The Green Sheet Online Edition
June 6, 2025 • 25:06:02
Bitcoin, stablecoins and the point of sale
Stablecoins seem to be all the rage these days, with merchants exploring ways they can issue or use stablecoins, and lawmakers debating what guardrails are needed to regulate this newly emerging payment method. Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies pegged to dollars or any other currency or value asset (like gold).
Stablecoins aren't the only cryptocurrencies garnering attention for the point of sale, either. Because bitcoin is starting to show up at the point of sale as well.
It's a $2 trillion market
Block Inc. just disclosed plans to launch bitcoin payments on Square. The rollout is expected to begin in the second half of the year.
"Block has long been a champion of Bitcoin, focused on making it more accessible and usable in our everyday lives," said Miles Suter, Bitcoin product lead at Block. "Rolling out a native Bitcoin experience to millions of sellers brings us one step closer to that goal.
When a coffee shop or retail store can accept bitcoin through Square, small businesses get paid faster, and get to keep more of their revenue." This, Suter added, is about economic empowerment for merchants who like to have options when it comes to accepting payments.
For customers, paying with bitcoin is as simple as scanning a QR code at checkout. The ecommerce platform Shopify also just revealed it is accepting bitcoin payments. Merchants can receive payouts in the US Dollar Coin stablecoin, their local currency or simply hold the bitcoin.
Meanwhile, Steak ’n Shake recently began accepting bitcoin. With 450 quick-serve restaurants, it is one of the first major U.S. brick-and-mortar fast-food chains to roll out bitcoin acceptance chain-wide. Chipotle, another fast-food giant, has been accepting nearly 100 cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin, at its 3,700 locations nationwide since 2022 using Flexa’s SPEDN app.
Jason Keil, founder and CEO of Polaris Payments, mentioned that stablecoins are popular, but they aren't inflation proof. They are typically tied to the U.S. dollar or some other fiat currency which is subject to inflation; bitcoin, on the other hand, tends to grow in value, he noted.
"I help enable and help onboard merchants to accept bitcoin in their businesses," Keil said. And he helps them decide what to do with the bitcoin they accept: hold or convert to fiat currencies. Keil also runs a consultancy, BitcoinPaymentsAdvisor.com.
"Bitcoin is a $2 trillion asset," Keil noted. "The store of value use case is pretty obvious. You've got retail investors, institutions, publicly traded companies and nation states, all using bitcoin as a store of value. The next phase is payments."
Keil added, "As time goes on, I believe the medium of exchange era will grow." And as such it will compete with the Visa-Mastercard duopoly. "Now we're not talking overnight; we're talking gradually over years," he said.The rationale for merchant interest in accepting bitcoin is pretty obvious, Keil noted, as the number one problem they face is inflation. "If you had put $100 under your mattress 100 years ago, today it would only be worth $1. It would have lost 99 percent of its value," he said.
Bitcoin, on the other hand, tends to accrue value. In 2016, a single bitcoin was worth about $100. Today it's worth over $100,000.
The best way to help merchants going forward isn't dual pricing, or chopping off basis points, according to Keil. "It's accepting a form of money that stores value over time," he said. "The cost of living for those who save their money in the form of bitcoin goes down every year."
Steak 'n Shake, he noted, is holding on to the bitcoin it receives from customers.
Square will help millions of merchants accept bitcoin
Square supporting acceptance of bitcoin is big news, Keil said. "Four million or so merchants are going to start being able to accept bitcoin," he said. Those merchants can convert bitcoin to fiat currencies, like the dollar, or not. "That's one of the things we help merchants with, making that kind of decision," Keil said.
Bitcoin payments on Square is the latest addition to Block's growing Bitcoin ecosystem, which includes Cash App's bitcoin buy, sell and transfer capabilities; Bitkey, a self-custody Bitcoin wallet; Proto, a suite of Bitcoin mining products and services; and Spira, which builds and funds open-source projects that advance the use of bitcoin, Block explained in a press release.
Congress advances stablecoin legislation
It's not just bitcoin that has captured the imagination of Americans. The U.S. Senate just approved the GENIUS (Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins) Act, which seeks to mainstream stablecoins.
