Block-backed Bitcoin development group Spiral has warned that Bitcoin is still not gaining meaningful traction as everyday money, despite seven years of improvements in payment technology. The warning came in a new report, The Long Road to Bitcoin Payments, published on October 27, 2026, as payment providers such as Stripe, Shopify and PayPal increasingly integrate dollar-backed stablecoins into online commerce and automated payments.
The report notes that more than one million U.S. merchants can now accept Bitcoin through Square, and the Lightning Network has become easier to integrate into payment applications. However, consumer spending remains limited. Spiral says most holders prefer to keep Bitcoin as savings, while merchants generally want stable prices and see little reason to introduce another payment method without customer demand.
Spiral identifies stablecoins as the strongest competition because businesses and consumers can transfer dollar-denominated value without facing Bitcoin’s price volatility. The report points to Shopify’s USDC checkout integration, PayPal’s PYUSD services and Stripe’s acquisition of stablecoin infrastructure provider Bridge. In emerging machine-to-machine payments, Spiral estimates that approximately 99% of payments through Coinbase’s x402 protocol use USDC.
Beyond competition, Spiral says U.S. tax rules create friction: spending Bitcoin generally constitutes a disposal of property, potentially creating taxable gains or losses even for small purchases. The stalled CLARITY Act is cited as another source of uncertainty. The group is now seeking ambitious proposals that could materially change Bitcoin payment adoption within five years, including shared Lightning infrastructure for Bitcoin and dollar-denominated payments, self-custodial options for users facing unstable currencies, spending incentives, and micropayments.
In a related development, Stripe on October 27 introduced Stripe Pay, a free instant business-to-business transfer plug-in that lets companies send money using business profile handles. Both sender and recipient must have qualifying financial accounts, and the service supports payments through the Stripe Dashboard and command-line interface, including authenticated workflows for software agents. Stripe did not disclose transaction volumes for the new service and did not say it settles Stripe Pay transfers through its Tempo blockchain.
Stripe’s broader financial infrastructure continues to expand around stablecoins and AI-agent payments. The company acquired Bridge and Privy, introduced stablecoin-backed cards and programmable wallets, and participated in the Open USD stablecoin network, where Bridge acts as issuer of OUSD. Stripe’s 2025 annual letter estimated stablecoin payment volume reached about $400 billion, with business-to-business transfers accounting for roughly 60% of that activity. Traditional banks, including JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo, are separately exploring tokenized deposit networks, although that work is distinct from private stablecoin services.
Lightning Labs recently opened its Wavelength service on mainnet, allowing AI agents to send Bitcoin payments without managing their own Lightning nodes or channels. The service remains in alpha, with an initial balance ceiling of 300,000 satoshis and a 0.25% service charge on Lightning payments. Stablecoin support is still planned, leaving current public payment functionality focused on Bitcoin.
