Stablecoin payments stay behind checkout: BridgerPay

Stablecoin payments run through settlement and B2B rails, not consumer checkout, BridgerPay CEO Ran Cohen said.

Stablecoin payments are running through global settlement and B2B rails rather than consumer checkout pages, BridgerPay co-founder Ran Cohen said in an interview. Stablecoin transaction volume crossed $33 trillion in 2025.

Cohen’s view runs against the assumption that the surge will push “pay with USDC” buttons into mainstream e-commerce. Mastercard’s $1.8 billion BVNK deal, has reframed the race as a contest over invisible plumbing.

Why BridgerPay sees the checkout button staying rare

“The demand and implementation is infrastructure-led, not checkout-led,” Cohen said. He pointed to cross-border settlement, B2B payouts, treasury, and liquidity management as the dominant use cases.

Pain points sharpen in emerging markets, he added, where local holidays and weekends slow SWIFT funding. Stablecoins reduce fees, settle near-instantly, and free up working capital across time zones.

Consumer checkout exists, Cohen said, but mostly inside crypto-native businesses, trading platforms, gaming, creator ecosystems, and select cross-border verticals.

“For the average mainstream merchant, stablecoins are not replacing cards at checkout,” he said. “Their main utility will be as a programmable settlement layer.”

Part of the reason is dispute resolution. Cards work because consumers understand chargebacks, refunds, and credit protections that stablecoins do not yet offer in any standardised form.

The framing matters because 2026’s largest deals all targeted infrastructure. Mastercard agreed to buy BVNK for up to $1.8 billion. Stripe paid $1.1 billion for Bridge in 2024.

How orchestration fits between Visa, Stripe and Circle

Cohen argued consolidation strengthens, rather than threatens, neutral orchestration layers. Merchants in cross-border flows rarely want to depend on one provider across every market.

“No single provider is perfect, not in cards, not in APMs, and not in stablecoins,” Cohen said. He said merchants want optionality across Circle, Tether, PayPal, banks, and regional providers as the stack matures.

That argument lines up with how the GENIUS Act rollout is reshaping merchant conversations. The Treasury, OCC, and FDIC have all issued rulemaking in early 2026, with final guidelines expected by July.

Cohen said the clarity is helping but operational complexity remains around state versus federal regimes, foreign issuers, and cross-border treatment of reserves.

Where agentic commerce changes the math

Cohen also flagged AI-agent payments as the next structural shift. Coinbase’s x402 protocol has processed more than 165 million agent transactions and roughly $50 million in cumulative volume.

“Machine-initiated payments can occur 24/7, be high-frequency, low-value, usage-based, and API-driven,” Cohen said. He said those economics do not fit card rails and will default to stablecoin settlement governed by programmable rules.

The orchestration layer, in his view, must evolve from routing a checkout payment to governing economic activity between humans, agents, merchants, and rails.

Cohen does not expect stablecoins to become the default consumer checkout method within 18 months. He does expect growth across settlement, treasury, B2B payouts, cross-border corridors, marketplaces, and agentic commerce.

Stablecoins, he said, are an addition to the payment stack, not a replacement for it.