Coinbase Commerce has announced the addition of new features and plugins being added to their platform in a recent announcement. The move to add new features comes as Coinbase Commerce is facing increased competition from their competitors.

WooCommerce Plugin

WooCommerce is the most popular eCommerce platform on the web with almost 50,000,000 downloads. The platform allows businesses to sell a variety of products through customizable solutions, making it one of the most efficient ways for small business to sell products, or for charities to accept donations.

Coinbase Commerce’s new plugin will allow online businesses built through WooCommerce to allow them to accept cryptocurrency payments through Coinbase with the click of a button. Coinbase Commerce is confident that the new plugin will aid in cryptocurrency adoption.

In an announcement, the exchange said:

“The widely-used plugin powers more than 28% of all online stores — and all of them now have access to cryptocurrency payments from customers around the world. This increased access will lead to more widespread adoption, and ultimately, moves us closer to our goal of an open financial system.”

Bitcoin and Litecoin Direct Withdrawals

Coinbase Commerce also added a new feature that gives businesses a greater amount of control over their cryptocurrency holdings.

For payments received in Bitcoin or Litecoin, businesses will now have the option of withdrawing the cryptocurrency by sending it to another wallet directly from Coinbase Commerce.  Before this advancement, users would either have the option of automatically selling the cryptocurrency or sending it to Coinbase to then transfer to another wallet.

The announcement said that the platform will soon enable similar functionality for Ethereum and Bitcoin Cash.

Increased Integration Accessibility

Coinbase Commerce also announced two new features that allows for smoother integration of their cryptocurrency payment solutions.

The platform will now feature a checkout button for users using a React application. They are also increasing the accessibility of their platform by adding a Python library for the Coinbase Commerce API. The company is also building libraries for Node.js, Ruby, and PHP.

Coinbase Commerce reminds prospective users that all payments made through their platform are peer-to-peer, saying:

“All payments made through Coinbase Commerce are truly peer-to-peer — when customers send money from their cryptocurrency wallet it’s sent directly to a merchant-controlled cryptocurrency address and processed on-chain by the respective blockchain. This means merchants never have to pay transaction fees to accept payments and always remain in complete control over their funds.”

Coinbase Commerce Faces Increased Competition

Coinbase Commerce’s upgrades to their platform come as they face growing competition from cryptocurrency payment processing giant Bitpay.

Sonny Singh, Bitpay’s Chief Operating Officer, recently attested to the growing use of Bitcoin as a means of payment, saying that “bitcoin is being used all around the world for things other than speculation and trading.”

Singh notably claimed that Bitpay did over $1.2 billion dollars last year in payments using Bitcoin, proving that Coinbase Merchant is facing fierce competition from Bitpay. Singh attributed the lack of widespread cryptocurrency adoption to a lack of knowledge, stating:

“In America, everyone’s so used to credit cards or goes online and types credit card numbers. But it’s safer and easier to do this through QR code because you don’t have to give your credit card numbers…The merchants save money in America by paying with bitcoin, because they pay 1% of the transaction fee, but with credit cards, that’s 4%. So, the merchants can make a lot of money if you are paying with bitcoin. But yet they don’t understand it, they have to be educated about it. And the consumers have to get the habit of spending with bitcoin. For them, it’s better and quicker than credit cards, and better for privacy.”

The increase in the simplicity and practicality of cryptocurrency payment platforms like Bitpay and Coinbase Commerce is sure to aid in the mass implementation of cryptocurrency payment options.  The use of Coinbase Commerce on large website platforms like WooCommerce will also lead more businesses to consider accepting cryptocurrencies as a form of payment, further legitimizing their practicality and ensuring increased adoption.

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