Stablecoin payments for business, explained without the hype.

What are stablecoin payments?

A stablecoin payment is a payment made in a token that tracks a national currency, almost always the US dollar, and moves on a public blockchain instead of a card or bank network. A stablecoin is a token whose issuer promises to redeem it for one unit of that currency. A wallet is the app or device that holds the keys to an address on that blockchain; whoever holds the keys controls the money.

The two largest dollar stablecoins are USDC, issued by Circle, and USDT, issued by Tether. Circle reported $73.3 billion of USDC in circulation at the end of June 2026, and $14.8 trillion of onchain USDC transaction volume in that quarter. Tether's attestation release of 31 July 2026 gives about $184.6 billion of USDT issued at the same date. How the two differ for a business is in USDC vs USDT for accepting payments.

Redeeming with Circle itself takes an account there: its USDC terms say "You may not redeem USDC with Circle unless and until you open a Circle Mint account." A business without one turns USDC into bank money through an exchange or another service, and that step sits outside the payment itself.

Who pays businesses in stablecoins?

Stablecoin payers are people who already hold stablecoins: developers and traders with a wallet, people paid in crypto, and buyers for whom a card payment to your country is hard or expensive. Few people set up a wallet and buy USDC just to pay one merchant, so if your customers do not hold stablecoins today, adding the option changes little.

The businesses that get the most out of it sell to that crowd: API and RPC plans, research and newsletters, software licences, communities. Others add stablecoins because a card processor turned them down or does not serve their country. Either way the deciding question is cost and control, and the card side of the arithmetic is worked through in USDC vs card fees.

What does a business take on when it accepts stablecoins?

A business that accepts stablecoins takes on its own wallet security, manual refunds and dollar-value bookkeeping, in exchange for no chargebacks and no money held by a processor. The table sets the two side by side as they work with Fianto today.

The no-chargeback line cuts both ways. Fraudulent disputes disappear, but so does the customer's safety net, which puts the burden of fair refunds on you; chargebacks vs crypto refunds covers how to handle that.

What happens during one stablecoin payment?

One Fianto payment is a single Solana transaction that the customer signs, followed by two checkpoints: confirmed, when the customer sees success, and finalized, when your order is marked paid. Step by step:

1. A checkout session is created, in one of three ways: your server calls the API, a buyer clicks Buy in your shop, or a payer clicks Pay on a payment link.
2. The customer opens the hosted checkout, picks a wallet and signs one transaction. It sends the price straight to your wallet, and any Fianto fee to Fianto's treasury in the same transaction. The wallet only signs; Fianto broadcasts it.
3. Solana confirms the transaction, meaning a supermajority of stake has voted on its block. The checkout page shows the customer success. Your order is not paid yet.
4. Solana finalizes it, the point after which the transfer cannot be reversed. The order becomes PAID and Fianto sends the order.paid and checkout.session.completed webhooks.
5. If you ever refund, you send USDC back from your own wallet. Fianto has no refund button.

What do US and EU rules say about stablecoin payments?

US and EU rules on stablecoins mostly govern the issuers and the platforms that trade them, and both now exist in law. Here is what the primary sources say, as of 15 October 2026.

• United States. The GENIUS Act was signed into law on 18 July 2025. The White House fact sheet says it "requires 100% reserve backing with liquid assets like U.S. dollars or short-term Treasuries" and "requires issuers to make monthly, public disclosures of the composition of reserves".
• European Union. Under MiCA, a stablecoin that tracks one official currency, such as the dollar, is an e-money token, and offering one to the public in the EU needs an authorised issuer (MiCA and stablecoins for EU businesses quotes the articles). ESMA's interim MiCA register lists Circle Internet Financial Europe SAS, authorised by France's ACPR from 1 July 2024. On 8 October 2026 ESMA said that crypto-asset service providers authorised under MiCA "should cease providing services related to non-MiCA-compliant stablecoins to clients in the European Union". The statement names no token.
• Tax (US). The IRS lists stablecoins as digital assets and asks businesses to keep records of the fair market value, in US dollars, of digital assets received as payment. Accounting for USDC revenue lists what to record per payment.

This is not legal or tax advice. Whether a rule applies to your business depends on where you are and what you sell; ask a lawyer or an accountant who knows your country. On Fianto's side, every merchant is reviewed by a person before taking payments, from a typed business profile and a signed proof of the receiving wallet. Fianto calculates and collects no tax.

How can a business start accepting stablecoins?

A business starts accepting USDC on Fianto by creating an account, finishing four setup steps and waiting for approval, then choosing how customers reach the checkout. The four steps are "Who gets paid", "Two-factor sign-in", "The wallet you get paid to" and "Submit for review". No review time is promised.

The money side is short. You pay nothing, never a network fee, and the price you set is what lands in your wallet. There is no Fianto fee during the beta; after it, the customer pays about 0.1 to 0.5% on top of the price. Subscription charges on plans created since 6 October 2026 carry a flat 0.01 USDC network fee today, paid by the customer; one-off payments carry none. Prices run from 0.01 to 1,000,000 USDC. The longer walkthrough is how to accept USDC on Solana, and recurring billing has its own page on stablecoin subscriptions.

When are stablecoin payments the wrong choice?

Stablecoin payments are the wrong choice when your customers have no wallet, or when you need features a wallet-to-wallet system does not have. Keep cards, or pick another provider, if you need any of these:

• Payouts in your bank currency without a separate conversion step. Fianto has no fiat payout.
• Tokens other than USDC, or networks other than Solana. A customer holding USDC elsewhere has to move it first; who pays which network fee along the way is in who pays the fees in a crypto payment.
• Invoices, a test mode or team logins. None of them exists on Fianto today.
• Weekly, quarterly or usage-based billing. Plans renew every 30 days or every 365 days.

If none of that rules you out, the cheapest test is to run stablecoins beside your current checkout for the customers who ask for it, and see what share of them use it.