Leading crypto exchange Coinbase is on a roll this week. Just yesterday it announced that it was enabling GBP support for UK based customers and today there is news of a new e-payments app for web based marketplaces.
According to the company blog Coinbase will be offering a new feature to enable cryptocurrency payments for merchants anywhere in the world. “We’ve been hard at work the past few weeks and are happy to announce a WooCommerce plugin and a few other new features,” it stated.
WooCommerce is one of the most popular e-commerce platforms on the web. It integrates seamlessly with WordPress which drives as many as 30% of all websites according to reports. The blog states that the e-commerce software runs around 28% of all online stores however other statistics indicate that WooCommerce penetration could be as high as 37%. The platform’s own website claims that the software has been downloaded almost 50 million times. This is a huge number to be opened up to crypto payments. Coinbase added;
“This increased access will lead to more widespread adoption, and ultimately, moves us closer to our goal of an open financial system.”
The plugin has been posted on the Coinbase Github with instructions on how to add it to WordPress. It is hoped that the majority of webstores will enable crypto payments to increase overall adoption. A small button needs to be added to their websites to enable payments, the app does the rest. Plugins from other exchanges could also be in the pipeline with Coinbase leading the way at the moment.
The company has also enabled extra functionality to enable sending Bitcoin and Litecoin directly from the new e-commerce platform, named Coinbase Commerce. It hopes to add support for Ethereum and Bitcoin Cash in the future.
It emphasized that all payments made through Coinbase Commerce were peer-to-peer. Funds are sent from the client’s crypto wallet directly to the merchant and processed via the app on the blockchain. “This means merchants never have to pay transaction fees to accept payments and always remain in complete control over their funds,” the blog added.
Coinbase is aggressively expanding its services and partnerships and with over 20 million users this will be a needed blessing for cryptocurrency adoption.
