Toffee, an online marketplace for digital goods, is partnering with fiat onramp Wyre to allow merchants to efficiently convert fiat payments into bitcoin - negating costly processing fees and jurisdictional banking restrictions.
According to Toffee, the decision to integrate with a fiat onramp came, in part, due to the fact that very few customers were willing or able to spend bitcoin, despite several vendors favoring bitcoin payments.
With the new partnership, customers can top up their bitcoin balance directly via Toffee using debit or credit cards. The platform further plans to implement a feature to facilitate the automatic conversation of fiat payments for merchants wishing to accept bitcoin.
"This integration will be useful for sellers living in areas where there are few, if any, financial services available. Our partnership with Wyre helps sellers in those countries earn more money online by indirectly being able to accept credit cards, while they receive bitcoin," said Toffee founder Yousef Abdulhassan.
For many online merchants, the ability to accept fiat payments is not a given: especially in emerging economies access to seemingly global financial services such as PayPal is highly restricted, with over 80 countries excluded from the payment platform altogether.
Bitcoin, meanwhile, remains unfettered from international banking restrictions and borders, allowing anyone, anywhere, to accept the cryptocurrency as payment for goods and services. Through the addition of a fiat gateway, Toffee hopes to increase the potential clientele for merchants on its platform, regardless of their location or nationality.