Stripe Touches Down on Solana With Orca DEX Integration 

The Orca onramp marks the first time Stripe has integrated with a decentralized exchange across any blockchain. 

Orca Integrates Stripe

Stripe has come to Solana.

Orca, a leading Solana-based decentralized exchange, has integrated the leading payments service provider to launch a fiat-to-crypto onramp. The Orca onramp marks the first time Stripe has integrated with a decentralized exchange across any blockchain. 

At launch, Orca users will be granted direct access to Stripe’s simple order flow, letting them buy crypto assets like SOL and USDC directly with fiat currency. Purchased tokens will then be transferred back to customers’ Solana wallets, where they will appear in the token panel. 

“A core part of Orca’s mission is to enable broader economic access,” said Orca co-founder Ori Kawn. “With this new integration, we hope to make participating in the DeFi ecosystem even more accessible to the entire Solana community.”

Launched in February 2021, Orca lets users trade Solana SPL tokens through its automated market maker. The protocol is permissionless, meaning that smart contracts are solely responsible for executing trades. Orca aims to set itself apart from other decentralized exchanges by placing emphasis on usability. Throughout its development, the protocol has launched several notable updates, including a fair price checker and in-app improvements, to enhance its user experience. 

In September 2021, Orca raised $18 million from several of the crypto space’s top venture capital firms, including Polychain, Coinbase Ventures, and Jump Capital. It has also secured integrations with other leading Solana DeFi protocols, such as Tulip, Jupiter, and SolScan. 

The Orca integration is yet another instance of Stripe venturing into the digital assets space. After ceasing crypto payments in 2018, the firm recently re-entered the crypto space, piloting Twitter cryptocurrency payouts via Polygon in April. Since then, the payment services provider has signaled its support for crypto business more broadly, offering a range of services to crypto exchanges, onramps, wallets, and NFT marketplaces. 

Disclosure: At the time of writing this piece, the author owned SOL, ORCA, and several other crypto assets.