When we talk about payment vision and PayFi narrative, we don’t realize that crypto payments with stablecoins as the core have quietly advanced to the stage of application implementation.
Coingate's 2024 Crypto Payments Report also pointed out that CoinGate processed 1,677,288 crypto payments that year, of which 35.5% were completed in the form of stablecoins.
At the same time, traditional payment giants such as Stripe, Paypal, Visa, Mastercard, etc. have also moved in.
However, although current crypto payments are already able to realize payment functions in real life, Mass Adoption is still at the "last mile".
According to eMarketer's forecast, from 2024 to 2026, the number of crypto payment users in the United States will grow rapidly by 82%, but the proportion of payments will only increase by about 20%, reaching 39.1% of US users. In addition, the report also predicts that only 2.6% of users worldwide will use crypto payments in 2026.
CoinGate’s data also confirms this - 21% of US orders are paid with cryptocurrencies, 6-6.5% in Germany, 5.2-5.7% in the UK, and emerging markets such as Nigeria and Ukraine do not exceed 1%.
Why does this happen?
Ecological map: The current status of the puzzle of the crypto payment industry chain
Imagine that when you buy a drink at a convenience store on a foreign street, you only need to open your mobile wallet, scan the code and use cryptocurrency to complete the payment - no bank card, no cumbersome binding required, and settlement is completed instantly.
This is the daily scenario that should exist when crypto payment truly realizes Mass Adoption, and it is also the goal that the entire industry is striving for.
To achieve such a seamless and convenient crypto payment experience, a whole set of complex and coordinated infrastructure support is actually needed. From asset issuance, payment transfer, user entrance to merchant terminal, every link is indispensable.
Asset issuance
In the payment field, although any encrypted asset can be used for transfers in theory, in actual applications, due to considerations such as price volatility and payment settlement stability, BTC and stablecoins have become the most commonly used payment media, among which stablecoins have shown a clear dominant position in the number of transactions and the proportion of the amount.
Currently, Circle (USDC), Tether (USDT) and PayPal (PYUSD) are the main stablecoin issuers. Among them, USDC and USDT have been widely circulated on multiple blockchain networks and have become mainstream payment methods. In particular, USDT, according to CoinGate's report, accounts for 97.2% of the transaction volume, while USDC ranks second.
Currently, stablecoin issuers are actively expanding cooperation channels with payment gateways, cross-border settlement platforms and traditional financial institutions.
For example, Circle has been working with Visa since 2023 to integrate USDC into Visa's cross-border settlement network, covering about 190 countries, thereby effectively reducing the friction costs in traditional foreign exchange transactions; PayPal also launched PYUSD in 2024 and gradually integrated it into Venmo and X (formerly Twitter) platforms to expand the application of stablecoins in social payment scenarios.
Payment transfer
The payment transfer link undertakes the key task of connecting the on-chain asset flow with the off-chain consumption system.
Native crypto payment hubs, such as Binance Pay, Coinbase Commerce, and AlchemyPay, focus on bridging on-chain assets with the real-world fiat currency system, and undertake key functions such as asset exchange, transaction matching, and payment settlement.
At the same time, traditional payment giants are also accelerating their expansion into the field of encrypted payments.
In February 2025, Stripe acquired the stablecoin infrastructure platform Bridge for US$1.1 billion, marking its official layout in the on-chain settlement field; Visa chose to cooperate with Circle to support USDC clearing in its cross-border settlement network, and gradually expand to high-performance public chains such as Solana.
User Portal
In the early days of crypto payment, users mainly used crypto debit cards, U cards, etc. as payment portals to convert on-chain assets into legal currency account balances, and then connected to the traditional VISA or Mastercard clearing system to realize consumer payments. Although this model has broadened the use scenarios of assets, it still relies on traditional financial infrastructure and fails to truly realize the native circulation of on-chain assets.
As the functions of wallet applications continue to evolve, on-chain wallets have gradually become a new user entry point for crypto payments. Mainstream wallets such as MetaMask, Trust Wallet, and Bitget Wallet not only undertake the functions of user asset management and transaction signatures, but also integrate on-chain payment APIs or third-party payment gateway interfaces, allowing users to directly initiate payment requests by scanning codes, use on-chain assets such as stablecoins to complete consumption, and bypass the traditional legal currency account system.
Merchant Terminal
Merchant terminals cover industries such as retail, e-commerce, tourism, and hotels. They are the ultimate application scenario for encrypted payments to achieve Mass Adoption in the real world, and are also the core driving force for the industrial chain to complete the closed loop.
Traditionally, merchants have been cautious about directly accepting crypto assets due to technical barriers, volatility risks, and compliance uncertainties. In recent years, with the popularization of stablecoins, the maturity of payment gateway technology, and the shortening of settlement cycles, merchants have begun to gradually increase their enthusiasm for accessing crypto payments. According to the NFT Evening report, the number of merchants accepting crypto payments worldwide will reach 12,834 in 2024, an increase of 50% from 2023. Among them, Europe leads with 5,677 merchants, and Brazil tops the list of countries with 1,292 merchants.
At the same time, some regional markets, such as emerging economies with high mobile payment penetration rates in Southeast Asia and Latin America, have become the pioneers of crypto payment applications. Platforms such as PayPal, AlchemyPay, and Binance Pay have promoted the implementation of crypto payments in actual consumption scenarios by cooperating with local merchant networks, gradually breaking the path dependence of the traditional payment system.
