Leading global cryptocurrency payments processor BitPay has announced the addition of support for leading altcoin Ethereum. In a press release published on Monday, the company stated that its clients will now be able to accept Ethereum in addition to its supported cryptocurrencies Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash and three stablecoins Circle’s USD Coin [USDC], Gemini’s Gemini Dollar [GUSD] and the Paxos Standard token [PAX].
The company allows for trades in more than 12 fiat currencies supported in 37 countries through direct bank deposits. In addition, BitPay wallet users will soon be able to store their Ether coins in the wallet and the users of the BitPay debit card will as well be able to load up their cards with Ethereum.
“It is exciting to see BitPay leading the way in integrating Ethereum into global payment systems,” said Ethereum co-founder and creator Vitalik Buterin in a statement. “This truly opens up a new world of possibilities for the Ethereum ecosystem, and together we can continue to be a leading innovator for real-world use cases for cryptocurrencies.”
BitPay CEO Stephen Pair was equally excited about the new addition to the BitPay ecosystem. He said that owing to the fact that Ethereum was a popular asset, it was a logical option to enable it for payments for its clients.
“BitPay is consistently at the forefront of using cryptocurrency to solve real-world problems and offer our global customers the best options to accept and pay with multiple blockchain assets.”
As a payment processor, BitPay allows its customers (merchants) to accept payments for their goods and/or services in cryptocurrencies. Once the payments are made in the supported cryptocurrencies, BitPay will automatically make the conversions to the desired fiat currencies and depositing the equivalent of the payments in the clients’ bank deposits. This effectively enables the clients to avoid the hustle of dealing with cryptocurrencies such as custody and market volatility while allowing them (merchants) to accept payments from their customers without segregation. The company was launched back in 2011 and since then has raised more than $70 million in funding while processing more than $2.8 billion in transactions.
