On the opening morning of WalletCon, the Trezor booth was set up the way most booths at events of this scale are. Hardware wallets were laid out across the counter, the team was ready to talk to attendees, and a standard card terminal sat at the till, handling every sale. For most merchants, this is simply how retail has always worked, and it is the natural starting point for any booth taking payments at the door.
Card rails are predictable, familiar, and supported almost everywhere. Crypto payments, by contrast, have historically been clunky, wallet-specific, and reserved for a narrow slice of experimental merchants. The gap between what crypto-native buyers expect and what most booths can actually accept is the gap WalletConnect Pay is built to close.
Following early conversations between the two teams, WalletConnect set up WalletConnect Pay at the Trezor booth on the day of the event, and then later at the main EthCC Cannes event. Within hours, Trezor was accepting stablecoin payments directly from any WalletConnect Pay-compatible wallet, and the shift in buyer behaviour was both immediate and measurable. New buyers asked if they could pay directly from their wallet, and the booth moved from card-only to wallet-agnostic crypto checkout in the space of a single afternoon.
This case study captures Trezor's experience running WalletConnect Pay live at the booth: why they said yes, what customers told them on the ground, how the operational side held up, and where they see WalletConnect Pay going next.
A Plug and Play Solution for Trezor
Trezor's mission centres on self-custody and giving people genuine ownership of their crypto. The more seamless it is for users to acquire a hardware wallet, the better that mission is served. WalletConnect Pay supports that goal directly, by virtue of how the product is built.
- Any wallet, any chain. Buyers can pay from the wallet they already use, with no need to download anything new at the point of sale.
- No new infrastructure to build. The booth team plugged into the existing flow and went live without bespoke integration work.
- Mission alignment. Self-custody buyers paying privately with assets they’ve secured via self-custody, which Trezor has championed for years.
In Trezor's own words:
“It was wonderful how WalletConnect Pay makes every wallet eligible to pay for things with crypto. Being able to offer our devices for sale with WalletConnect was a huge step forward for crypto adoption.”
Jennifer Kulb, Event Coordinator - Trezor
The open question on Trezor's side was whether a flow that worked cleanly on paper would hold up in a noisy, high-traffic booth environment, with a steady influx of attendees and staff juggling several conversations at once.
By the Numbers
- 100% successful transactions - there were zero failed transactions across the entire pilot.
- 100% settled in USDC - every payment was settled in stablecoins regardless of which network the buyer was on.
- Ethereum accounted for 84% of total transaction value - Buyers on mainnet skewed toward higher-ticket purchases - the single largest transaction in the pilot came through Ethereum, demonstrating that Trezor's audience trusts WalletConnect Pay with non-trivial amounts from day one.
- Base matched Ethereum on payment count - The difference was ticket size: mainnet buyers made larger purchases, while Base represented a strong secondary channel for smaller, faster transactions.
- Payments cleared on 5 networks - Ethereum, Base, Polygon, Optimism, and Arbitrum - all settling to the same merchant address with no additional integration, demonstrating WalletConnect Pay's multi-chain reach.
What Customers Said
The clearest signal during the event came from the contrast between the card-only stretches and the crypto-enabled stretches, because the same booth saw two visibly different patterns of buyer behaviour.
During the card-only stretches - Customers showed interest, intent, and then hesitation at the till. Buyers wanted to pay in crypto, were not enthusiastic about reaching for a card to buy a hardware wallet, and in several cases simply walked away.
During the crypto-enabled stretches - Buyers paid directly from their wallets, and a meaningful share of customers returned to the booth specifically because the option was now available.
Trezor summarised the live feedback in plain terms:
“At the beginning of the event, we only had card payment terminals. Live feedback from customers stated clearly that they'd be down to buy right then and there if we accepted crypto.”
Jennifer Kulb, Event Coordinator - Trezor
There was one fair caveat attached to the positive feedback: not every wallet handled the flow equally well. Some completed the payment instantly, while others lagged or required additional steps that the booth team had to walk buyers through. This is a wallet-layer issue rather than a checkout-layer one, and WalletConnect is actively addressing it through the WalletConnect SDK, which continues to be adopted across wallet partners.
“There was positive feedback about being able to conduct crypto payments. It's a great starting point and we're excited to see the progress. The setup and handling was great and super straightforward.”
Jennifer Kulb - Event Coordinator, Trezor
Trezor's WalletConnect Pay pilot showed that at crypto-native events, the demand for stablecoin checkout is real, the underlying infrastructure is catching up quickly, and the gap between buyer expectation and merchant capability is narrowing with every event of this kind.
What Comes Next for Trezor
This was not a one-off experiment. Trezor has indicated they are open to using WalletConnect Pay beyond events, both online and in retail contexts, with one clear condition attached: the in-person UX needs to continue to mature so that physical checkout feels as natural as the online flow already does.
“We would be interested to use WalletConnect Pay beyond events and we'd be keen to see how the UX flow progresses to make it more intuitive.”
Jennifer Kulb - Event Coordinator, Trezor
From Novelty to Expectation
The broader pattern is worth noting. At crypto-native events, stablecoin payments are quietly shifting from “cool if you have it” to “why don't you have it?”, and that shift is happening faster than many merchants currently realise. Buyers are arriving at booths with wallets loaded and an expectation that merchants will meet them on those rails, while card-only setups are increasingly read as a gap rather than a default.
The takeaway? The pilot was a success for Trezor. The infrastructure held up, customer feedback was positive, and the additional operational lift was minimal.
Other merchants weighing up crypto checkout at their next event now have something concrete to reference. It works, it is straightforward to set up, and customers will quite literally tell you they were waiting for it.