I joined the HAYVN Webinar Series in May 2022 as a panelist to talk about something that’s been central to my work at Automattic: cryptocurrency payments for businesses.
This was still relatively early days for mainstream crypto payments. Bitcoin had been around for over a decade, but adoption by regular businesses – not crypto-native companies, actual merchants selling actual products – was still limited.
HAYVN was (and is) building regulated payment infrastructure to change that. And they asked industry experts to discuss where crypto payments were heading and what doors they open for businesses.
So yeh. Let me walk you through what we covered.
The State of Crypto Payments in 2022
By May 2022, we’d seen:
Acceptance growing: Major companies (Microsoft, Overstock, Newegg) accepting Bitcoin. Payment processors (BitPay, Coinbase Commerce) making it easier. WooCommerce plugins enabling any merchant to accept crypto.
Volatility concerns: The elephant in the room. Bitcoin swings 10-20% regularly. Merchants asking: “How do I price products when the currency moves that much?”
Regulatory uncertainty: Different rules in different jurisdictions. Compliance complexity. Tax implications. Banks still nervous about crypto businesses.
Technical barriers: Running a node, managing private keys, understanding gas fees – too complex for most merchants.
But also: real demand. Customers with cryptocurrency wanting to spend it. Merchants losing sales by not accepting it. International payments that were cheaper and faster with crypto than traditional rails.
The infrastructure was maturing. The question wasn’t if businesses would accept crypto, but how and when.
What HAYVN Pay Offers
HAYVN Pay is a regulated, compliant payment solution for cryptocurrency transactions. Think of it as a crypto payment gateway – similar to how Stripe or PayPal process card payments, but for Bitcoin, Ethereum, stablecoins, and other digital assets.
The value proposition for businesses:
Regulatory compliance: HAYVN handles the regulatory complexity. Licensing, compliance, reporting – the stuff that scares businesses away from crypto.
Fiat settlement: Accept crypto, receive fiat in your bank account. Solves the volatility problem completely. Customers pay in Bitcoin, you receive USD/EUR/GBP. HAYVN absorbs the exchange risk.
Or crypto settlement: Want to hold crypto in your treasury? HAYVN supports that too. Receive payments in USDC, keep them as USDC.
Global reach: Cryptocurrency is borderless. Accept payments from anywhere, settle to your account. No foreign exchange spreads, minimal fees, fast settlement.
Enterprise-grade infrastructure: Built for businesses, corporations, institutional clients. Not a consumer wallet – actual payment infrastructure with SLAs, support, and reliability guarantees.
Why Businesses Care (Or Should)
The webinar focused on practical business benefits, not crypto ideology. Here’s what resonates with merchants:
Lower Transaction Costs
Credit card processing: 2-3% plus fees. International cards: add another 1-2%. High-risk industries: 4-6% or declined entirely.
Cryptocurrency transactions: Often under 1% for the full stack (blockchain fee + processor margin). Stablecoins on efficient chains: fractions of a percent.
For high-volume businesses, that difference is millions in saved fees.
Access to New Markets
Some customers want to pay with crypto. They’ve accumulated Bitcoin or Ethereum, they believe in it, they prefer it. If you don’t accept it, they shop elsewhere.
Geographic markets with poor banking infrastructure or currency instability – crypto payments work better than traditional options.
High-risk industries blocked by payment processors – crypto provides an alternative (within regulatory limits).
Faster Settlement
Traditional international payments: 3-5 business days. Wire transfers: $30-50 in fees, 1-3 days.
Cryptocurrency: Minutes to hours, pennies to dollars in fees. Stablecoins on modern chains: seconds.
For businesses managing cash flow, that speed matters.
Treasury Diversification
Holding some reserves in Bitcoin or stablecoins diversifies risk. If your local currency inflates or devalues, your crypto holdings maintain value (stablecoins) or potentially appreciate (Bitcoin, Ethereum).
Not appropriate for every business. But for companies operating internationally or in unstable economies, it’s a legitimate risk management tool.
The WooCommerce Connection
This mattered to me personally because at Automattic, we’d been exploring crypto payments for WooCommerce merchants.
