Which Coins Should Your Business Accept? Follow Your Customers, Not the Hype
The coins to accept depend on who pays you. A coin that tops the charts this month does nothing at your checkout if nobody in your audience holds it, and a coin that never trends can carry most of your revenue if it is what your buyers already keep in their wallets.
The rule is short: follow your customers, not the hype. A global audience usually starts with USDT, crypto-savvy buyers pay in BTC and ETH, and Telegram-first users hold GRAM. This guide turns that rule into a working setup. It shows how to find out what your customers actually hold, which networks to open for each coin, what the numbers say about each audience, and how to start small without closing the door on growth.
If you prefer a coin-by-coin comparison of on-chain costs, read our guide on which cryptocurrencies a business should accept. This article starts one step earlier, with the people who pay you.
The coins to accept, on one screen
The whole idea fits in a table. The sections after it explain each row.
| Audience | Start with | Why it fits | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Global audience | USDT | Dollar-pegged, held in most markets, available on several networks | Customers picking the wrong network |
| Crypto-savvy buyers | BTC, ETH | Already in their wallets, and they accept a short wait for larger payments | Price changes between payment and settlement |
| Telegram-first users | GRAM (formerly Toncoin) | Native coin of the TON network that Telegram’s crypto tools are built on | A new name and ticker since June 2026, and price volatility |
Three rows cover most businesses, so the list of coins to accept stays short. Speend supports 300+ coins and networks through one integration, so adding a coin later does not mean starting a new project. The sensible order is to launch with the coin for your biggest audience and add the others when your data asks for them.
Find out who your customers are first
Before you enable anything, spend an hour on three questions. The answers will pick your coins to accept better than any ranking.
- Where do your customers live, and how do they find you? A mix of countries, a single region and a Telegram bot each point to a different first coin.
- What do they already ask for? Search support chats and sales emails for coin names and for phrases like “can I pay with USDT”. Requests are the cheapest research you will get.
- What do they hold? Add one optional question to checkout or onboarding, such as “Which crypto do you usually hold?” Two weeks of answers make a usable sample.
Then look at the size of your orders. Small, frequent payments favour a cheap, fast network. Large, occasional payments can tolerate a slower one in exchange for the coin the customer already owns. A subscription service and a business that invoices other businesses rarely need the same list.
Which coins to accept for a global audience: USDT
When you sell to customers in many countries, you cannot guess their local habits. You can pick the coin that travels best, and that is a dollar stablecoin. In practice it is USDT.
Scale is on its side. On 21 March 2026, USDT had a market cap of about $184.1 billion, roughly 58% of a stablecoin market worth about $316 billion, according to DefiLlama data cited by Bitcoin.com News. USDC came second with about $79.1 billion. Those figures move daily, but the gap makes USDT the safest first guess for an audience you cannot see.
Usage points the same way. The Chainalysis 2026 Global Crypto Adoption Index (summarised by KuCoin News) reports domestic peer-to-peer transfers up 302.9% to $228.7 billion, with about 96% of them in stablecoins. Cross-border stablecoin transfers rose 77.5% to $220.3 billion, averaging about $3,000 per transaction. The same summary says transfers under $100 grew 78.4%, which suggests crypto payments are spreading well beyond large trades.
Which USDT network to open
USDT is not one thing at the checkout. It runs on several networks, and customers pay from whichever one their wallet or exchange uses. Speend accepts USDT on TRON (TRC-20), Ethereum (ERC-20), BNB Smart Chain (BEP-20), Polygon and Solana. These are the typical confirmation times from Speend’s USDT page:
| Network | Typical confirmation | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| TRC-20 (Tron) | Under 30 seconds | Most merchant flows, frequent payments |
| ERC-20 (Ethereum) | 1 to 3 minutes | Business customers who already hold USDT on Ethereum |
| BEP-20 (BNB Smart Chain) | 5 to 15 seconds | Customers in the Binance ecosystem |
| Polygon | 5 to 15 seconds | Subscriptions and recurring billing |
| Solana | Under a second | Checkouts that need near-instant confirmation |
Start with TRC-20. Speend’s page calls it the default recommendation for high-frequency payments and puts the cost of a transaction under a dollar. Add ERC-20 when business customers ask for it. Every extra network is one more place for a customer to choose wrongly, so read our guide to USDT on TRC-20 vs ERC-20 and the explainer on what happens when funds go to the wrong network before you decide.