The crux of the last mile: Why is it stuck at the consumer end?
As the stablecoin settlement system continues to improve and wallet functions continue to evolve, why has crypto payment still not penetrated into daily consumption scenarios?
From the perspective of technology and products, current users can already use cryptocurrencies for quick settlement, but on the real consumer end, lagging user experience constitutes an insurmountable "last mile."
High integration cost
Currently, one of the biggest obstacles to crypto payments on the merchant side comes from the “separation of wallets and merchant systems.” Due to the lack of a unified standardized structure, merchants often need to repeatedly develop for different wallets and different chain environments when accessing crypto payments, which significantly increases the difficulty and cost of integration.
According to a survey by Deloitte, 89% of the companies surveyed said that the complexity of integrating digital currency with existing financial infrastructure is one of the main challenges. In this regard, Pakning Luk, head of strategy at blockchain payment gateway Paydify, proposed at the Money20/20 Summit that by connecting all wallets with blockchains, supporting instant settlement of stablecoins, and zero handling fees, global merchants and users can easily receive and pay cryptocurrencies.
Long settlement cycle
Although on-chain payments theoretically support settlement within seconds, in the actual business environment, the settlement process still relies heavily on traditional payment infrastructure.
Take Stripe as an example. While it provides on-chain payment functions, merchants usually have to wait 2 to 3 working days for funds to arrive. This delay poses a major obstacle to cash flow management for retail and cross-border trade companies with high liquidity requirements.
Ecological island
The resistance on the user side comes from the fact that the crypto payment ecosystem is showing an increasingly serious fragmentation trend in the multi-chain environment.
When users make payments on the chain, they often need to manually switch chain networks or wallet plug-ins, which increases the complexity of operations and affects the smoothness of payments. At the same time, some large payment platforms, due to the platform lock-up strategy, deeply bind merchants to their own ecosystems, limiting their flexibility to switch to other payment networks and exacerbating the "ecological island" phenomenon.
Taking Binance Pay as an example, its payment path is mainly limited to the Binance ecosystem, and its support for non-Binance wallet users is limited. It is difficult to achieve interoperability with other mainstream wallets (such as MetaMask, Bitget Wallet, etc.) or non-BSC public chains, further raising the liquidity barrier for on-chain payments.
High volatility
Even if merchants successfully connect to encrypted payments, the instability of asset value caused by price fluctuations is still one of the key factors restricting its large-scale application.
Compared with the stable and predictable settlement amounts in the fiat currency payment system, merchants face a greater risk of exchange rate losses during on-chain payments, especially when using highly volatile assets such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Even the crypto payment model based on stablecoins is not completely risk-free. For example, in extreme market conditions, some pegged stablecoins (such as USDT and USDC) have also experienced short-term depegging, causing concerns among merchants.
In addition, most current crypto payment solutions fail to lock the price upon payment (i.e., the settlement exchange rate is locked at the moment payment is initiated), resulting in price slippage caused by the on-chain confirmation time during the payment process, further amplifying the merchant's risk exposure.
From complex integration to price fluctuations, the real challenge of crypto payments is not the technology itself, but the channel structure between the chain and people that has not yet been truly opened up.
Crypto Payment Outlook
When we look back at the development of crypto payments over the past few years, we will find that what it has always lacked is not technology, but a real "usability leap" - from on-chain accounts to merchant terminals, from wallet operations to daily habits.
At present, the premise of this transition has matured:
- Stablecoin regulation is gradually being implemented, and issuers such as Circle and Tether are actively promoting industry compliance standards in Europe, America, and Asia;
- The standardization of global payment interfaces is advancing. For example, many countries in Southeast Asia are promoting national QR payment interoperability standards.
- Cross-chain interoperability protocols (such as Cosmos IBC and LayerZero) are also breaking down ecological fragmentation and building a universal asset circulation network.
The infrastructure puzzle is being completed, and mass adoption of crypto payments is just around the corner.
At this point, what really determines whether encrypted payment can cross this "last mile" is not the advantages of the protocol or the number of functions, but whether it can provide merchants and users with a "no need to understand blockchain" user experience.
When off-chain merchants do not need to integrate multiple wallet SDKs, users do not have to switch chain networks or bear slippage costs, and when crypto assets are no longer just investment targets, but become "everyday currency" in restaurant code scanning, app subscriptions, and cross-border settlements, crypto payments will be truly implemented.
This requires not only technological openness, but also a deep understanding and continuous optimization of "scenario adaptation", "merchant trust" and "user fluency".
Only by opening up this "last mile" can we truly usher in the era of large-scale encrypted payments.
Mass Adoption is not only about the chain, but also about the scan code payment on the streets.
Related Materials
The data comprehensively analyzes the capital flows behind the trillion-dollar growth of stablecoins. If altcoins did not increase, where did the money go?
Coinbase + Glassnode: Charting Crypto Q2 2025
CoinGate Crypto Payments Report 2024: The Year of Stablecoins
Cryptocurrency payment usage will jump from a low base in the next few years, as more owners convert to payers
Study: 88% of Businesses Reported Higher Revenue after Accepting Crypto Payment
Digital currency payments and merchant adoption survey
Payment settlement explained: How it works and how long it takes
Blockchain payment gateway Paydify discusses the future of blockchain payments at Money20/20: standardization, compatibility and merchant integration are key issues
