallet, once you buy cryptocurrencies you can do whatever you want with them, without limits, barriers or obstacles.
Also, one should not forget that the actual DeFi protocols do not support fiat currencies, so those who purchase cryptocurrencies for use within crypto platforms generally no longer convert them back into fiat currencies.
Payment platforms such as PayPal now allow the deposit and sale of cryptocurrencies, although not in all parts of the world and not in all crypto, making it even easier to spend cryptocurrencies.
In the future it will probably be increasingly easy to spend cryptocurrencies directly, even without converting them to fiat currencies in any way, and this will make it even more important to use noncustodial wallets such as MetaMask. For this reason, it is important that they integrate as many fiat to crypto conversion options as possible.
