Stripe has stated that it is open to accepting cryptocurrency as a form of payment, three years after discontinuing bitcoin support.

• Stripe co-founder John Collison said Tuesday that the firm isn't ruling out the possibility of accepting cryptocurrencies as a payment method in the future.
• In 2018, the company stopped accepting bitcoin payments, citing the currency's volatility and inefficiency in routine transactions.
• "We don't yet," Collison said when asked if Stripe will offer crypto support again. "But I don't think it's inconceivable that we would."

Stripe isn't ruling out the possibility of adopting cryptocurrencies as a payment method in the future, according to co-founder John Collison.

In 2018, the online payments provider stopped accepting bitcoin payments, citing the digital coin's reputation for erratic price swings and inefficiency in routine transactions.

Collison remarked at a CNBC-moderated panel at the Fintech Abu Dhabi event on Tuesday that "crypto certainly means a lot of different things to a lot of different individuals."

Some features of crypto, like as its usage as a speculative investment, are "not that relevant to what we do at Stripe," according to Collison.

"There have been a lot of improvements in recent months with an aim to making cryptocurrencies better, in particular scalable and acceptable cost as a payment method," he added."We don't yet, but I don't think it's unrealistic that we would," Collison said when asked if Stripe will resume taking cryptocurrency as a form of payment.

The corporation recently launched a team dedicated to researching crypto and "Web3," a phrase in the tech world that refers to a new, decentralised internet.

Guillaume Poncin, Stripe's chief of engineering, is leading the charge. Matt Huang, co-founder of crypto-focused venture capital firm Paradigm, was recently named to the company's board of directors.

Collison believes there are a number of promising digital asset advancements on the horizon, from solana, a competitor to ethereum, the world's second-largest digital currency, to "Layer 2" systems like bitcoin's Lightning Network, which promise to speed up transactions and reduce transaction costs.

Stripe, which was founded in 2009, has quickly grown to become the largest privately held fintech company in the United States. Baillie Gifford, Sequoia Capital, and Andreessen Horowitz are among the company's investors. It was last valued at $95 billion.

The company, which handles payments for Google, Amazon, and Uber, has recently moved into a number of other financial areas, including loans and tax management.