Stablecoins in E-Commerce: A Practical Alternative to Traditional Payment Methods

Imagine a small software company selling subscriptions in Europe, Latin America, and Southeast Asia. Its products are delivered online, its support team works remotely, and its customers can sign up at any time. The business itself is global, but its payment infrastructure may still depend on banking hours, regional card availability, currency conversion, and multiple financial intermediaries.

This mismatch is one reason stablecoins are beginning to attract attention in e-commerce.

Unlike Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies whose prices can move significantly within a short period, stablecoins are designed to maintain a relatively stable value by tracking another asset-most commonly the US dollar. That makes them easier to use for pricing, invoicing, and accounting than highly volatile digital currencies.

Stablecoins do not solve every payment problem. They introduce technical, regulatory, and financial risks of their own. Still, for certain online businesses, they can provide a useful additional payment option, particularly when customers and merchants are located in different countries.

Why ordinary international payments remain difficult

Paying for a product within one country is often straightforward. The customer enters card details, confirms the purchase, and receives the product. Behind the checkout page, however, several organizations may participate in the transaction: the customer's bank, the merchant's bank, card networks, acquiring institutions, currency-conversion services, fraud-detection systems, and the payment processor itself.

The process becomes more complicated when the buyer and seller are located in different jurisdictions.

Customers may discover that their cards are not accepted internationally. Merchants may face higher processing fees, longer settlement periods, mandatory currency conversion, or an increased risk of rejected transactions. In some cases, payment services are simply unavailable in the customer's country.

The continuing cost of international money movement illustrates the scale of the problem. According to the World Bank's Remittance Prices Worldwide database, the average cost of sending a remittance globally was 6.36% of the transferred amount in its September 2025 reporting period.

Remittances are not the same as e-commerce purchases, but both involve transferring value across borders. The data show that geography still has a measurable effect on how efficiently money can move.

Stablecoins offer an alternative route. A customer can transfer a dollar-denominated digital asset through a blockchain network without requiring a direct connection between the banking systems of two countries.

The difference between paying in crypto and speculating on crypto

Cryptocurrency payments are often discussed as though every user must be making an investment decision. That is not necessarily true.

A customer paying an invoice with a dollar-pegged stablecoin may not be trying to profit from changes in its price. The stablecoin is simply being used as a transfer instrument. The customer acquires it, sends it to the merchant, and receives a product or service in return.

This distinction matters for e-commerce. Merchants generally want predictable revenue rather than exposure to short-term market movements. If a product costs $100, the business wants to receive something close to $100 in value-not an asset that may be worth $92 or $108 before the payment is reconciled.

Stablecoins were developed partly to address this volatility problem. Most are designed to maintain their value through reserves, collateral, algorithms, or a combination of mechanisms. The structure varies considerably, which means merchants should never treat all stablecoins as interchangeable.

A fiat-backed stablecoin issued by a regulated company presents a different risk profile from a decentralized, crypto-collateralized, or algorithmic token. Before accepting one, a business should understand who issued it, how the peg is maintained, whether redemption is available, and what happens during periods of market stress.

Large transaction numbers need context

Stablecoin activity has grown to a scale that businesses can no longer dismiss as purely experimental. The Bank for International Settlements estimated that annual stablecoin transaction volume reached approximately $28 trillion in 2025.

That number sounds comparable to the transaction volumes of major payment systems, but it should be interpreted carefully. The BIS notes that the total includes transfers between wallets controlled by the same parties, while figures adjusted for such activity are significantly lower.

A stablecoin may be transferred from an exchange to a trading wallet, between two wallets belonging to the same company, into a decentralized finance application, and back to an exchange. Each movement appears on-chain, even though no retail purchase has occurred.

The statistics therefore show that stablecoin networks are heavily used, but they do not prove that stablecoins already process trillions of dollars in ordinary shopping transactions.

Research from the BIS also found that Bitcoin represented around 80% of measured cross-border crypto flows until the second quarter of 2019. By the second quarter of 2024, its share had fallen below 25% as stablecoin transfers expanded. This suggests that users increasingly distinguish between cryptocurrencies held as volatile assets and those used for transferring dollar-like value.

Where stablecoins can be useful in e-commerce

Stablecoins are not equally valuable for every merchant. Their strongest use cases tend to appear where traditional payment methods create noticeable friction.

One example is the sale of digital products and services. Hosting companies, software platforms, online education providers, agencies, and subscription-based businesses can serve customers without shipping physical goods. Their operations may be global from the first day, making international payment access more important than local point-of-sale convenience.

Stablecoins may also be useful for high-value purchases where percentage-based card fees become substantial. Blockchain transaction fees are usually determined by the network rather than by the value of the product, although costs can still rise when a network is congested.

Another potential use case is business-to-business commerce. A company that regularly pays international suppliers may prefer a payment method that operates continuously and provides a verifiable transaction record.

