Vitaliy Shtyrkin, CPO at all-in-one crypto ecosystem for business B2BINPAY.
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These days, crypto payments are often framed as the next natural step in the evolution of the retail segment. And in fact, it’s hard to argue with that. The infrastructure is already here, with stablecoins now moving trillions of dollars annually and consumer surveys regularly showing strong interest in using digital assets at checkout.
But on the merchant side, enthusiasm is much more cautious. Adoption remains almost stagnant. Fewer than 10% of retailers support crypto payments, and even when they do, most implementations are pilots rather than scalable programs.
So what’s really holding retail back? Slow blockchains, regulatory uncertainty, or lack of customer demand? Hardly so. The key problem is that crypto brings a responsibility model that doesn’t fit into any existing operational, compliance, or accounting system. In cards and bank payments, liability is well defined. In crypto, it isn’t. And that’s the fork in the road retail refuses to take.
Crypto’s Clash With Retail Reality
Honestly, the core issue has little to do with crypto being “too new” or “too controversial.” Retail deals with new tech and loud headlines every day. What it can’t deal with is losing sight of who is in control, who is accountable, and what happens when something goes wrong.
Traditional payments are outdated, yet they work because they’re predictable and follow a script. So if something breaks, there’s always someone who can help to fix it. Still, with crypto, that clarity disappears.
A payment sent to the wrong address is a one-way ticket, while a disputed transaction has no familiar path to resolution. Naturally, when the rules are opaque, retailers walk away. For them, even a small operational mistake can turn directly into a financial loss.
Custody complicates the picture. In card payments, merchants never touch the money, as banks and processors carry the risk. That way, risk belongs where it should. Yet crypto again breaks the logic.
To accept a payment, a wallet must be in the merchant’s checkout process. That means even if a provider owns it, the customer still sees the merchant’s logo. As a result, if something happens, the blame is put on the brand that sold the product.
And the compliance? That’s the part nobody wants to talk about. Imagine finding out a week later that a normal-looking customer is tied to a blacklisted wallet. Someone has to investigate it, but there’s no standard playbook, and, believe me, nobody wants to be the first to write it.
Overall, that’s why retailers keep crypto at arm’s length. The foundation is ready, the liability model isn’t. Is there a way out? Yes, but not until everyone knows who is responsible for what at every step of a crypto payment.
Rebuilding Responsibility is What Actually Fixes the Problem
From where I stand, what retail really needs is a responsibility structure that makes crypto behave like every other payment method they already trust. And, interestingly, many of the building blocks already exist:
- Separate custody from the merchant. No retailer should carry wallet risk — ever. Some early concepts already show that this is possible. In them, crypto payments are processed through a dedicated custody layer where the merchant never touches the asset. So the entire risk sits with a specialized provider prepared to handle it. As a result, for customers, the checkout looks normal, while for the retailer, the settlement process is familiar. That’s exactly how it should be.
- Enable automatic conversion to remove exposure. Some retail integrations now convert crypto to fiat the moment a sale happens. The merchant never holds the asset, never faces volatility, and never adjusts its accounting logic. In that case, to the retailer, the transaction doesn’t differ from a card payment. So the crypto stays invisible, while the retailer stays protected.
- Integrate everything through the systems retailers already understand. I saw several payment platforms that have tested placing crypto and stablecoins inside the same dashboards used for cards, refunds, and reconciliation. There was only one toggle, one settlement batch, and no new interfaces. That means when crypto appears inside the tools retailers already know, it turns into something they can scale with confidence.
What Retail Must Decide Next
As it becomes clear, crypto payments don’t need any technological breakthrough. The missing piece is a responsibility model that the retail sector can trust. It’s curious that consumers are interested, stablecoins are liquid, and the infrastructure is close to being mature enough to support large-scale transactions. Yet the clear distribution of risk, liability, and operational duties between merchants, processors, custodians, and banks is still absent.
Retailers avoid uncertainty. Give them clarity about who carries what risk at every step, and adoption will accelerate far more quickly than many expect. After all, the rails are ready, and the demand is real. Now the industry just needs to define responsibility and move forward.