Introduced by Senator Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., in early May, the GENIUS Act has bipartisan support as well as bipartisan opposition. The legislation now moves for a vote in the U.S. House where a similar bill is pending that mirrors closely the GENIUS Act. It's called the STABLE (Stablecoin Transparency and Accountability for Better Ledger Economy) Act.
Proponents assert that stablecoin legislation will legitimize the asset class and help preserve the dominance of the U.S. dollar in financial systems. Opponents have raised concerns about long-term stability and lack of adequate consumer protections.
The GENIUS Act, which passed the Senate on a vote of 68 in favor and 30 opposed (including two Republicans), establishes a regulatory framework for stablecoins, along with explicit monthly reserve disclosures, and audited reports for issuers with over $50 billion in stablecoins outstanding. It includes explicit monthly reserve disclosures and requires audited issuer reports.
Several members of Congress tried to attach favored bills to the GENIUS Act, including Senator Dick Durbin, D-Ill., but those moves were cut short when the Senate voted to end debate just before the Memorial Day weekend and proceed with the legislation without amendments.
(Senator Durbin had planned to attach the Credit Card Competition Act to the bill. That legislation would have required merchants be allowed to choose which payment networks their transactions get processed over, only one of which could be owned by Mastercard and Visa.)
The STABLE Act, authored by Representatives French Hill, R-Ark., and Bryan Steil, R-Wisc., sets reserve mandates and licensing procedures, but also contains provisions for multi-state oversight.
It requires issuers to maintain reserves backing the stablecoins they hold on a one-to-one basis using U.S. currency or other similarly liquid assets. They also must publicly disclose their redemption policies and make public details of their reserves.
The STABLE Act was approved by the House Financial Services Committee, which is chaired by Hill, but has not yet been presented for a vote before the entire House. Once it is approved by the full House, a special committee will be appointed to iron out the differences between it and the GENIUS Act, and presented to the House and Senate for final votes before it can be signed into law.
That will need to happen in short order, as President Trump indicated he wants to sign into law a stablecoin bill by August.
Stablecoin use is soaring
The list of companies joining the stablecoin movement and the quantity of stablecoins in circulation grows seemingly day by day. According to the World Economic Forum, 12 billion stablecoins were in circulation in 2020, up from 2 billion the year before. This year the total is expected to hit 208 billion.
The Forum estimated the total transfer volume hit $27.6 trillion last year, surpassing the volume of Visa and Mastercard transactions in 2024.
Because stablecoins are pegged to reserve assets, "they tend to maintain a constant value and do not experience severe price fluctuations seen amongst other types of cryptocurrencies," the WEF noted in a recent paper. Most stablecoins are pegged to the U.S. dollar, although there are stablecoins linked to other currencies. For example, there is EURC, which is pegged to the euro, and GYEN, which is pegged to the Japanese yen.
Recently, Standard Chartered Bank stated it was partnering with cryptocurrency companies to launch a stablecoin pegged to the Hong Kong dollar. PayPal also has a stablecoin (PYUSD), which it describes as being backed by "highly liquid assets."
Merchants, Fiserv want in on action
The Wall Street Journal reported that some of the largest merchants in the country, including Amazon and Walmart, want to get in on the stablecoin action, with an eye toward shifting cash and card transactions and saving billions of dollars in processing fees. According to the Journal's reporting, the retailers are waiting to see what happens with the legislative process before making any moves.
Not to be left out of the action, Fiserv is developing the infrastructure needed for its merchants to accept cryptocurrencies, Mike Lyons, the company's CEO, said in a presentation at the Baird Global Consumer, Technology and Services Conference on June 3, 2025, according to reporting by Payments Dive. Lyons said the impetus is retailer customers looking for a cheaper alternative to interchange. Shares of both Visa and Mastercard dropped in response to the news.
Patti Murphy is senior editor at Green Sheet and president of ProScribes Ink, (www.proscribes.net). You can also follow her blog, Today in Payments, at (Todayinpayments.com), and her podcast, Merchant Sales Podcast, co-hosted with James Shepherd at wwww.ccsalespro.com/podcast.
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