Stablecoins are no longer a crypto-native experiment. They are becoming a global payments network, quietly, quickly, and at real scale.
Every month, trillions of dollars move on stablecoin rails, driven by use cases that look far more like traditional finance than speculation: cross‑border payments, instant settlement, treasury management, and increasingly, payroll.
This shift matters for one simple reason:
People being paid in stablecoins don’t want to save them. They want to spend them.
That reality is creating one of the largest and most underserved opportunities in payments today.
Stablecoin volume is exploding, because it works and behaves like money
Stablecoins have become the most practical way to move digital value globally:
- Near‑instant settlement, 24/7
- Predictable value (no volatility surprises)
- Lower fees than cards and wires
- Borderless by default
As a result, stablecoin transaction volumes have surged into the trillions of dollars per month, rivaling, and in some periods surpassing, traditional card networks in raw throughput.
One widely cited stat: stablecoins processed $46T in onchain transactions in 2025, with monthly adjusted volume hitting ~$1.25T in September.
This growth isn’t driven by traders. It’s driven by real economic activity.
And payroll is emerging as one of the most important sources of that activity.
People are getting paid in stablecoins and at scale
What started with crypto-native companies paying remote teams has expanded into mainstream payroll infrastructure.
Today, stablecoin payroll is being actively built into HR and payment platforms used by thousands of businesses worldwide.
Examples include:
Toku (via Polygon): stablecoin payroll at scale
Toku announced stablecoin payroll on Polygon, noting it processes $1B+ in annual token payroll volume and supports 100+ jurisdictions.
Deel: funding payroll in USDC
Deel introduced the ability for businesses to fund payroll in USDC, building on earlier “crypto withdrawals” for contractors.
RiseWorks: stablecoin payroll as a core withdrawal preference
Rise reports it has paid out $650M+ to global teams, and says over half of contractors choose to withdraw earnings in stablecoins like USDC.
Bitwage: early payroll leader with meaningful volume
Bitwage is a crypto payroll company. Bitwage has stated it serves 4,500+ companies and 90,000 users, and was on track for $400M+ in payroll transactions (annualized).
Gusto (with zeroHash): mainstream HR testing stablecoin payouts
Gusto is piloting stablecoin payouts for international contractors via zeroHash, aiming to cut cross-border payout times significantly.
What began with crypto-native payroll providers paying teams entirely in stablecoins has now expanded further; traditional payroll platforms are actively adopting stablecoin rails to reduce costs, speed up international payouts, and modernize settlement.
The takeaway:
Stablecoin payroll is no longer niche. It’s becoming a standard feature.
The U.S. payroll opportunity alone is massive
To understand the size of what’s coming, look at wages.
Total wages and salaries paid in the United States are approximately $11.7 trillion per year — nearly $1 trillion every month.
That means:
- $975+ billion is paid to workers every month in the U.S. alone
Now consider even modest stablecoin penetration:
- 0.1% of monthly payroll → ~$1B in stablecoins
- 1% → ~$10B per month
- 5% → nearly $50B per month
And that’s just the U.S.
Global payroll is many multiples larger.
Stablecoins don’t need to replace payroll systems to matter; they just need to capture a fraction of how people get paid.
Payroll solved the hard part. Spending didn’t.
Getting paid in stablecoins solves real problems:
- Faster access to earnings
- Lower cross‑border fees
- No banking delays
- Global accessibility
But once the paycheck lands in a wallet, a new question appears:
“How do I actually spend this?”
Today, most workers paid in stablecoins still face friction:
- Off‑ramping to a bank account
- Paying conversion and withdrawal fees
- Waiting days to access funds
- Relying on limited crypto‑native merchant acceptance
In other words:
Stablecoins fixed how people get paid. Payments haven’t caught up.
The paycheck‑to‑purchase gap is the real opportunity
Payroll creates something powerful: recurring distribution.
Every pay cycle puts spendable value directly into wallets.
If even a portion of that value stays in‑wallet and flows directly to merchants, stablecoins move from infrastructure to everyday money.
The loop looks like this:
- Get paid in stablecoins
- Keep funds in your wallet
- Pay at checkout with crypto
- Repeat next pay cycle
This is how stablecoin volume turns into real retail payment volume.
But it only works if paying with crypto feels familiar, predictable, and reliable, for users and for businesses.
Why acceptance is the missing layer
Merchants and PSPs don’t want to rebuild their payment stacks.
They don’t want:
- new routing logic
- crypto‑specific reconciliation
- operational complexity
- unpredictable settlement
They want crypto payments to behave like any other payment method.
That’s exactly where WalletConnect Pay fits.
Where those stablecoins live: embedded wallets and self-custody
As stablecoin payroll scales, the applications paying people are increasingly holding funds directly in wallets, either through embedded wallet experiences or through users’ own self-custodial wallets.
Many modern payroll, fintech, and consumer applications now use embedded wallets to receive and hold stablecoin balances on behalf of users. In these cases, WalletConnect is already part of the stack, providing the standard connection layer that allows those balances to be used seamlessly across the broader wallet and payments ecosystem.
At the same time, many workers choose to receive their pay directly into self-custodial wallets they already trust, including wallets like MetaMask, OKX Wallet, Binance Wallet, and Zerion. These wallets are natively integrated with WalletConnect, making them instantly compatible with applications and checkout flows that support WalletConnect Pay.
Whether funds live in an embedded wallet or a self-custodial one, the result is the same: users already hold spendable stablecoins in WalletConnect-enabled wallets. The remaining unlock is giving them a simple, familiar way to pay.
WalletConnect Pay: helping people pay with their crypto
WalletConnect Pay is a complete, end‑to‑end crypto payment solution that allows PSPs and merchants to accept crypto payments from any wallet, using any asset, through a single, familiar integration.
For people paid in stablecoins, this means:
- Pay with the wallet you already trust
- Use the asset you already have
- Enjoy a familiar checkout experience
- Get instant confirmation
For PSPs and merchants, it means:
- One APM‑style integration
- No changes to existing payment flows
- Predictable settlement and reconciliation
- PSP‑grade reliability at a global scale
WalletConnect Pay makes stablecoin spending feel normal because it fits into the systems businesses already rely on.
This is why stablecoin payments are happening now
Three forces are converging:
- Stablecoin payroll is scaling
- Wallet adoption is mainstream
- Merchants want lower‑cost, global payments
The remaining unlock is acceptance, turning earned stablecoins into everyday spending.
That’s not a future problem. It’s a new problem.
Conclusion: people don’t want to save their paycheck; they want to use it
Stablecoins have already crossed the hardest threshold: real usage at real scale.
Payroll proves it.
The next phase is simple: Make spending as easy as getting paid.
WalletConnect Pay does exactly that, helping people pay with their crypto while letting businesses accept stablecoin payments through the systems they already use.
As more workers get paid in stablecoins, the payment providers who enable them to spend will define the next era of global payments.
People are getting paid in stablecoins. It’s time to let them pay.