You sell a course to students scattered across 20 countries. Today you collect through Stripe in USD, pay 3.99% + US$0.30 per transaction, lose another 2-4% on FX to get BRL, and wait 7 business days for settlement. With a crypto payment gateway, the student pays in USDT straight to your wallet, you receive instantly, zero FX, zero banking intermediary — and total cost lands below 2%. This guide explains how it works, when it makes sense, the real risks, and how to pick a trustworthy provider.
A crypto payment gateway is a platform that lets a business accept cryptocurrency payments (USDT, USDC, BTC, ETH) via API, with automatic wallet address generation, real-time on-chain confirmation, and confirmation webhooks. In practice, it abstracts the technical complexity of interacting with the blockchain, multi-sig wallets, and FX conversion, delivering a REST API as simple as any traditional payment API.
Professional crypto gateways in 2026 focus on stablecoins (USDT, USDC) far more than on pure Bitcoin. Reason: stablecoins carry near-zero volatility, settle instantly on L2 networks (Polygon, Arbitrum), and cost under US$0.10 per transaction in gas fees. For a digital business, stablecoin is digital money — not a “volatile investment”.
/v2/crypto/charges with the USD amount, preferred network (ERC-20, Polygon, Tron), and metadata.Total time: 30-60 seconds on L2 networks, 5-10 minutes on Bitcoin L1. Far faster than international bank wires (3-7 days) and with fees 10-20x lower.
BSPay integrates crypto payments into a unified hub. Your checkout accepts USDT and USDC on Polygon, Tron, ERC-20, and BSC networks — on the same API that already handles PIX, cards, and LATAM rails. Unique address per transaction, automatic AML screening through Chainalysis, reliable retry webhooks, and automatic conversion to fiat via integrated off-ramp at a competitive spread (under 0.5%).
Ideal for operations selling globally (digital products, SaaS, courses, consulting) that want to eliminate FX and wire-transfer friction. Fees from 1% negotiable by volume. Automatic tax reports aligned with local authority requirements. Our implementation team handles the integration in 5-10 business days, with basic legal consulting included. More than 30,000 companies already run on BSPay. See the full stack on the home or talk to a specialist.
In most major jurisdictions, yes. Brazil regulates VASPs under Law 14,478/2022; the EU applies the MiCA framework; the US requires FinCEN registration for service providers. Merchants who accept crypto as payment have tax obligations and must report transactions above certain thresholds — professional gateways automate this reporting.
Depends on the network: Polygon and Tron confirm in 10-30 seconds; BSC in about 5s; ERC-20 in 1-3 minutes; Bitcoin L1 in 10-60 minutes (or instant via Lightning). Professional gateways support “0-confirmation” for low-value transactions (trusting the mempool before network confirmation) for faster UX.
Sending to the wrong address (wrong network, manually typed address) is irreversible — the blockchain has no “chargeback”. Modern gateways generate a unique address per transaction plus a QR code with the network embedded, eliminating error risk. A customer scanning the QR with the correct wallet can’t pick the wrong network.
USDT and USDC are backed 1:1 by USD and historically hold the peg within 0.5% variation. In extreme events (for example, custodian bank failures) they can temporarily drift. For short-term payments (seconds between charge and conversion) the risk is near zero. For long-term holding (months stored in USDT), consider immediate conversion to fiat or a banking wallet.
Stripe charges 3.99% + US$0.30 + 1-2% FX to convert USD into local currency = ~5-6% total. A professional crypto gateway charges 1-2% total (with off-ramp included). That’s 3-4% saved on international transactions — for a US$500 ticket, US$15-20 saved per transaction.
No — the business receiving the payment doesn’t. Licenses are required for VASPs (exchanges, crypto custodians). By using a licensed crypto gateway, it operates under its own authorization and you simply receive the final amount (in crypto or converted to fiat).
Yes, absolutely. It’s the most common setup in 2026 for digital businesses — accepting only stablecoins (USDT + USDC) removes volatility and simplifies compliance. BTC and ETH remain as options for specific niches (crypto-native communities).