The International Monetary Fund has identified greater efficiency and increased competition in payments among the potential benefits of stablecoins. At the same time, the IMF emphasizes that their wider use requires appropriate legal, regulatory, and operational frameworks.

For merchants, this means stablecoins should be viewed as a practical payment tool with specific advantages-not as a shortcut around financial obligations.

What the checkout experience should include

A customer should not need advanced blockchain knowledge to complete a stablecoin payment. A usable checkout process needs to clearly display:

• The required amount
• The accepted stablecoin
• The correct blockchain network
• The destination address
• A QR code where appropriate
• The invoice expiration time
• The required number of confirmations
• The current payment status

The network is especially important. The same stablecoin may exist on several blockchains, but sending it through an unsupported network can cause the payment to be delayed or lost. Merely displaying "USDT accepted" or "USDC accepted" is not enough. The checkout page must specify exactly which network should be used.

A crypto payment gateway can automate much of this process. It creates an invoice, monitors the selected network, identifies the incoming transaction, and notifies the store when the payment meets its confirmation requirements.

Merchants evaluating self-hosted infrastructure can find an example on this website - https://shkeeper.io/ , which presents a gateway model designed to connect cryptocurrency payments with a business's existing checkout and order-management processes.

The reference should still be evaluated alongside other options. The right system depends on the merchant's technical capabilities, preferred currencies, transaction volume, custody requirements, and need for fiat conversion.

The hidden question: who controls the funds?

Two checkout pages may look almost identical while using very different custody models.

With a custodial processor, the payment is sent to infrastructure controlled by the provider. The merchant sees the transaction in an account balance and later requests a withdrawal or fiat settlement.

With a non-custodial setup, the payment can be sent directly to a wallet controlled by the merchant. The gateway detects the transaction and associates it with the order without necessarily holding the funds.

Custodial processing is often easier to manage. The provider may handle wallet maintenance, automatic conversion, and parts of the compliance process. The trade-off is that the merchant depends on that provider for access to the money.

Direct settlement provides more control but also more responsibility. The business must protect wallet credentials, create backups, establish approval procedures, and decide how funds move between operational and long-term storage.

Neither model is automatically better. A small merchant may reasonably choose convenience, while a technically experienced company may prioritize direct access and infrastructure control.

Stable does not mean risk-free

The word "stable" can give merchants a false sense of security. A stablecoin's value depends on the reliability of its design and the organizations supporting it.

Important risks include:

• Issuer risk: The company behind the stablecoin may fail or lose access to its reserves.
• Reserve risk: The assets supporting the token may be insufficient, illiquid, or difficult to verify.
• De-pegging risk: The market price may temporarily or permanently move away from its target.
• Blockchain risk: Congestion, outages, software errors, or network attacks may disrupt transfers.
• Smart-contract risk: Vulnerabilities in the token contract may affect transactions or balances.
• Regulatory risk: A stablecoin or network accepted today may face restrictions in the future.
• Address-screening risk: Funds may arrive from wallets connected with sanctioned or illicit activity.

Businesses should also consider liquidity. Receiving a stablecoin is useful only if the company can spend it, transfer it to suppliers, or convert it into the currency needed for operating expenses.

Refunds require a different process

Card payments include established procedures for reversals and chargebacks. Blockchain transactions are generally irreversible once confirmed.

Irreversibility can reduce chargeback exposure for merchants, but it does not remove the need for refunds. Customers may receive the wrong product, cancel a service, or make a duplicate payment.

A crypto refund usually requires a new outbound transaction. Before sending it, the merchant must verify the customer's destination address, decide which exchange rate applies, account for network fees, and document the transfer.

Automatically returning funds to the sending address is not always safe. A payment may have been sent from an exchange or shared wallet that cannot correctly credit an unsolicited return transaction. The customer should usually provide and confirm a suitable refund address through a secure process.

Clear refund terms are therefore essential. Customers should know whether refunds are calculated in the original stablecoin amount or according to the fiat value of the purchase.

A more realistic way to introduce stablecoin payments

The sensible approach is usually to begin with a limited implementation rather than redesign the entire payment system.

A merchant might first accept one or two established stablecoins on a small number of well-supported networks. Crypto checkout can be offered to selected customers or for a single category of products. During the pilot, the business can measure:

• How many customers select the option
• How many invoices are successfully completed
Which payment errors occur most often
• How long confirmations take
What the effective transaction costs are
• How much staff time is required for reconciliation
• How frequently customers request refunds
• Whether received funds can be converted or reused efficiently

These results are more valuable than broad predictions about the future of cryptocurrency. They show whether stablecoins solve a real payment problem for a particular business and its customers.

Stablecoins are unlikely to make cards, bank transfers, or digital wallets disappear. Their more realistic role is to fill gaps left by existing systems. For globally oriented e-commerce businesses, that may mean providing an additional way to receive dollar-denominated value, operate beyond banking hours, and serve customers who cannot easily use conventional payment methods.

This release was published on openPR.