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Stablecoin payments stay behind checkout: BridgerPay

According to BridgerPay CEO Ran Cohen, stablecoin payments are primarily used for business transactions and settlements, rather than everyday purchases.

Summary

  • Cohen said real stablecoin demand sits in cross-border settlement, B2B payouts, and treasury, not retail checkout.
  • He argued Mastercard’s $1.8 billion BVNK deal validates the rail rather than ending the case for neutral orchestration.
  • Cohen expects stablecoins to scale across business flows over 18 months without displacing cards at the till.

According to BridgerPay co-founder Ran Cohen, stablecoins are primarily being used for large-scale business transactions and international settlements, not everyday purchases. In 2025, the total value of stablecoin transactions reached $33 trillion.

Cohen disagrees with the idea that more people will start directly paying with USDC online. Instead, Mastercard’s recent $1.8 billion deal with BVNK suggests the real competition is focused on the underlying technology that makes these payments possible, rather than simply adding a ‘pay with USDC’ option to websites.

Why BridgerPay sees the checkout button staying rare

As a crypto investor, what I’m hearing from Cohen is that real-world adoption isn’t being driven by people simply buying things with crypto at stores. Instead, it’s the underlying infrastructure – things like making international payments easier, helping businesses pay each other, managing company finances, and improving how quickly you can move money – that’s really pushing things forward. Those are the areas where we’re seeing the most actual use right now.

Sending money to growing economies can be difficult, as local holidays and weekends often delay SWIFT transfers. Stablecoins offer a solution by lowering costs, providing almost immediate settlements, and allowing businesses to access funds more quickly, regardless of time zone differences.

While consumer checkout options are available, they’re currently mainly found within businesses built around cryptocurrency – like trading platforms, games, and spaces for content creators – and in a few areas dealing with international transactions, according to Cohen.

Currently, most businesses aren’t seeing stablecoins take the place of credit and debit cards for purchases. Instead, stablecoins are proving most useful as a way to handle payments and settlements more efficiently behind the scenes.

One key factor is how disagreements are handled. Credit and debit cards are widely accepted because customers know they can get their money back through chargebacks or refunds, and have certain protections. Stablecoins don’t currently offer a similar, standardized system for resolving issues or providing those same guarantees.

How deals are presented highlights a major trend: the biggest acquisitions in 2026 all focused on infrastructure. For example, Mastercard agreed to purchase BVNK for as much as $1.8 billion, and Stripe bought Bridge for $1.1 billion in 2024.

How orchestration fits between Visa, Stripe and Circle

Cohen believes that combining services actually *helps* neutral platforms, instead of weakening them. Businesses selling internationally generally prefer not to rely on a single company for every country they operate in.

According to Cohen, no single payment provider – whether it’s credit cards, alternative payment methods, or stablecoins – is a complete solution. Businesses want the flexibility to choose from options like Circle, Tether, PayPal, traditional banks, and smaller regional providers as the payment landscape develops.

This idea connects with the changes we’re seeing in how businesses handle payments, thanks to the GENIUS Act. In early 2026, the Treasury Department, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation all began developing new rules, and we expect the final guidelines to be released by July.

Cohen noted that the increased clarity is beneficial, but challenges still exist regarding how different rules apply depending on whether it’s a state or federal matter, if the issuer is foreign, and how reserves are handled across international borders.

Where agentic commerce changes the math

As an analyst, I’m watching the rise of AI-agent payments closely. What’s particularly interesting is Coinbase’s x402 protocol – it’s already handled over 165 million transactions from these agents, totaling around $50 million. I see this as a significant structural change in how payments are being processed.

According to Cohen, automated payments can happen anytime, are often small and frequent, based on actual usage, and controlled through APIs. He believes these types of transactions aren’t well-suited for traditional credit card networks and will likely be settled using stablecoins and automated, pre-set rules.

He believes the core system needs to grow beyond simply processing payments. It should become a central controller for all kinds of economic interactions between people, automated programs, businesses, and payment networks.

Cohen doesn’t believe stablecoins will be a common way for customers to pay in stores within the next year and a half. However, he anticipates they will see increased use in areas like settling payments, managing company funds, business payments, international transfers, online marketplaces, and new types of automated commerce.

Stablecoins, he said, are an addition to the payment stack, not a replacement for it.

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2026-05-27 21:02