On cost, processing starts from 0.5% when the customer pays in USDT and you settle in USDT, and from 1% when a conversion is involved. Network fees pass through at cost, with no setup fee or monthly subscription. For the full walk-through, see how to accept USDT payments.
Which coins to accept for crypto-savvy buyers: BTC and ETH
Some audiences arrive with their own preferences. Traders, developers, privacy-minded users and long-time holders already keep Bitcoin and Ether, and many would rather pay with what they have than swap into a stablecoin first. Asking them to convert adds friction at the moment you least want it.
Bitcoin
Bitcoin behaves differently depending on the layer. According to Speend’s Bitcoin page, mainnet confirmation takes roughly 10 to 60 minutes depending on mempool congestion, while the Lightning Network settles in seconds with fees near zero. SegWit addresses, accepted by default, cut transaction size and mainnet fees by 30 to 40% against legacy formats. Lightning suits small, frequent payments such as subscriptions, and mainnet suits larger settlements where a wait is acceptable. Speend routes the payment automatically.
Price is the other half of the story. Bitcoin can change in value between the moment a customer pays and the moment you spend the money. Speend can swap incoming BTC to USDT or USDC the moment it arrives, and the Bitcoin page lists that conversion at 0%, with single-currency processing from 0.5%. You accept the coin your customer likes and keep your revenue in a dollar-pegged one. If you are still deciding between holding and converting, our comparison of stablecoins and Bitcoin covers it, and the guide to accepting Bitcoin walks through the setup.
Ethereum
Ether and ERC-20 tokens suit a narrower group: DeFi-adjacent businesses, business customers and buyers who keep their funds on Ethereum. Speend’s Ethereum page mentions gas batching for high-volume merchants, which matters because network fees are the part of the cost you cannot control. Open it when customers ask. Our guide to accepting Ethereum explains the trade-offs.
A simple trigger works for this segment: when the same coin comes up in support more than once or twice a month, add it. Until then, leave it off.
Which coins to accept for Telegram-first users: GRAM
Part of Telegram’s audience holds crypto inside the app and spends it there, in bots, channels and mini apps. Pavel Durov said in March 2025 that Telegram had passed 1 billion users (TechCrunch). If you sell through a Telegram bot, such as digital goods, access to private channels or services paid for in the same chat, the native coin of that ecosystem is the one your customers can pay with fastest.
TON is now Gram
If you last looked at this coin under its old name, note the change. On 15 June 2026, after a community governance vote that returned 81.22% support, the native coin of the TON network was renamed from Toncoin to Gram, and its ticker changed from TON to GRAM (Trade Informer). Only the presentation changed. The blockchain is still TON (The Open Network), and balances, addresses, smart contracts and tokens stay as they were. No swap, migration or claim is needed. The same report warns that messages asking holders to migrate or convert TON to GRAM are scams.
For a merchant this means two small jobs. Show the new name on your checkout and in your documentation, and tell support what to say when a customer asks whether TON and GRAM are the same thing. Exchanges and wallets were advised to display “Gram (prev. Toncoin)” during a three-month transition. A label like that costs nothing, and it helps customers who still search for the old name. Speend lists the coin as Gram (Toncoin) on its coins page.
Gram is volatile like any non-stablecoin, so the same logic applies as for Bitcoin. Accept it where your audience is, and turn on auto-conversion if you do not want price exposure. Speend can convert incoming coins to USDT or USDC at confirmation. For background, read what TON is and how a Telegram crypto wallet works.
What about the other 300 coins?
Speend supports 300+ coins and networks through one integration. That is a ceiling, not a list of coins to accept. Litecoin, Tron’s native TRX, Solana, BNB, Dogecoin, Dash and others each have a loyal audience, and each makes sense only if that audience is yours. Low-fee coins attract buyers who watch fees, and privacy coins attract a niche with its own compliance questions.
