Fintech giant Stripe jumps into crypto with a feature that lets Twitter users get paid in stablecoin

In the latest sign of how large financial firms are warming to digital assets, Stripe will allow businesses to pay their users via cryptocurrencies.

The online payments company said Friday it will start offering merchants the ability to make payouts through the stable coinUSDC, which is issued by Circle. To maintain a stable price, stable coins are pegged to the currencies of the day. The currency is backed by the U.S. dollar.

The new payment method will be used by the first company to integrate it. The social media platform, which has been the subject of much talk lately over a potential takeover by Musk, will allow a certain number of creators to receive their earnings from its paid Ticketed Spaces and Super Follows features.

It's the first significant push by Stripe since it dropped support for bitcoin four years ago. The San Francisco-based start-up stopped accepting payments via the digital coin due to its reputation for volatile price swings and lack of efficiency.

The firm has warmed to the idea of a new type of internet based on the technology of the crypt. A team was formed by Stripe last year. John Collison said in November that the firm may offer some sort of support for cryptocurrencies again.

The store of value of cryptocurrencies gets the most attention, but we think the prospect of open-access global financial rails is equally compelling.

The company's payouts feature will run on the Polygon network, a solution that sits on top of the ether network to handle transactions faster and at a lower cost. Slow transaction times and high fees have been criticized by cryptocurrencies.

Over time, we plan to add support for additional rails and payout currencies.

The company is late to the party in opening up its platform to digital currencies. Visa, Mastercard, and other major payment processors have all announced moves of their own. Digital currency prices were still rising.

The world's largest cryptocurrencies, bitcoin, has fallen more than 40% from a November peak of nearly $69,000. In the last 24 hours, the price of the virtual currency dropped by 4%.