CoinMarketCap (CMC) has deployed a totally automated digital currency payments solution, from finance network Gilded. 

Gilded Chief Operations Officer (COO) Neal Roche told Cointelegraph the automated approach solved a lot of issues currently facing crypto invoicing and payments:

“Most companies, when they start accepting crypto, they basically have this manual process that they have to go through: tell the customer what the wallet address is, keep rotating those addresses, and then if you’ve got a bunch of invoices and a bunch of customers, you need to reconcile if they’ve paid in full.”

Using stablecoins to limit volatility

Roche said there was a five-step process. Whenever a Coinmarket representative marks something as “ready for payment”, the system automatically generates and sends out an invoice offering the customer a variety of payment options, including cryptocurrencies and credit cards.

For example, if CMC were to sell one of their API for basic commercial use, the system would fire off an invoice and the company could send payment in cryptocurrency. Once received, the Gilded solution can automatically convert it to a stablecoin to reduce volatility. Supported stablecoins include USD Coin (USDC), Dai (DAI), Tether (USDT), and Binance Stablecoin (BUSD).

Payments can then be exchanged for USD and transferred to a bank, and the accounts are effectively settled. Roche said the system helps demystify crypto payments for traditional businesses: 

“This is where traditional businesses with a fear of crypto can now have the tools to handle digital payments and custody without their staff requiring expert knowledge of crypto.”

Not all businesses set up for crypto

One survey in October 2019 showed only about a third of small and medium sized businesses in the United States are willing to accept cryptocurrencies as payment. The Gilded solution can be used by companies who aren’t prepared to handle wallets or be custodians for digital assets like BTC: 

“We’re enabling CoinMarketCap to generate invoices, and customers can decide if they want to pay in crypto or pay by traditional payment channels like credit card or wire transfer. And then when the customer pays, it doesn’t go to a wallet or one member of staff. It goes to an exchange, a custodian.”

Cheaper and faster

Typical transactions like credit card payments and wire transfers can take 1-2 days to process, with merchants charged anywhere from 2-5% in fees. Roche explained:

“There are e-commerce solutions out there like BitPay and CoinPayment, but this is more for larger payments, like business-to-business (B2B), where you’re sending thousands of dollars and you don’t want to use credit cards for that when you’re doing cross-border payments.”

Gilded said that in one case study their system had effectively provided digital transactions 96% faster with a 75% reduction in fees.