Bitcoin traded at about $78,500 on November 4, roughly 7% lower than a month ago and 23% below its level a year earlier. In the 12 months to the end of June, the total value of the crypto market fell by about half, or $2.1 trillion, according to Chainalysis, the deepest drop since 2022.

Activity fell much less. Chainalysis’s 2026 Geography of Cryptocurrency report puts the crypto economy at $9.4 trillion over the same period, down just 1.6%. On the other hand, cross-border stablecoin flows rose 77.5% to $220.3 billion, and domestic transfers between people rose 302.9% to $228.7 billion, 96% of it in stablecoins. Allium’s data for this year shows the same trend. Stablecoin payments reached $482 billion between January and September 2026, up 45%, while the number of payments grew 71% to over a billion. Business-to-business transfers were the largest category at $246 billion.

“Crypto processing keeps growing even when the market falls, because businesses aren’t buying crypto as an investment, they’re using it to get paid,” said Alex Ryzhkin, Chief Commercial Officer at B2BINPAY, a crypto payment provider that lets businesses accept, store and send payments in cryptocurrencies and stablecoins. “Prices fell, but businesses are adding crypto payments, because the rules are clearer now and because it’s a faster and simpler way to reach customers.”

Most crypto payments today are made in stablecoins rather than bitcoin, and that is why the market slump has barely affected them. A business that accepts bitcoin risks losing part of the payment if the price drops before it converts the money, while a $100 payment in a dollar stablecoin is still worth $100 when it arrives. That stability is what lets businesses compare stablecoins with cards and bank transfers on ordinary terms, and on those terms they often come out ahead. Crypto processing fees are usually around 1% or less, while accepting cards typically costs businesses 2% to 3%. Stablecoin payments also can’t be reversed through chargebacks, and the money arrives within minutes, including at weekends.

“Most of the companies we work with don’t replace their bank payouts with crypto, they add it alongside them,” said Ryzhkin. “Bank transfers and cards stay the main channel. Stablecoins get added when bank payments become too slow: transfers that take several days, payments that sit over the weekend, countries where a wire takes a week to arrive. Speed is almost always the reason they come to us, not the fee.”

BlackRock's ETHA lost about $346 million of the week's roughly $365 million in ETF withdrawals, while its staking sibling ETHB took in $1.15 million. ETH holds near $2,235, with $2,200 as the support traders are watching first. - US spot Ether ETF $365 million outflows - sixth straight week Ether ETF withdrawals

In a Stripe survey of more than 2,300 independent workers in 20 countries, 57% said they would accept stablecoin payouts if platforms offered them, citing the fees and slow settlement of traditional cross-border transfers. But only 18% of workers in emerging markets currently get paid that way. In Fireblocks’ 2025 survey, 48% of respondents named speed as the main benefit of stablecoins, and 71% of respondents in Latin America already used them for cross-border payments. However, the overall share is still small. Allium and FXC Intelligence estimate that stablecoins carried $135 billion of the $44.3 trillion retail cross-border payments market in 2025, about 0.31%, but that volume grew 64% over the year, against 9% for payments in traditional currencies.

A year in which crypto lost half its market value and stablecoin payments still grew by almost half makes one thing clear: crypto as an investment and crypto as a payment tool no longer move together. Bitcoin’s price will keep making headlines, but for businesses the more important trend is that stablecoins are becoming an ordinary way to move money.

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