Payments processing company Stripe is branching out into the cryptocurrency space, creating a brand new team of engineers and designers to chart its path in digital assets.
The unit will be led by Guillaume Poncin, Stripe's former head of engineering for banking and financial products, who dropped the news on Twitter last night.
The company is initially looking for four engineers who will design and build the core components needed to support crypto use.
"As the usage of cryptocurrency grows worldwide, it opens up new exciting avenues for businesses and individuals to transact and create value," states the company in the job posting. "We hear a growing need from developers and users in that space for better building blocks to accept payments, move funds, exchange between fiat and crypto, etc. By focusing on these problems and needs, we aim to build faster, more trustworthy, and higher quality crypto-enabled experiences."
Despite being one of the first payment companies to experiment with bitcoin back in 2014, Stripe ditched support for the currency four years later as it appeared to morph from a means of exchange into something more akin to a financial asset.
In a tweet, Stripe co-founder John Collison says: "We’ve always kept an eye on things (e.g. bitcoin support 2013-2015) but last few years’ developments (L2s, new chains, stablecoins, DeFi) are particularly exciting."