At Stablecon USA 2026 in Washington, D.C., Pavel Kashuba, Strategic Leader at Coinspaid Solutions, argued that making digital asset payments routine requires operational design rather than simply adding a crypto option at checkout. His main-stage session, “Four in Ten American Businesses Take Crypto. Most of Their Customers Never Notice,” focused on transaction completion and repeat customer behavior as the real measures of adoption.
Kashuba cited a Harris Poll survey for the National Cryptocurrency Association showing that 39% of surveyed U.S. merchants accept crypto at checkout, with crypto accounting for 26% of total sales among those merchants. Another NCA study found that 26.8 million Americans use crypto to shop and pay, representing 40% of U.S. crypto holders. However, he contrasted these figures with the broader stablecoin economy: a McKinsey analysis with Artemis estimated annual stablecoin activity at up to $35 trillion, while actual stablecoin payments were about $390 billion based on December 2025 activity, or roughly 1% of total volume.
Kashuba outlined four decisions determining real usage: placement, currency and network coverage, settlement design, and custody. These choices affect whether customers see the crypto option, transaction cost and processing time, when merchants receive funds and in what form, and who controls assets and responsibility. He noted that infrastructure used by Coinspaid Solutions clients has processed more than €100 billion in volume and over 200 million transactions, grounding the framework in live payment environments.
On settlement and custody, Kashuba said more than 70% of businesses settle crypto payments in fiat, often automatically converting into U.S. dollars or euros through regulated entities or licensed banking partners. He emphasized that custody is a wider operational decision: “The choice depends on how much control your business wants and how much infrastructure it can manage.” Financial institutions can retain control over transaction signing while Coinspaid deploys and maintains underlying technology.
Closing with agentic payments, Kashuba said Amazon’s Buy for Me and Google’s Universal Cart already allow AI systems to complete purchases, while the x402 protocol has recorded more than 100 million transactions on Base. He argued that autonomous commerce will still require visible payment options, suitable network coverage, reliable settlement, and clearly assigned custody.
