What is Solana Pay?

Solana Labs, the project behind the Solana token, has launched a new payments protocol that will allow merchants to accept crypto payments directly from customers. The announcement came Tuesday as Solana unveiled Solana Pay, focusing on USDC, Solana, and other tokens built on the Solana blockchain. The firm tweeted the following, “A game changer payments protocol from Solana will change the way we pay crypto. Wider and broader crypto payments in real-time are around the corner.” Solana Pay is the result of a partnership between Circle, Checkout.com, and Citcom with wallet integrations that include Phantom and FTX. Solana’s head of payments said this is bigger than paying with crypto, “rather, this is about a vision where all currencies - including U.S. dollars - are on-chain and used for a wide range of transactions.” Interestingly, this announcement comes just after analysts at Bank of America ($BAC@US) said Solana could be the new Visa ($V@US). At press time, Solana was trading at just over $110, up over 2%.