Crypto Is Circling Back to Payments. This Time, It Might Actually Work.

The surging utility of stablecoins, which remove the volatility of traditional cryptocurrencies, as well as ongoing advances in digital asset usability make merchant acceptance less of a complex technological lift.

For nearly its entire history, cryptocurrency has been searching for a sustainable product-market fit.

From payments to speculative investments to supply chain management, the blockchain landscape’s past has been littered with attempts but little long-standing impact.

Now, crypto is circling back to try its hand at payments again. Only today, the results appear to be, well, promising.

The reason? Surging utility of stablecoins, which remove the volatility of traditional cryptocurrencies, as well as ongoing advances in digital asset usability make merchant acceptance less of a complex technological lift.

These two trends, usability through simplification of complex technological processes and the standing up of networks to facilitate greater use of stablecoin digital assets as a payment mechanis,heizead the Web3 news and industry advances PYMNTS tracked this week.

Building Out Ecosystem Networks to Scale Crypto Payments

One of the hurdles for Web3 adoption has been the complexity of blockchain and decentralized technologies. For consumers and businesses, navigating crypto wallets, decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms, and other blockchain applications can be daunting. However, a movement to simplify these processes is making strides in improving usability — making Web3 more accessible to a broader audience.

Stellar Development Foundation announced Tuesday (Oct. 15) that it is integrating Mastercard’s Crypto Credential solution into its blockchain network. The credential, which helps verify interactions among consumers and businesses using blockchain networks, will be added to the Stellar ecosystem as the exclusive credentialing solution “to enable a range of secure, compliant use cases” for crypto wallet providers such as Coins.ph, Mercado Bitcoin and Wirex.

Meanwhile, payments protocol Aeon will integrate the Tron network as its underlying cryptocurrency payment infrastructure. The partnership “opens new opportunities for seamless crypto payment across the TRON ecosystem,” Aeon said Monday (Oct. 14).

PYMNTS examined some of the challenges of cryptocurrency as a payment method earlier this year, noting that adoption remains limited despite jumps in crypto wealth.

But hope springs eternal. In the first 24 hours of allowing its merchants to accept stablecoin payments for online transactions on its platform, Stripe reportedly saw that customers from more than 70 countries made purchases with that form of payment. Stripe authorized its merchants in the United States to receive the Circle-issued USDC through their online checkout pages, beginning Wednesday (Oct. 9). Stripe said in April that it would bring back crypto payments after stopping them in 2018.

Read also: Cross-Border Payments Cost Could Be Cut by Blockchain, If It Can Only Solve the Scale Problem

Stablecoins Secure Central Role in Crypto’s Future

As Web3 infrastructure evolves, the role of stablecoins in digital payments is expanding. Stablecoins, pegged to traditional currencies like the U.S. dollar, have emerged as a bridge between fiat and digital assets, providing a level of stability that appeals to businesses and consumers. Developments highlight how the standing up of stablecoin payment networks is facilitating greater use and adoption across a range of sectors.

For instance, Ripple announced its exchange partners and customers for its U.S. dollar-denominated stablecoin, Ripple USD (RLUSD). The stablecoin will be available globally for institutions and users on exchanges and platforms like Uphold, Bitstamp, Bitso, MoonPay, Independent Reserve, CoinMENA and Bullish, Ripple said Tuesday.

In other related news, PYMNTS examined the use of blockchain and stablecoins in cross-border payments last month in an interview with Sheraz Shere, general manager of payments and commerce at Solana Foundation.

“Blockchain solutions and stablecoins, I don’t like to use the term crypto because this is more about FinTech, they’ve found product-market-fit in cross-border payments,” Shere said.

He added that one of the most notable benefits of blockchain technology is disintermediation — doing away with the need for multiple passes through correspondent banks, which often slow down transactions and increase their cost.

Still, some of the more illicit trends that defined crypto’s past will need to be overcome if the sector's future is to be realized. PYMNTS covered Monday that crypto scams have remained a booming industry for fraudsters who exploit the hype, anonymity and global reach of digital currencies.

The latest sting operation, in which the FBI nabbed a dozen and a half criminals, offered a view into the schemes law enforcement agencies are standing up as scammers scale and industrialize their operations. To get the 18 criminals who were charged Oct. 9, the FBI created its own crypto asset, named NexfundAI, and then tracked the use of it to prove malfeasance and manipulation. Instead of flipping the coin for profit, the criminals found themselves at the other end of sealed indictments.