Cryptocurrencies,  Technology

Cash App Adds Stablecoin Payments

The financial super app lets users send and receive USDC

Block, Inc.’s Cash App has added stablecoin payments to its roster of financial services.

The financial services app now allows users to send and receive USDC on four blockchains: Ethereum, Solana, Polygon and Arbitrum.

The company’s Bitcoin Product Lead, Miles Suter, said on X that “everything runs from your existing USD balance — no separate wallet, no managing multiple chains, no extra setup, and importantly no fees.”

You simply send dollars from your wallet to a copy-pasted blockchain address, without any mention of stablecoins.

That said, the company remains “singularly focused on bitcoin becoming the native currency of the internet,” Suter said. Block, Inc. Chairman and CEO Jack Dorsey remains a bitcoin maximalist, and the company has squarely focused its attention and crypto services on the largest cryptocurrency.

The addition of USDC is the firm’s biggest crypto expansion since it added bitcoin services in 2018. Cash App says it has 59 million monthly active customers.

The market capitalization of stablecoins is about $319 billion, of which USDC is the second largest with $76 billion. Tether’s USDT is first with $189 billion.

A bridge to Money 2.0

The addition of USDC does not mean a major change at Cash App, Suter said, noting that stablecoins “are upgraded fiat – what Cash App 1.0 is already built on… We like to think about Bitcoin as Money 2.0.”

Fiat, he added, is Money 1.0 and stablecoins are a bridge between the two, offering clear improvements and customer benefits from the legacy rails.

“However, they don’t replace or compete with bitcoin,” he said. “And for this feature, we’ve hidden away all the ‘crypto’ as far away as possible within the app — so that the experience feels as sleek and seamless as you’ve come to expect with Cash App.”

By upgrading the financial infrastructure that Cash App is already built on, stablecoins get people comfortable moving money on internet-native rails, Suter said.

“And once people are on open rails, bitcoin is a step away,” he said. “It’s a win-win for customers and for bitcoin.”

The company is building Cash App v2 on bitcoin, he added.

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Leo Jakobson, Modern Consensus editor-in-chief, is a New York-based journalist who has traveled the world writing about incentive travel. He has also covered consumer and employee engagement, small business, the East Coast side of the Internet boom and bust, and New York City crime, nightlife, and politics.