Stablecoin is gradually moving out of the crypto circle and adding another mainstream commercial case. The largest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States, Coinbase, announced the official launch of Coinbase Payments last night, with USDC as the core settlement asset. It claims to enable cross-border transactions to be completed near-instantly with a fee lower than $0.01, and through deep integration with Shopify, bringing decentralized payment into the global e-commerce ecosystem.
What is Coinbase Payments?
The announcement states that Coinbase Payments is positioned as the first stablecoin payment solution designed for large e-commerce platforms, aiming to lower the technical barriers and reduce fees for on-chain payments. The overall structure is divided into three layers:
- The first layer, Stablecoin Checkout, connects to hundreds of wallets including Coinbase Wallet, MetaMask, Phantom, and provides a gasless experience;
- The second layer, Ecommerce Engine, handles authorization, capture, refunds, ledger, and subscription management through API;
- The third layer, Commerce Payments Protocol, executes payment logic such as Escrow, Delayed Capture, and Refunds on the Base Block.
Coinbase stated:
Coinbase Payments is designed for payment service providers, platform-type markets, and e-commerce infrastructure, providing APIs and open-source smart contracts to help merchants support USDC without building on-chain functions themselves. Merchants can choose to receive USDC directly or convert it to local fiat currency at checkout without incurring additional foreign exchange conversion fees.
Partnering with Shopify to Open Global Merchant Channels
Currently, Coinbase Payments is already live on Shopify. According to the introduction, in the Shopify checkout process, after a consumer chooses to pay with USDC, Stablecoin Checkout will first lock the funds, then the merchant completes Auth/Capture through the Ecommerce Engine, and finally settles through the underlying contract via the Coinbase Wallet API.
Merchants can receive USDC without modifying their existing payment flow, with fees reduced to 0.5%, and consumers and merchants enjoy 1% and 0.5% cashback respectively.
The technical foundation behind this mechanism is a jointly open-sourced commercial payment protocol, including delayed settlement, reconciliation, and return logistics, which is also easy for developers familiar with traditional cash flow. If enterprises want to collect payments themselves, Coinbase Commerce can directly deposit USDC into the enterprise wallet without fees and is compatible with mainstream e-commerce systems.
