Answer

How do businesses accept crypto payments?

Updated October 2026. Evergreen page — refreshed in place as facts change.

Stablecoins

USDC, USDT

On payment links and invoices

Networks

3 chains

Ethereum, Solana; USDT also on Tron

Payment window

30 min

For the customer to send the amount

Ethereum finality

12 blocks

About 2½ minutes before it counts as paid

Chargebacks

None

Confirmed on-chain payments can't be pulled back

Where it lands

Your wallet

The business's own non-custodial address

Back to dollars

Same day

By ACH, Fedwire or RTP

Stablecoin supply

$300B+

All issuers, 2026 (industry trackers)

Learning how to accept crypto payments takes an afternoon; running acceptance as a business process — records, conversion policy, refunds, tax — is where the real decisions live. Stablecoins have made the first part ordinary: more than $300 billion of them circulated in 2026 by industry trackers' counts, and a USDC or USDT invoice is paid in dollar-denominated tokens that arrive in minutes, any day of the week.

This page covers the three ways to set acceptance up, which assets and networks to take, how a stablecoin checkout actually works step by step on Anytime Capital, what you need to switch it on, the convert-or-hold decision, refunds without chargebacks, costs, and the records your accountant needs.

What are the ways a business can accept crypto?

Direct-to-wallet is simplest: publish an address, receive funds, keep full control — but you build your own matching, records and conversion workflow. Payment processors bolt crypto onto an existing checkout and usually auto-convert, at a processing cost and with another intermediary holding funds in between. A platform account (the middle path) puts crypto on your existing payment links and invoices, pays into a wallet the business controls, and converts on demand at desk rates with records built in.

Most businesses of any size land on the third: control comparable to direct acceptance, operations comparable to a processor.

Which cryptocurrencies and networks should a business accept?

Stablecoins first: USDC and USDT payments are dollar-denominated, so the invoice amount and the received amount match — which is why B2B crypto invoicing has standardized on them. Add BTC and ETH for audiences that prefer paying in majors, and anything beyond that only if your specific customers hold it.

The network matters as much as the token. The same USDC exists on several blockchains, and a payment sent on the wrong one won't arrive where you expect, so name the token and the network together. On Anytime Capital, a business chooses which of five token-network pairs its checkout offers, and the checkout counts a payment as paid only once it can no longer be undone on that chain.

How does a stablecoin payment work, step by step?

On Anytime Capital, stablecoins sit alongside cards on the same payment links and invoices. The customer picks a token and network, and the checkout shows the exact amount, the business's receiving address and a QR code. They have 30 minutes to send it, from any wallet or exchange. The checkout watches the chain, shows the payment as confirming, and marks it paid once it reaches the finality rule for that network — at which point it is recorded against the invoice with its dollar value.

Real payments don't always arrive as asked, so the checkout handles the common cases. A short payment is marked underpaid and the window stays open 15 more minutes for the rest. An overpayment is still paid, and flagged so you can return the difference. A payment after the window closes is flagged late rather than lost. And every incoming payment is screened; one that raises a screening hit is held for review rather than credited automatically.

What does a business need to switch on stablecoin checkout?

Four things, set in Settings → Stablecoins. The business has to be verified, and Anytime Capital Payments has to be set up, because stablecoins are offered on the same payment links and invoices as cards. You choose which token-network pairs to take. And for each network, an owner or admin chooses the receiving address from the business wallet's own addresses and confirms it — addresses are never typed in.

That last rule is a security feature. The checkout re-checks the receiving address against the business wallet's records every time it opens a payment, so if the wallet is replaced, the old address stops taking payments until someone confirms the new one — an attacker can't quietly swap in their own address. Two limits are worth knowing: stablecoin checkout isn't available in test mode, because a stablecoin payment is a real transfer on a real network, and it can't run while checkout adds sales tax automatically, because that calculation happens in the card checkout, which a payment straight to your wallet doesn't pass through.

• Business verification complete (Settings → Verification)
• Anytime Capital Payments set up, so links and invoices exist to pay
• At least one token-network pair chosen
• A receiving address chosen from the business wallet and confirmed, per network
• Test mode off, and automatic sales tax at checkout off

Should a business convert crypto payments to dollars or hold them?

Decide before the first payment: convert on receipt, or hold? Convert-on-receipt ends every payment cycle in dollars and removes market risk entirely — the right default for businesses without a treasury mandate. Holding is a treasury decision that should be sized and documented like one.

Stablecoin acceptance mostly dissolves the question: a USDC invoice is dollars the whole way through, and many businesses keep stablecoin receipts as stablecoins to pay overseas suppliers or contractors, converting only what payroll and rent need. On Anytime Capital, sales settle back to dollars the same day by ACH, Fedwire or RTP, paid to a bank account in the business's name.

How do refunds work without chargebacks?

Confirmed on-chain payments are final — there's no card issuer to reverse them. That eliminates chargebacks and the fees and fraud that come with them; refunds become your store policy, executed on your terms.

Write the policy before you need it. Refund stablecoins in the same token and network they arrived on. For BTC or ETH, decide whether you refund the original dollar value or the original coin amount, and say so on the invoice or terms. Always confirm the refund address with the customer through a channel you already trust: a refund sent to a wrong address is as final as the payment was.

• Same token and network as the original payment
• A stated rule for volatile coins: original dollar value or original coin amount
• The refund address confirmed by the customer, not copied from a new email
• Overpayments returned promptly, against the flagged payment

What does accepting crypto cost compared with cards?

The structure is different, not just the size. A card payment carries interchange and processing fees on every sale, plus dispute exposure for months afterwards. A stablecoin payment's network fee is paid by the sender, there's no chargeback exposure, and your main cost arrives later, as the spread when you convert to dollars. Our own pricing is published on the fees and limits page and nowhere else.

The difference compounds for cross-border customers: an international wire can take one to five business days through correspondent banks, each of which may deduct a fee, while a stablecoin payment arrives in minutes, on a weekend as readily as a weekday.

Records, taxes and the accountant

Every payment received is revenue valued in dollars at receipt — that's your income record and the asset's cost basis in one. If you later convert at a different price, the difference is gain or loss. Platform-account acceptance records those values automatically against each invoice; direct-to-wallet acceptance means you maintain them.

Sales tax, invoicing rules and information reporting all apply exactly as with card revenue: crypto changes the rail, not the obligations. This is general information, not tax advice.