It’s been a difficult few weeks in the crypto ecosystem. However, despite recent events, we remain excited about the underlying prospects for innovation. Just a few months ago, for example, Ethereum successfully transitioned to a proof-of-stake consensus model—an incredible demonstration of the power of open-source development—and many other projects continue to make impressive technical progress. Overall, we maintain fundamental optimism about how crypto can help to facilitate a more globally accessible financial services ecosystem.

Over the past year, we’ve been focused on giving crypto companies access to Stripe’s Global Payments and Treasury Network (GPTN). For example, we’ve partnered with NFT marketplaces like Nifty Gateway to onboard and KYC creators and allow them to accept payments for their work. We’ve also begun enhancing the GPTN with crypto capabilities. We rolled out support for crypto payouts to 67 countries, which allows platforms like Braintrust to pay out USDC to contractors around the world. Today, we’re announcing a fiat-to-crypto onramp for Web3 developers.

Blockchains provide developers with extraordinarily powerful capabilities—moving and storing money via globally applicable and consistent protocols, minting digital assets, and cryptographically proving ownership and identity, to name a few.

At the same time, some of a Web3 developer’s most basic needs are still poorly served. Today, it’s extremely difficult to get end users “on chain”—that is, to fund their wallets with the crypto required to interface with Web3 applications. Developers have to wrestle with rampant fraud; navigate complex KYC requirements; and somehow still offer a seamless, high-conversion payments experience so that their users can actually use their Web3 applications.

We built our fiat-to-crypto onramp to remove this complexity. The onramp is a customizable widget that developers can embed directly into their DEX, NFT platform, wallet, or dApp. Stripe handles all the KYC, payments, fraud, and compliance, removing the need to integrate multiple third-party services. Consistent with our focus on simplicity and developer experience, you can integrate it with just 10 lines of code:

For end users, the onramp is a seamless checkout experience, optimized for conversion, allowing for instant settlement of crypto. Users save their payment and identity information to Link, enabling an instant and convenient one-click checkout experience on all future purchases across any Link-enabled Stripe surface.

Here’s a live demo for a simple game we built:

Blockchain-based games like Zebra Skate can use the onramp to onboard players and top up their wallets. The onramp propagates state to developers via webhooks triggered by asset transfers, so Zebra Skate’s developers know when their players are ready to go.

You can already find Stripe’s fiat-to-crypto onramp in the wild with a variety of partners.

Audius, a blockchain-based music streaming platform, is using the onramp to enable musicians to earn revenue on the platform. “We’re incredibly excited to introduce monetization into our product with the use of Stripe’s onramp,” said Forrest Browning, cofounder of Audius. “The industry was in dire need of a cheap, customizable crypto onramp, and we finally have the product we’re looking for.” 

Magic Eden uses the onramp to enable seamless NFT purchases. “We want the whole world to experience the magic of NFTs,” said Jack Lu, cofounder and CEO of Magic Eden. “That’s why we are excited to work with Stripe to debut a fiat payment solution that will allow us to reach new Web3 users.”

Argent uses the onramp to help wallet holders quickly top up with Ethereum. “This is a big step toward removing barriers between traditional and decentralized finance. We’re excited to bring Stripe’s world-class payments infrastructure and user experience to our customers,” said Itamar Lesuisse, CEO of Argent.

We’re excited about the future for crypto and Web3, and we’re dedicated to creating powerful developer experiences to support it. Launching the onramp, we’re building upon years of experience optimizing conversion, enabling custom checkout flows, mitigating fraud, and handling KYC for millions of companies building on Stripe. If you’re interested in integrating our onramp, please explore our docs. The onramp is available for US consumers to start, and we’ll be expanding availability over time.