Google, Apple and more adopt Crypto-Ready API

World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), with the help of major tech companies such as Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Apple and Mozilla have created a browser API that would facilitate the purchase of online goods and services with cryptocurrency, in the near future.  

This work marks a tangible move towards a currency-agnostic web payment standard, that was first advocated for by W3C in 2013, and highlights the growing recognition of cryptocurrency as a payments technology.

Announced on September 14^th 2017, the API is being implemented in browsers including Google's Chrome, Microsoft's Edge, Apple’s Webkit, Mozilla’s Firefox, the Samsung Internet Browser and Facebook's in-app browser.

Following its activation, the Payment Request API will allow new payment types, such as bitcoin, ether or any other available cryptocurrency  to be stored directly in the browser.

This will provide consumers with the ability to choose from a wider drop-down menu of available payment methods supported, and will present merchants with a more secure online checkout.

The Web Payment Working Group have a scheduled face to face meeting on the browser-based API on November 6 and 7, and a demo showcasing how Airbnb, Google and Mastercard are using the API on October 23.