Stripe is getting into the crypto payments business

After dropping bitcoin in 2018, Stripe is once again supporting cryptocurrencies — this time with broad support for a range of crypto businesses, including exchanges, on-ramps, wallets and NFT marketplaces.

The payments giant’s APIs will let crypto businesses “process payments for fiat currencies globally through a single integration with fraud prevention and authorization optimization built in,” according to its website.

In 2018, Stripe wrote, bitcoin had “evolved to become better-suited to being an asset than being a means of exchange.” But once-high transaction costs have fallen, and Stripe started rebuilding its crypto team last fall.

The toolkit for crypto businesses include API integrations like Stripe Connect, which allows users to pay out fiat currencies in over 45 countries, and Stripe Identity, an identity-verification system to mitigate fraud.

The payments giant partnered with FTX to improve payments processing and build a fiat-to-crypto on-ramp for the crypto exchange. The partnership builds on an existing relationship: FTX had previously integrated Stripe Identity to improve its know-your-customer processes.

FTX saw “greatly increased speed of KYC processing” with Stripe, FTX president Brett Harrison tweeted in November.

Complying with KYC, anti-money laundering, FinCEN’s Travel Rule and other requirements has become an increasing area of focus for the crypto industry this year, as regulators around the world seem determined to bring crypto operations under the same umbrella as other financial firms.