E-commerce giant Shopify has integrated Solana Pay into its payment options, enabling millions of merchants to accept cryptocurrency transactions, starting with USD Coin (USDC) payments.
According to TechCrunch, Solana plans to add more altcoins to the platform in the coming months, including its native token Solana (SOL) and meme token Bonk Coin (BONK).
Josh Fried from Solana Labs described the intersection of digital assets and payment solutions as a “game-changing application for cryptocurrencies,” stating that “everyone should be betting on this.”
Fried mentioned that Solana Pay could significantly lower transaction costs compared to credit card processing fees. The average network fee is $0.00025 per transaction, while credit card processing costs range between 1.5% and 3.5%. Recently, Solana users paid an average transaction fee of 0.000009664 SOL. Shopify estimates that 10% of all e-commerce transactions in the U.S. are conducted through its platform, accounting for $444 billion of the global e-commerce market. The company has gradually integrated Web3 solutions into its operations, including a suite of blockchain commerce tools for Web3-focused stores and cryptocurrency wallet connectivity features.
Shopify’s volume will serve as a testing ground for Solana’s blockchain. In previous years, Solana faced reliability and uptime issues. Its co-founder, Anatoly Yakovenko, referred to these issues as a “curse” attributed to the network’s low transaction costs.
However, recent statistics indicate that the network’s performance is improving. According to its latest performance report, Solana has experienced 100% uptime since February 25, marking a full quarter without interruptions. The only outage in February left the network down for nearly 19 hours.
Launched in February 2022, Solana Pay is a peer-to-peer payment infrastructure that offers merchants the ability to accept and settle payment transactions through digital assets. The platform is a collaboration between Solana Labs, Checkout.com, Circle, and Citcon, along with the integration of Phantom wallets.