Tech giants explore stablecoin integration to cut global payment costs
Airbnb, X, Apple plan stablecoin payments after Trump crypto pivot
While major tech firms have long been at the forefront of innovation, Silicon Valley has historically hesitated to embrace cryptocurrency payments due to regulatory crackdowns under the Biden administration. That changed with Donald Trump’s reelection, whose administration has embraced blockchain and directed agencies to ease oversight of the crypto industry.
According to Fortune, companies like Airbnb, X (formerly Twitter), and Apple are now in talks with crypto firms to integrate stablecoins in order to reduce transaction costs and streamline cross-border payments.
In Airbnb’s case, the short-term rental platform has been exploring the matter since early this year. Accepting stablecoins as a form of payment could significantly reduce transaction fees the company pays to processors like Visa and Mastercard.
“While crypto payments aren’t something we’re focused on in the immediate future, we’re always exploring all aspects of payments to improve our community’s experience — including developments in digital assets and their use cases,” an Airbnb spokesperson told Fortune.
Elon Musk’s social media platform X has also recently reached out to crypto companies regarding stablecoin integration into its upcoming payments feature X Money. Musk — who previously led fintech giant PayPal — has long expressed interest in building an “everything app,” potentially including peer-to-peer payment functionality similar to Venmo. In January, X announced a partnership with Visa to build a digital wallet.
Stablecoin volume processed by crypto infrastructure company Fireblocks since 2019.
According to a source, X is currently in discussions with payment processor Stripe about potentially integrating stablecoin payments.
For Apple Pay, sources cited by Fortune named Circle as a partner for stablecoin adoption. However, both companies declined to comment.
Trust issues and custom stablecoins
Among tech firms, Google Cloud has made the most progress in stablecoin integration. It has already accepted PYUSD, PayPal’s stablecoin launched in partnership with Paxos, for some customer payments.
“We invoiced the client as we normally would, and they paid using stablecoins,” said Rich Widmann, head of Web3 strategy at Google Cloud. “This may be one of the most significant payment updates since SWIFT.”
While Widmann declined to confirm whether other Google departments are exploring stablecoin payments, he did note that the payments were processed through Google’s central accounting, as Cloud doesn’t have a separate stablecoin division.
A crypto executive involved in the discussions stated that one major challenge will be choosing which stablecoins to integrate. Tether still faces regulatory uncertainty in the U.S., while its main rival, USDC, is navigating an unclear future following Circle’s recent IPO. Alternatives like PYUSD face adoption issues.
As a result, some large tech firms are considering issuing their own stablecoins — although such moves may face opposition from Democratic lawmakers, who have previously tried to block such initiatives.
As we wrote, Meta may launch new stablecoin
