In short
- The binance exchange launched Binance Pay.
- Users can use their cryptographic wallets to make purchases.
- Suppliers can convert the stablecoin Binance to the euro.
Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange in terms of turnover, is not content to have people buying Bitcoin and other currencies. Want to boost demand by having people use crypto.
The global exchange announced earlier today at its virtual event, Binance Blockchain Week, which last Friday sneaked a beta version of Binance Pay, its response to PayPal.
“Binance Pay is a contactless, borderless and secure cryptocurrency payment technology designed by Binance,” says an explainer on his website. “Binance Pay (beta) allows you to pay and receive encrypted from your friends and family around the world.”
Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao told Binance Blockchain Week’s virtual audience: “We think payments are one of the most obvious use cases for cryptography.”
But he encountered some challenges, he shared. The biggest difficulty is that traders have systems to accept currencies that the vast majority of customers do not use. It is easier to accept money and credit because people use them regularly.
Binance’s system allows users to pay in encryption, while the merchant receives fiduciary stablecoins that can be converted into fiat. (At this point, the product supports only one type of fiat: the euro.) Said CZ: “That way, your business doesn’t have to fluctuate with encryption.”
The exchange is charging Binance Pay as “a basket of products”, which will include the previously revealed Binance card, a debit card that converts the user’s encryption into fiat whenever they make a purchase.
Like the Binance Card, Binance Pay supports five currencies. Bitcoin and Ethereum are both represented, as well as the stock’s BUSD stablecoin and Binance Coin (BNB), a specific exchange utility token used to pay trading fees and participate in sales of tokens hosted by Binance. Users can also pay with SXP tokens from the credit card company Swipe; Binance bought the company last year.
Unlike the debit card, there is no real card with Binance Pay – users can transfer funds from their wallet using a QR scanner in the app.
Although CZ has big plans for Binance Pay, he joked that the beta launch was quiet. “If you find the product, you can try it,” he said.