Coinbase offers native Bitcoin payments from merchants platform

Coinbase has removed support for its native Bitcoin (BTC) and other UTXO coins from Coinbase Commerce, its payment platform for merchants.

According to Lauren Dowling, the company's head of product, Coinbase has removed support for native Bitcoin and other UTXO coins from its payment platform for merchants.

On February 18 on X (formerly Twitter), Dowling said the company “made the difficult decision to remove native Bitcoin and other UTXO support” from Coinbase Commerce, citing difficulties in delivering the latest updates to Bitcoin's EVM payment protocol.

The new business product executes every payment detail in OnSine, supports hundreds of assets (native and ERC-20s). […] Converts payments to USDC onchain directly to merchants at guaranteed speeds. Delivering these same capabilities on the Bitcoin blockchain without smart contracts and stablecoins was a challenge, and so we made the tough decision to remove native Bitcoin and other UTXO support.

Consumers paying through Coinbase Commerce can still use bitcoin if they have an account with the exchange, CEO Brian Armstrong said on X, adding that the company is in the process of integrating the Lightning Network into Coinbase.

“We hope that in the future there will be opportunities to make commercial payments with Lightning,” Armstrong commented. The Lightning Network is a payment protocol designed to facilitate transactions within the Bitcoin blockchain. Bitcoin transactions have been running on the protocol since 2017.

“We believe we're trying to speed up the journey to that world where we're going to scale down – paying for things online in crypto until we get down from level 1 and reduce transaction fees and verification times.”

To track transactions, Bitcoin uses the UTXO model, or Unpaid Transaction Output. It is designed for transparency and security, with an Ethereum account model similar to traditional bank accounts and allowing more flexibility. The UTXO model is also used by forked coins such as Dogecoin (DOGE), Litecoin (LTC), Dash (DASH) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH).

The decision to remove native Bitcoin sparked community criticism on social media platforms, with some users pointing out how the removal would hurt Bitcoin adoption.

“Is it assumed that every customer is in the US and needs to open a Coinbase account and/or every customer needs a Coinbase account? This is like ordering that every customer who banks with BofA must be a Bank of America customer in order to receive payments,” said one anonymous user.

Coinbase often seems to be fighting the good fight, but don't be fooled, they are not.

For example, ‘Coinbase Commerce' no longer supports payments from self-protected wallets or third-party exchanges.

You can still receive Bitcoin, […] As long as the payments are yours… pic.twitter.com/vgyTO7MLLq

— CR1337 (@cryptonator1337) February 18, 2024

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