Coinbase Integrates Apple Pay Into Crypto Onboarding Solution

Coinbase has integrated Apple Pay as a payment method for Coinbase Onramp, its tool for building onramps into existing apps for fiat-to-crypto purchases.

This addition will provide easier onramping for the 60 million U.S. users of Apple Pay, Coinbase said in a Monday (Dec. 2) press release.

It will also provide these users with access to the most popular payment methods and will deliver a faster end-to-end experience in which fiat-to-crypto conversions take seconds, according to the release.

Coinbase Onramp provides a solution for onboarding to crypto, which is a process that otherwise can take a long time and require apps’ users to go through a lengthy know-your-customer (KYC) and use multiple apps, per the release.

“Coinbase Onramp take the hassle out of fiat-to-crypto conversions with lightweight KYC for eligible purchases, free USD on and offramping, and access to the most popular payment methods,” the release said. “With Apple Pay, getting onchain takes only seconds.”

Apps already using Coinbase Onramp will automatically see Apple Pay appear as an option when users are making an eligible purchase, according to the release.

This is the latest of several additions Coinbase has made to its offerings.

On Nov. 20, Coinbase Wallet began letting users of its USDC stablecoin earn rewards by holding USDC on-chain. This feature is available in most regions worldwide and was made available to American users at that time.

A week before that, Coinbase acquired the Utopia Labs team to accelerate its onchain payments roadmap within Coinbase Wallet. Jesse Pollak, head of Base and Coinbase Wallet, wrote in a Nov. 13 blog post that the addition of the Utopia Labs team will “accelerate our goal of bringing low-cost, fast and global payments to everyone around the world.”

Coinbase added another partnership in October, announcing a money movement partnership with Visa that connects Coinbase to the Visa Direct network and lets the cryptocurrency exchange’s customers deposit funds into their accounts via eligible Visa debit cards. Akash Shah, senior director, product management at Coinbase, said in a press release: “The integration with Visa Direct gives our eligible customers real-time access to their funds for trading.”