Key Takeaways
- Security remains a major consumer barrier, but merchant crypto adoption has continued to grow.
- Payments for stablecoins are increasingly being processed through cards and regulated platforms rather than direct on-chain checkout.
- Adoption is highest in areas where traditional payment options are limited, while self-custody security remains a challenge.
Updated: Aug. 17, 2026
In early 2025, a survey conducted by Bitget Wallet among 4,599 users revealed that 37% identified security risk as the foremost reason for their reluctance to utilize cryptocurrency for payments. The concerns persist still.
Nevertheless, merchant adoption and stablecoin payment infrastructure have progressed significantly, as a substantial portion of the industry’s expansion has transitioned from direct on-chain transactions to established payment systems.
Crypto Security Confidence Lags as Merchant Acceptance Reaches 39%
Security.org’s 2026 consumer survey found 59% of Americans lack confidence in cryptocurrency security. Among non-owners specifically, security remains the single largest barrier to buying any crypto at all. Consumer distrust remained substantial, pointing in the same direction as the 2025 Bitget survey, though the two measure different audiences and questions.
Merchant-side numbers moved in the opposite direction. A January 2026 PayPal and National Cryptocurrency Association survey of 619 payment decision-makers found 39% of U.S. merchants already accept crypto at checkout, with 84% expecting crypto payments to become common within five years.
Retail-sized on-chain activity also expanded. Visa on-chain analytics show retail-sized stablecoin volume across USDC, USDT, and PYUSD grew from $0.5 billion in 2019 to $69.8 billion in 2025. Consumer distrust remained substantial. Commercial deployment accelerated regardless.
71% of Stablecoin Holders Would Use a Linked Card
The reason sits in a survey BVNK conducted with YouGov of 4,658 current, recent or prospective crypto and stablecoin users across 15 countries. Asked how they would spend stablecoins, 71% said they were likely to use a linked card rather than send funds on-chain.
That single number explains most of what changed. The original 2025 concern was about irreversible transactions, wallet compromise and the absence of chargebacks. Card-based products can preserve familiar dispute and payment protections, although coverage varies by provider and does not eliminate custody or stablecoin risk.
The stablecoin sits in the background as a funding source while the payment itself runs through infrastructure consumers already trust.
Complexity, not security, now leads the friction list. Respondents cited too many steps, too many network choices, and anxiety around irreversible transactions. Lower fees (30%), security (28%) and global access (27%) drove adoption. For users already participating, security can also work as a selling point, especially when stablecoins are accessed through cards or regulated platforms.
GENIUS Act and MiCA Narrowed Regulatory Uncertainty, Not the Risk
The 2025 article identified regulatory uncertainty as a compounding barrier. That has substantially changed.
The GENIUS Act established a U.S. payment stablecoin framework in July 2025. MiCA’s stablecoin rules began applying in June 2024, with the broader regulation becoming applicable at the end of 2024, setting reserve composition and redemption requirements.
Regulatory clarity did not translate into consumer confidence. OpenFX reports stablecoins still represent roughly 1% of global payment flows, the same share it recorded in 2023 and 2024, despite substantial absolute growth.
Around 86% of firms describe their infrastructure as ready, which suggests readiness has moved faster than scaled deployment.
Regulatory clarity also accelerated interest in banking licenses. Crypto-native firms pursuing charters gain the institutional credibility survey respondents said they wanted, since users consistently prefer accessing stablecoin services through banks or heavily regulated fintechs.
2026 Incidents Showed Security Risks Had Not Disappeared
The security fears documented in 2025 were not misplaced. A firmware flaw in Coldcard hardware wallets, dating to 2021 and discovered only this year, let an attacker drain more than 1,000 Bitcoin without touching a single device. A SafePal data breach exposed order and personal information for nearly 40,000 users, though the company says it does not store private keys or recovery seeds.
OpenFX highlighted more than 600 stablecoin de-pegging events across two years, underscoring that reserve and liquidity risks did not disappear as payment infrastructure improved.
None of that slowed merchant integration. Many payment integrations shift custody and conversion risk away from merchants and toward payment providers or custodians. The person still exposed is the individual holding keys, which is precisely the group that has moved toward cards and custodial wallets.
Economic Pressure Strengthens Stablecoin Demand in Emerging Markets
The clearest growth is not in wealthy markets where crypto payments compete against functional banking.
In low- and middle-income countries, 85% of BVNK respondents said local economic conditions influence their decision to use stablecoins, rising to 92% in Africa.
The 2025 framing assumed security improvements would unlock mainstream adoption. What happened instead was that adoption found the users for whom existing payment rails were worse than crypto’s risks, and the technology got wrapped in familiar interfaces for everyone else.
Security continues to be a significant limitation on self-custody. However, it is no longer a hindrance to merchant adoption.
