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Coinbase Removes Support for Native Bitcoin and UTXO Coins from Merchant Payment Platform

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In a surprising move, Coinbase, one of the leading cryptocurrency exchanges, has announced the removal of support for native Bitcoin (BTC) and other UTXO (Unspent Transaction Output) coins from its payment platform for merchants, Coinbase Commerce. The decision, revealed by the company’s head of product, Lauren Dowling, has stirred discussions within the crypto community regarding the implications and rationale behind the move.

Dowling took to social media platform X (formerly Twitter) on Feb. 18 to address the change, stating that Coinbase had made the “difficult decision to remove native Bitcoin & other UTXO support” from Coinbase Commerce. The decision was attributed to challenges in implementing recent updates on its EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) payment protocol for Bitcoin.

According to Dowling, the new Commerce product enforces the details of each payment on-chain and supports a wide range of assets, including native and ERC-20 tokens. Additionally, payments made through Coinbase Commerce will be automatically converted to USDC (USD Coin) on-chain at a guaranteed rate for merchants. However, implementing similar capabilities on the Bitcoin blockchain, without smart contracts and stablecoins, proved to be a significant challenge, leading to the removal of support for native Bitcoin and other UTXO coins.

Despite this change, shoppers using Coinbase Commerce will still have the option to pay with Bitcoin if they have an account with the exchange, as highlighted by Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong on X. Armstrong further revealed that Coinbase is actively working on integrating the Lightning Network into its platform, a layer-2 scaling solution for Bitcoin designed to enable faster and cheaper transactions.

The decision to remove support for native Bitcoin and other UTXO coins from Coinbase Commerce has sparked debate within the cryptocurrency community, with some expressing concerns over the implications for Bitcoin adoption and usability in merchant transactions. Others have speculated about the potential motivations behind the move and its broader impact on the cryptocurrency ecosystem.

As Coinbase continues to navigate the evolving landscape of digital payments and blockchain technology, all eyes are on the exchange to see how it will adapt to these changes and what implications they may have for the future of cryptocurrency adoption and innovation. Read Similar Story

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