Solana Labs launches new digital payment platform Solana Pay | ZDNet

Solana Labs, the creator of the fast-growing high-speed programmable blockchain and rival to Ethereum, started the month of February with the launch of Solana Pay, which provides merchants and customers with a new set of decentralized payment standards and protocols designed to allow direct acceptance of stablecoins, such as US Dollar Coins (USDCs), at the point of sale (POS) and online.

According to the company’s press release, Solana Pay enables merchants to accept and move any amount of stablecoin currencies, compatible with the Solana blockchain, at any time of the day, anywhere in the world but with very low transaction fees — measured in fractions of a cent. The company said that merchants can get real-time access to their money with increased ability to manage working capital, liquidity and liability protection, and direct access to their money in seconds, with no middlemen and no holding periods or bank transfer fees.

In addition, Solana said that by establishing a direct connection to a blockchain wallet address, merchants can unlock a two-way communication channel with their customers, which will let them conduct such transactions as sending offers, granting NFTs and rewarding loyalty.

What gives Solana Pay its competitive advantage is that its decentralized payment structure is extremely fast thanks to leveraging the Solana blockchain, which provides scalability of 65,000 transactions per second (TPS), “near-instantaneous” settlement of 400 milliseconds, and incredibly low fees of $0.00025 per transaction. By comparison, Bitcoin can process only seven TPS and Ethereum a mere 13 TPS.

Initial development of Solana Pay came from a variety of sources, including Solana Labs, global fintech firm Circle Internet Financial, digital wallets Phantom and Slope Wallet, mobile wallet payment processor Citcon, cryptocurrency exchange FTX, and national passenger vehicle rental company Bandago Van Rental, according to Solana’s release.

Another competitive advantage of Solana Pay is its ease of use — as simple as enabling a barcode on a merchant’s site or at the POS. So, for example, using the Solana Pay SDK, a merchant can initiate a peer-to-peer connection to the millions of crypto wallet customers who can pay in such stablecoins as USDCs or other cryptocurrencies that are compatible with the Solana blockchain, the company said.

Solana said it’s working to attract larger-sized merchants to adopt its new payment platform, along with more POS providers and e-commerce platforms.