Payment tech company Stripe ( STRIP ) announced on Thursday a deeper partnership with the commerce company Shopify ( NASDAQ: SHOP ) ( TSX: SHOP:CA ) to help the latter's merchants accept stablecoin payments. Stripe said Shopify merchants across 34 countries will be able to accept payments in USDC in a few weeks. Merchants are expected to have the option to receive stablecoin payments in their preferred local currency or transfer funds as USDC directly to an external wallet.