Crypto as a Means of Payment: Opportunities, Risks, Decision Aid

Should you accept crypto as a means of payment?

A customer from overseas asks whether he can settle the invoice in Bitcoin. An employee suggests offering crypto payments in the online shop because it looks modern. A competitor already advertises it. Then the question is on the table, and it is usually asked the wrong way.

The question is rarely whether crypto-assets are a good thing. It is whether your customers want to pay with them and what accepting them costs your business. Crypto-assets are digital assets transferred via a blockchain, a jointly maintained, tamper-resistant ledger. A means of payment only becomes interesting for you when it brings revenue you would not otherwise have, or lowers costs you bear today.

This article therefore covers only the acceptance of payments. Holding crypto-assets among your business assets is the subject of the article on Bitcoin on the balance sheet. Here we first clarify how widespread paying with crypto-assets is and which ways of accepting them exist, then weigh opportunities against risks, summarize the legal and tax situation, and end with the four-question filter.

How common is paying with crypto-assets really?

The European Central Bank (ECB) regularly surveys consumers in the euro area about how they pay. In the survey for 2024, with around 41,000 respondents, 9 percent said they owned crypto-assets. In 2022 it had been 4 percent.

Owning, however, does not mean paying. According to the ECB, most owners use crypto-assets only as an investment, as the figures for Germany show.

On the business side the picture is similar. In spring 2026 the ECB asked a total of 8,205 companies from retail, restaurants and cafés, hotels, and arts, entertainment and recreation in all 21 euro area countries which means of payment they accept.

Crypto-assets do not appear in the ECB's press release at all. According to a report by the industry outlet Cointelegraph on the same survey, fewer than 1 percent of the companies surveyed accept crypto-assets at the point of sale, and 0.2 percent in online sales. I have both values only second-hand, though the order of magnitude fits the consumer figures.

Alrehaili, White, and Beloff (2024) reviewed 124 studies on the adoption of cryptocurrencies. According to their review, awareness and ownership are highest among young, well-educated men with good computer skills. Studies on crypto-assets as a means of payment mostly took the customer's perspective. Robust knowledge from the merchant's point of view is thin.

What are the ways to accept crypto payments?

Anyone accepting crypto payments essentially has three options. They differ in who bears the price risk and who holds the technical responsibility. A wallet here is the digital purse that holds the access keys to the crypto-assets.

For most small businesses the middle route is the obvious one. You offer customers the payment method and receive euros. The price risk stays outside your books. Which fees, payout periods, and liability rules apply is set out in the provider's contract and should be read before signing.

The provider itself thereby becomes an important business partner. Since the end of 2024, providers of crypto-asset services in the EU have needed authorization under the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation. Whether a provider has it can be checked. How to go about that is described in the guide on due diligence on business partners.

What opportunities does crypto offer as a means of payment?

The advantages lie less at the till around the corner than in business across borders.

• Cross-border payments. Transfers to some countries and currencies take days and pass through several banks. In a professional article on payments, Shukanayev (2026) describes how stablecoins backed by traditional currencies can shorten the time to final settlement, especially for cross-border payments and exotic currency pairs. At the same time, he notes, new operational, counterparty, compliance, and technical risks arise.
• New customer groups. Guinalíu, Liébana-Cabanillas, and Jordán (2026) ran an online survey of 515 active Bitcoin users in Spain from January to May 2022, recruited through partners from the crypto industry. Two thirds were men, a good two thirds were younger than 36, and three quarters had a university education. The intention to pay with Bitcoin in retail depended mainly on expected benefit, social environment, enjoyment, and willingness to take risks. The study thus describes a small, committed group and not walk-in customers.
• No chargebacks. A confirmed payment on the blockchain cannot be reversed unilaterally. For merchants who suffer from unjustified chargebacks this is an advantage. For customer protection and in the event of your own mistakes it is a disadvantage.
• Availability. Payments are possible around the clock, including weekends and public holidays.

In a professional paper, Birch and Taylor (2026) classify stablecoins as an innovation that has found real demand in cross-border payments and has arrived in mainstream finance through European and US regulation. They write for financial institutions. For a trade business little follows from this; for an exporter with customers outside Europe, possibly more.

Which risks do you need to know?

