Few goals come bigger than creating the world's largest economy. That is the mission of Blockchain.com, one of the leading players in the booming crypto space. Its portfolio of services — an exchange platform, custodial and non-custodial wallets, a data repository and an institutional markets business — reflects its ambition.
Its numbers are equally impressive: 37 million verified users, transactions topping $1.2 trillion since its launch in 2011, and 82 million crypto wallets in more than 200 countries.
But Blockchain.com is just getting started. The company was founded on the belief that the internet will be the world's largest economy by 2030 — and it will be powered by crypto. Its goal is to be a driving force of this new economy and has set a target of creating one billion wallets by the end of the decade.
Blockchain.com is partnering with Checkout.com to achieve its goals. With Checkout.com's leading cloud-based payments platform, Blockchain.com's users can effortlessly convert fiat to crypto, helping to break down barriers to mass crypto adoption.
"Our mission is to enable seamless access into the crypto ecosystem," says Jim Wang, Senior Product Manager for Payments at Blockchain.com. "Checkout.com's payment rails allow us to do that."
Blockchain.com is a global business with active users in over 200 countries. Finding a payments partner with a comparable global footprint is critical for it to scale fast.
"We don't want to wait to expand. In fact, we can't – the industry is moving too fast." Jim explains. "We need partners that already operate in multiple geographies who support alternative payment methods that help us penetrate local markets."
"Checkout.com meets our needs for speed, accuracy and scale," Jim adds. "Its ability to offer global coverage through a single entry point is incredibly compelling and was a critical factor in selecting them as one of our strategic payment partners."
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The first market of focus for the partnership is the US — one of Blockchain.com's largest and fastest-growing geographies. Strict standards on consumer protections give the market added nuances when creating frictionless fiat on and off-ramps. One challenge had been the lack of a payer authentication for online debit and credit card transactions known as 3D Secure (3DS), an advanced security measure not broadly adopted in the US compared to Europe.
"We always knew handling 3DS would be tricky in the region," Jim explains. "But it wasn't until working with Checkout.com that we had access to the data needed to methodically tackle this challenge. Specifically, Checkout.com's data allowed us to see which issuers supported 3DS. This helped us to make better decisions around when to ask customers to authenticate using 3DS to bring the best experience to them, while also benefiting from the additional layers of fraud protection where possible."
Access to data was a key reason Blockchain.com wanted to work with Checkout.com, Jim adds, and it has been quick to reap the benefits. "We're now able to dive into our payment performance in a more targeted and precise way," explains Jim. "We've been able to slice and dice our performance by region, issuer, card type, and even the issuing bank, allowing us to hone in on optimizations we can make across the user experience."
That data is telling the story of success. Checkout.com is working with Blockchain.com to improve its payments authorization rate month-over-month. This ongoing project has a meaningful impact on the satisfaction of Blockchain.com's customers, its revenues and its mission to empower more people to use crypto.
Blockchain.com's roots are in engineering, as a company focused on building world-class products for the digital economy. And it only works with partners that share the same commitment to building products that customers love. In Checkout.com, it found a partner that delivers.
"Checkout.com is a technology-first company," says Jim. "That was clear from our first conversations. It set everybody's minds at ease that this would be a fruitful long-term partnership."
Checkout.com hasn't only talked the talk. It's walked the walk, says Jim, who describes the integration and onboarding process as "really slick and world-class." He adds: "The platform is robust and reliable, but it's also flexible, allowing us to make changes easily and with confidence.
"Our dedicated account team at Checkout.com is knowledgeable," adds Jim. "Whatever we throw at them, from technical questions about API integration to local regulations, they're quick with their responses and solutions."
With a solid start to the partnership, Blockchain.com is now sending more of its payments volume to Checkout.com and looking to enable more features and geographies.
For instance, going beyond card processing, Blockchain.com is now bolstering its ACH processing capabilities by using Checkout.com services. "Building redundancy into the payment processing flow means continuity of service," says Jim. "It's all about building trust with our customers; we need to be available all the time."
Payouts are also on the agenda. As Jim puts it: "Our customers trust us to give them their crypto back in fiat whenever and however they want." One innovation his team is looking at enabling is the ability to pay out to cards, especially in regions where people are disconnected from traditional banking.
Blockchain.com and Checkout.com are companies fueled by a shared vision of the future and an ambition to break down barriers in the next generation of the digital economy.
"We can't sit back and just expect growth to happen," Jim concludes. "We want to take an active role in helping people understand how crypto and Web3 can more broadly enhance their lives. Checkout.com's reach with Web2 merchants and Blockchain.com's reach with the Web3 ecosystem is a powerhouse combination to usher in the next generation of the digital economy."
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