Bitcoin and UTXO coin support is discontinued by Coinbase Commerce.

According to the story, those who want to make payments with Bitcoin need to have a Coinbase account. Representatives claim that the business has stopped supporting native Bitcoin (BTC) and other UTXO coins on Coinbase Commerce, its merchant payment platform. On February 18, 2024, this decision was announced in a thread on X (previously Twitter). The reason for this change, according to Dowling, was difficulties in adapting the platform's EVM payment system for Bitcoin.

The new Commerce solution supports a variety of assets, including native and ERC-20 tokens, and focuses on onchain payment information. Onchain, payments are instantly converted to USDC at a rate that is guaranteed for retailers. It was difficult to provide comparable features on the Bitcoin blockchain without the use of smart contracts and stablecoins, which is why native support for Bitcoin and UTXO was dropped.

If a customer has a Coinbase account, they can still choose to pay with Bitcoin when utilising Coinbase Commerce. In order to support Lightning payments in the future, Coinbase is also trying to integrate the Lightning Network into its platform.

Representatives from Coinbase were upbeat about Lightning Network's potential to eventually help with payments for goods and services. Adoption of the Lightning Network payment technology, which was created to improve transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain, began in 2017. From a wider angle, they emphasised how crucial it is to move past layer 1 in order to lower transaction costs and speed up confirmation times for cryptocurrency payments, which will encourage widespread use.

The transparent and secure UTXO mechanism is the foundation for Bitcoin transactions. Unlike Ethereum's account format, this one is more flexible and resembles conventional bank accounts. Bitcoin offshoot coins like Dogecoin (DOGE), Litecoin (LTC), Dash (DASH), and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) also employ the UTXO concept.

The community on social media sites has criticised the decision to withdraw native support for Bitcoin. Some users have expressed doubts about the premise that every client can register a Coinbase account or would desire one in order to make payments, and they are worried about how this choice would effect the adoption of Bitcoin.