---
title: "Introducing the commerce payments protocol"
description: "Coinbase and Shopify are launching the Commerce Payments Protocol to support real-world commerce onchain, where direct token transfers do not handle checkout, settlement, fulfillment, cancellations, and refunds. The protocol uses an escrow smart contract to authorize payments by moving funds from the payer into escrow, then capture funds for the receiver later or in multiple partial increments. An operator role submits transactions for the parties, while payer-signed payment details constrain fields such as the receiver, token, maximum amount, and expiries. The protocol is available on Base and powers Shopify’s new USDC payment method, which is rolling out to millions of Shopify Payments stores; its six core operations include authorize, charge, void, reclaim, and refund, with the source also describing capture."
---

# Introducing the commerce payments protocol

[Shopify](https://yomu.fyi/company/shopify) · 2023-10-18 · Jun 12, 2025

**Type:** Announcement

## Summary

Coinbase and Shopify are launching the Commerce Payments Protocol to support real-world commerce onchain, where direct token transfers do not handle checkout, settlement, fulfillment, cancellations, and refunds. The protocol uses an escrow smart contract to authorize payments by moving funds from the payer into escrow, then capture funds for the receiver later or in multiple partial increments. An operator role submits transactions for the parties, while payer-signed payment details constrain fields such as the receiver, token, maximum amount, and expiries. The protocol is available on Base and powers Shopify’s new USDC payment method, which is rolling out to millions of Shopify Payments stores; its six core operations include authorize, charge, void, reclaim, and refund, with the source also describing capture.

## Context

Existing onchain payments generally support direct peer-to-peer token transfers but do not address the multi-stage requirements of commercial purchases. Commerce introduces race conditions among checkout, settlement, and fulfillment, along with inventory changes, tax changes, cancellations, partial fulfillment, and refunds.

## Approach / What changed

The protocol places an immutable, shared escrow smart contract between payer and receiver. It supports authorization and later capture, including partial captures, plus charge, void, reclaim, and refund operations. Operators facilitate blockchain transactions for the parties, while payer-signed payment details limit changes to the payment intent.

## Takeaways

- Escrowed funds remain on hold after authorization and can later be captured by the receiver, with total captures limited to the authorized amount.
- Reclaim lets a payer recover funds after an authorization expires and is the only payment operation not controlled by the operator.
- The protocol is open for anyone to build on, is available on Base, and initially supports Shopify’s USDC payment method through Shopify Payments.

**Tags:** [Architecture](https://yomu.fyi/topic/architecture), [Scalability](https://yomu.fyi/topic/scalability)

- Source: [Shopify](https://shopify.engineering/commerce-payments-protocol)
- Source URL: https://shopify.engineering/commerce-payments-protocol
- Ingested by Yomu: 2026-08-30T13:19:47.665Z

[Read original post](https://shopify.engineering/commerce-payments-protocol)