The best-known risk is the price. In a literature review, Agrawal, Mani, and Varshney (2023) conclude that because of its high volatility Bitcoin is better classified as a speculative investment than as a substitute for cash. As advantages in payments they name low transaction costs and divisibility.

A worked example shows what a swing means for a single invoice. Suppose you invoice 10,000 euros and your margin is 15 percent, that is 1,500 euros. The customer pays in a crypto-asset, and you do not convert until a few days later.

A price drop equal to your margin leaves you with an order that earns nothing. That is why the decision about conversion matters more than the decision about acceptance. If you convert immediately, you are handling payments. If you hold, you are speculating with business assets. How to structure such decisions is covered in the article on deciding under uncertainty.

What applies in legal and tax terms?

The framework in the EU is set by the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation, MiCA for short, officially Regulation (EU) 2023/1114. The rules for stablecoins have applied since June 30, 2024, and the remaining rules, including the authorization requirement for crypto-asset service providers, since December 30, 2024. In Germany the responsible authority is the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin).

How the industry experiences the regulation was explored by Mkrtchyan and Treiblmaier (2025) in twelve interviews with lawyers and compliance officers from crypto companies, law firms, a regulatory body, and academia. As benefits the interviewees named better investor protection, clearer requirements, and the unified market: an authorization in one member state is valid across the EU. As drawbacks they named open questions of interpretation, overlaps with other financial rules, and costs that small providers struggle to bear. The fact that providers from third countries need an entity of their own in the EU can, in their view, raise fees for customers. Twelve interviews are not statistics. For you this means that you can choose among authorized providers from across the EU and should compare fees.

For you as a merchant, the regulation's obligations fall mainly on issuers and service providers. If you only accept payments through an authorized provider, you do not, as I understand it, generally need an authorization of your own. As soon as you hold custody, exchange, or broker for others yourself, things look different. Clarify this in advance.

For tax purposes your revenue remains revenue in euros. For value added tax, the German tax authorities look to the equivalent value at the time of the transaction. If you hold crypto-assets after receiving payment and convert later, you may additionally have price gains or losses to record. The details depend on legal form, method of profit determination, and the individual case. They belong in a conversation with your tax adviser before the first payment arrives.

The four-question filter: is a trial worthwhile for your business?

Whether crypto payments fit your business is something I settle with four questions in a fixed order. If you get stuck on one question, you do not need to answer the ones that follow. You should be collecting the figures for the first question anyway, as the essay on data-driven decisions shows.

1. Is anyone asking for it?

   Count the genuine requests of the past twelve months. Without customer demand, the payment method is a showpiece.

2. Does it solve a problem you have today?

   Expensive or slow international transfers, chargebacks, customers without access to common payment methods. If card, bank transfer, and direct debit run smoothly, the reason is missing.

3. Can you convert into euros immediately?

   Is there an authorized provider that fits your shop, till, and bookkeeping, and whose fees are below the benefit?

4. Who is responsible?

   One person who knows the procedure, reconciles payments, and is the contact for the tax adviser and the provider.

A means of payment has exactly one job in a business: to make paying easier for the customer and to bring you the money safely.

If all four questions are answered with yes, a limited trial is worthwhile: one customer group, a ceiling per payment, immediate conversion, a three-month term. Incoming payments belong in the same workflow as any other invoice. What that workflow should look like is described in the guide on optimizing order processing.

What you can put into practice right away

One hour of preparation is enough for a reasoned decision, even if the decision is no.

• Ask sales and customer service how often customers have asked about crypto payment in the past twelve months.
• Write down what international payments and chargebacks cost you last year.
• Go through the four-question filter and record the result with a date.
• If a trial is an option: compare two authorized payment service providers on fees, payout period, and liability.
• Clarify with your tax adviser how incoming payments are recorded and documented.
• Set down in writing that payments are converted into euros immediately, and who may deviate from that.
• Schedule a date in six months to review the decision with new figures.

Back to the opening question of whether your customers want to pay with crypto-assets and what accepting them costs. In the euro area, crypto-assets have so far been held mainly as an investment and play a very small role in commerce. The opportunities for international payments are offset by price swings, irreversible payments, and extra effort, although the price risk can largely be avoided by converting to euros immediately. What tips the balance is therefore the actual demand from your customers, not the headlines.