WooCommerce powers millions of online stores. Most are small-to-medium businesses. They need:
- Simple integration (not complex blockchain development)
- Clear pricing (no surprise gas fees eating into margins)
- Reliable service (payments can’t fail randomly)
- Regulatory safety (not getting their account frozen for accepting crypto)
Services like HAYVN Pay enable that. A merchant installs a plugin, connects their HAYVN account, enables cryptocurrency payment options. Customer checks out, pays in crypto, merchant receives fiat. Done.
The complexity is abstracted. The risk is managed. The business just gets paid.
That’s the kind of infrastructure that enables mainstream adoption.
Challenges We Discussed
The panel wasn’t just cheerleading. We talked about real challenges:
User experience: Crypto payments are still clunky. Wallet management, transaction confirmation times, failed transactions due to incorrect gas fees. It needs to feel as smooth as Apple Pay or it won’t scale.
Regulatory evolution: The rules are still being written. What’s legal in one jurisdiction might not be in another. Businesses need certainty before committing to crypto payment infrastructure.
Volatility management: Even with instant fiat conversion, someone absorbs the price risk. Payment processors price that risk into their fees. As crypto markets mature and volatility decreases, this improves.
Customer support: When a crypto payment fails, explaining why to a non-technical customer is hard. “Your transaction didn’t include enough gas and got stuck in the mempool” doesn’t work. Better tooling and clearer error messages needed.
Integration complexity: For large enterprises, integrating crypto payments into existing financial systems, accounting software, ERP platforms – not trivial. Standards and interoperability need to improve.
These weren’t reasons not to accept crypto payments. They were areas where the industry needed to improve to reach mainstream adoption.
What I Learned
Being on this panel reinforced something I already believed: infrastructure matters more than ideology.
The people who care most about cryptocurrency’s philosophical benefits – decentralization, sovereignty, censorship resistance – already use it and will figure out complex tools.
But mainstream adoption happens when businesses can easily accept crypto payments because it makes financial sense, customers can easily pay with crypto because it’s convenient, and the entire process is reliable and compliant.
Companies like HAYVN building that infrastructure – regulated, reliable, business-focused – that’s what moves the needle.
Where We Are Now
Looking back from 2025, a lot has changed since this 2022 webinar:
- Stablecoin adoption has exploded
- Regulatory frameworks have matured (though still evolving)
- Payment processors have improved significantly
- More merchants accept crypto routinely
- The user experience is better (though still not perfect)
But the fundamental value propositions we discussed – lower costs, faster settlement, global reach, treasury diversification – those remain true.
And the infrastructure has gotten better. Which means more businesses can access those benefits without needing to be crypto experts.
That’s progress.
For Merchants Considering Crypto Payments
If you’re thinking about accepting cryptocurrency:
Start with stablecoins: USDC, USDT, or other fiat-pegged currencies. All the benefits of crypto payments, none of the volatility concerns.
Use a payment processor: Don’t try to build your own infrastructure. Use HAYVN, BitPay, Coinbase Commerce, or similar. Let them handle the complexity.
Offer it as an option, not a requirement: Add crypto payment buttons alongside card payments. See what customer uptake looks like.
Understand your regulatory obligations: Tax implications, reporting requirements, compliance needs. Get advice specific to your jurisdiction.
Monitor your results: Track transaction volume, average order value, customer feedback. Treat it like any other payment method – measure and optimize.
Cryptocurrency payments aren’t right for every business. But for many – especially those operating internationally, selling digital products, or serving crypto-native customers – they open doors that traditional payment rails can’t.
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Event: HAYVN Webinar Series – Cryptocurrency Payments: Opening Doors with HAYVN Pay
Date: May 4, 2022 (1:00pm UTC / 5:00pm GST)
Role: Panelist (representing Automattic)
Topics: Cryptocurrency payments, business adoption, regulatory compliance, payment infrastructure
Find me: Contact form, @divydovy most places, hi@divydovy.com
Note: I work at Automattic as Web3 Lead. These are my personal views based on my experience helping WooCommerce merchants explore cryptocurrency payments. Not financial advice, not an endorsement of specific services, just one practitioner’s perspective on where crypto payments intersect with ecommerce.
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