Every coin you enable adds a line to your support scripts, your accounting and your refund process. If you need cost numbers for a decision, our full guide to what a business should accept includes on-chain measurements for the main coins, and the list of supported coins shows what Speend can connect.
Show your coins to accept the way customers think
What the customer sees matters as much as which coins you enable. Label every option with the coin and the network, for example “USDT (TRC-20)”, and avoid a bare “USDT”. A customer who picks the wrong network can lose funds, and you inherit the support case.
Add a short line under each option: how long it usually takes, and who it suits. State the minimum amount and how long the invoice stays valid. If your integration lets you order the list, put the coin your biggest audience uses first. A customer who sees their own coin straight away has one less decision to make.
Start small, scale anytime
The cheapest way to find the right coins to accept is to begin with one coin, watch real payments and expand from data.
- Week one: open USDT on TRC-20. Add ERC-20 if you invoice other businesses.
- Weeks two to four: record the coin and network of every payment, the share of customers who start checkout but do not pay, and any support ticket about a wrong network or a missing coin.
- Month two: add the coin your data points to. For crypto-savvy traffic that is BTC, possibly ETH. For Telegram traffic, GRAM.
- Every quarter: review which coins carry the volume, move the most used one to the top of the checkout list, and decide whether auto-conversion should stay on.
Four numbers to track
- Share of payments by coin and network
- Share of started checkouts that end without payment, split by coin
- Support tickets about wrong networks, underpayments and missing coins
- The settlement mix: how much arrives as volatile coins and how much as stablecoins
As a rule of thumb, a coin that carries a tiny share of payments after two or three months and generates a large share of support tickets is a candidate to hide from the default list. A coin that carries a share you did not expect is a segment worth building a landing page for.
An illustrative example
Take a hypothetical online service with customers in many countries, a Telegram channel that drives about a quarter of its traffic, and a small group of long-time Bitcoin holders. These numbers are invented for illustration.
- USDT on TRC-20 goes live first and covers the global base.
- Two months in, support logs show a dozen requests for Bitcoin, nearly all from the same referral source, so BTC is added with auto-conversion to USDT.
- Telegram visitors keep asking how to pay from their in-app wallet, so GRAM goes live.
- Three coins are live, and each was added because a measured group needed it.
Common mistakes when choosing coins to accept
- Enabling everything on day one. More coins means more wrong-network mistakes and more support scripts.
- Choosing by price chart. A coin’s market rank says little about whether your customers hold it.
- Skipping the network. “USDT” is an incomplete instruction, while “USDT on TRC-20” is a complete one. Show the network name at checkout.
- Taking price risk by accident. Decide whether you want exposure to volatile coins, and set auto-conversion to match.
- Using the old name for TON. Customers search for both names, so mention TON and GRAM on the same page.
FAQ
Which coins to accept first?
USDT, on TRC-20 for most businesses, unless your own data points elsewhere. It reaches the widest audience and keeps your revenue in a dollar-pegged coin.
Do I need to accept Bitcoin and Ethereum?
Only if customers ask for them. Crypto-savvy buyers often prefer to pay with BTC or ETH, and auto-conversion lets you accept them without keeping the price risk.
Are GRAM and TON the same coin?
Yes. Toncoin was renamed Gram on 15 June 2026 and the ticker changed from TON to GRAM. The network is still called TON, and balances and addresses did not change.
Can I accept volatile coins without taking price risk?
Yes. Speend can convert incoming coins to USDT or USDC at confirmation, so you keep revenue in a dollar-pegged coin.
How many coins to accept at launch?
One to three. Add more when customers ask for them or your data shows demand.
How much does it cost?
Processing starts from 0.5% for single-currency settlement, and conversion is priced per coin. Network fees pass through at cost. Check each coin’s page for the current rate.
Where to start
Pull the last three months of your own data: where customers come from, what they ask for and what they pay with. If you do not accept crypto yet, ask support and sales which coins people mention. Name your biggest audience and take the first of your coins to accept from the table at the top of this page.
If you want help choosing and setting up your first coins, contact the Speend team. A dedicated manager will walk you through onboarding and integration, and you can add more coins later. Once the first coins are live, the next question is usually the other direction, and our guide to crypto mass payouts covers sending money out through the same API.
