Apple Pay supports Circle payment solution: One small step for Apple, one giant leap for Web 3
Circle, the issuer of the US dollar stablecoin USDC, has made new progress in the direction of compliance. On November 16, 2022, Circle announced that Apple Pay now supports implementation in compliant companies identified by Circle.
Qualifying businesses that partner with Circle can now help businesses take their business a step further by accepting Apple Pay as a payment method. At the same time, consumers can also use the Apple devices they carry every day to check out quickly, including the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and the Safari browser on the Mac.
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The new process of USDC fiat currency
According to the official guidelines, the enterprises supported this time need to pass the compliance certification of Circle, and then they can call the relevant API through Apple Pay to support the interaction and payment of ordinary users.
In terms of user experience, there is no difference from using Apple Pay in the past. It can realize the daily use of USD stable currency, and the payment in retail scenarios is completely consistent with the traditional fiat currency channel.
The specific process can be divided into the following steps:
Eligible businesses can open a free Circle account
The same company creates an Apple developer account.
Connect to Circle's payment solutions through simple API integrations.
It is worth noting that in this policy update, users can make payments without owning cryptocurrency. According to the information currently available, this should use the conversion function between legal tender and USDC.
In its own payment solution, Circle has a built-in fiat currency deposit and withdrawal channel and an anti-fluctuation conversion solution. Specifically, after users who do not own USDC pay through Apple Pay, Circle can accept legal currency channels bound to Apple Pay, such as credit cards , debit card or bank account to accept fiat currency, and companies accepting payment can use their Circle account to choose to convert fiat currency or accept USDC.
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The Future of Web 3 Crypto Payments
After Apple Pay supports USDC this time, it will increase the audience and user base of Web 3 payment methods on a larger scale. As of the beginning of November, according to the data disclosed weekly by Circle, the current circulation of USD 43.9 billion USDC is divided by USD 44.1 billion in cash and short-term U.S. government bonds.
And Circle has reached an agreement with the asset management giant BlackRock, which will completely transfer its own reserves to BlackRock’s Circle Reserve Fund registered with the SEC, and will be managed by Bank of New York Mellon, and will also set up an independent board of directors .
This means that USDC can be understood as a unique version of the U.S. dollar at the legal level and at the level of capital reserves, and it has a big difference in operating mode from USDT, etc., and it is also at the legal level with decentralized U.S. dollar stablecoins such as DAI. Parted ways.
After Apple Pay supports USDC and U.S. dollar circulation payment mode this time, the next step is likely to be USDC settlement between enterprises, as well as support for two-way deposit and withdrawal between U.S. dollar and USDC on the user side.
Recently, Circle stated in a new regulatory filing that the collapse of FTX and the automatic conversion of USDC on Binance will cause Circle's performance to be "significantly lower" than the expectations made in February. From June 30, 2022 to September 30, 2022, USDC in circulation decreased by $8.3 billion, as much as $3 billion of which was caused by Binance’s automatic conversion. Additionally, Circle has made a $10.6 million equity investment in FTX.
Therefore, with the compliance support of Coinbase, USDC has seized the status of the second largest stable currency in the encryption field, and after being hit hard by Binance, will it rely on ApplePay to achieve new contrarian growth? Let us wait and see .
