Crypto assets are still effectively absent from everyday commerce across the euro area, according to a new European Central Bank (ECB) survey of how businesses accept different payment methods. Even as digital payments expand, the ECB finds that only a small fraction of merchants take crypto—whether directly or via payment arrangements they describe as accepting crypto assets or stablecoins.

The ECB reports that just 0.2% of companies selling goods and services online accept crypto assets. For in-person payments, cash remains dominant: 92% of companies with physical points of sale accept it, while crypto and stablecoins together remain under 1% acceptance in both 2024 and 2026.

Key takeaways

• Crypto acceptance is minimal: the ECB survey shows 0.2% of euro area businesses accept crypto for online sales.
• Stablecoins are not catching on at physical checkout: crypto assets and stablecoins remain below 1% acceptance at physical points of sale in 2024 and 2026.
• Mobile payments are the main growth area: acceptance of mobile payment methods at physical locations rises to 68% in 2026 from 36% in 2024.
• Merchants prioritize customer demand and security: consumer preference is the top decision factor, while merchants that reject cash most often cite weak demand and cash handling frictions.
• Survey design leaves room for interpretation: the ECB does not clarify whether payments settled in traditional currency via crypto payment services should count as “crypto acceptance.”

Digital payments advance, but crypto stays sidelined

While crypto remains a marginal payment option, the ECB’s broader findings show a clear shift toward cashless methods at physical locations. Mobile payments recorded the biggest change: acceptance jumped to 68% in 2026 from 36% in 2024.

Among the mobile methods most commonly accepted are instant payments and digital wallets, including services such as Apple Pay and Google Pay. This matters because it suggests the euro area’s payment digitization is progressing through mainstream rails that consumers and merchants already understand—rather than through direct crypto settlement.

Cash’s position also changes only slightly over time. The ECB reports cash acceptance at physical points of sale edging up to 92% in 2026 from 90% in 2024. Physical card acceptance rises to 88% from 87% over the same period, reinforcing the idea that the “cashless” transition is largely coming from cards and mobile wallets rather than from crypto.

Online sales show crypto acceptance at near-zero levels

The ECB’s survey highlights an even starker picture for online payments. Across the euro area, only 0.2% of companies selling goods and services online accept crypto assets, indicating that merchants are not treating crypto as a mainstream ecommerce payment choice.

These results come from a survey of 8,205 businesses across the 21 euro area countries. The telephone interviews were carried out by Ipsos from Feb. 23 to April 10, covering merchants in categories including retail, restaurants and cafes, hotels, and arts, entertainment and recreation.

At the same time, the ECB’s findings include evidence that other payment instruments are not uniformly gaining ground. For example, bank check acceptance fell to 27% in 2026 from 36% in 2024—underscoring that “digital progress” does not simply lift every alternative method, but rather changes acceptance patterns unevenly.

Why merchants choose—or refuse—specific payment methods

The survey also sheds light on the decision criteria merchants use when selecting which payment instruments to accept. Consumer preference is cited as the most important factor, named by 26% of respondents. Security comes next at 22%, while ease of handling is third at 15%.

For businesses that do not accept cash, demand and logistics are central concerns. Weak customer demand is cited by 36%, difficulties depositing or withdrawing cash by 35%, and security risks by 29%.

Importantly, the data points to sharp country-level differences in attitudes about cash. The ECB reports that 51% of cash-accepting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Cyprus say they may stop accepting cash, compared with 23% in Greece and 18% in Bulgaria. That divergence suggests that merchants’ expectations about payment preferences vary widely across the region, even when broad trends—like rising mobile usage—move in a similar direction.

What “accepting crypto” means—and what remains unclear

The ECB survey asked companies whether they accept crypto assets or stablecoins, using examples including Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), and Tether’s USDt (USDT). However, the report’s description leaves a key practical question open for interpretation.

Some crypto payment services allow merchants to receive settlement in traditional currency even when customers pay with crypto. The survey, as presented in the article, does not specify whether merchants should count such transactions as “crypto acceptance.” That matters because it affects how comparable merchant responses are: a business might technically participate in crypto payments while experiencing those payments as fiat settlement rather than as direct crypto receipt.

According to the conversation captured in the source coverage, Cointelegraph asked the ECB whether converted crypto payments could go unreported by merchants and whether regulatory uncertainty could influence how businesses answer. The ECB responded that it “prefer[s] not to speculate.”

On the regulatory question—whether euro area merchants are permitted to accept crypto under EU rules—the ECB did not take on the role of rule-maker. The ECB instead pointed to the European Commission and national lawmakers, noting that it does not set payment regulation.

Digital euro work continues as ECB studies payment behavior

The release arrives while the ECB is also advancing work on a digital euro, a central bank digital currency intended to complement cash and preserve the euro’s role. In that context, the new findings offer a useful baseline for policymakers: even as digital payments accelerate, merchants are not pivoting toward crypto or stablecoin acceptance at the checkout.

For investors and builders watching the payment sector, the main signal is not just that crypto adoption is low today—it’s that the merchant channel for payments appears to be consolidating around mainstream digital instruments (cards and mobile wallets) rather than crypto settlement. What changes next will likely depend on how payment providers improve merchant onboarding, how regulators clarify rules, and whether consumer demand grows for crypto payments in ways merchants can reliably monetize.

A federal bank regulator has granted World Liberty Trust Co. a conditional bank charter, it announced Friday.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the U.S. banking agency that grants federal charters, said in a letter posted to its website that World Liberty could operate fiduciary and other trust company-related activities as a national trust bank.

“This preliminary conditional approval is granted based on a thorough evaluation of all information available to the OCC, including the representations and commitments made in the application and by the Bank’s representatives,” the letter said.

Final approval won’t be granted until the company meets additional “preopening requirements,” the letter said.

According to the letter, World Liberty Trust Company will focus on services tied to World Liberty Financial’s USD1 stablecoin.

“The bank plans to issue USD1, a fiat currency-backed stablecoin, to institutional clients on a nationwide basis, assuming this role from BitGo Bank & Trust, National Association (BitGo), the current exclusive issuer and custodian for USD1,” the letter said. “The bank plans to provide its digital asset custody services as a fiduciary, primarily to USD1 customers and other institutional clients.”

JPMorgan’s latest US securities disclosure shows a notable build-up in its reported positions tied to major US crypto exchange-traded funds. In a Form 13F filing covering holdings as of June 30, the bank reported that its exposure to BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF rose by roughly a quarter during the second quarter, while its reported holdings in an Ether ETF more than quadrupled.

The filing, submitted to the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday, aggregates positions across JPMorgan entities and also lists 17 other investment managers covered by the same disclosure. That structure makes it hard for outside observers to separate long-term investment convictions from other uses of ETF holdings such as client-related activity or internal inventory management.

Key takeaways

• JPMorgan reported an increase in its BlackRock Bitcoin ETF exposure, rising from about 8.3 million shares in Q1 to about 10.4 million shares in Q2.
• Its reported position in BlackRock’s Ether ETF (iShares Ethereum Trust) climbed from roughly 267,000 shares to about 1.17 million shares—more than a fourfold jump.
• Smaller reported holdings in XRP-related products reappeared after JPMorgan showed no XRP positions in the prior quarter.
• Analysts caution that 13F data may reflect multiple operational drivers and cannot show short positions, so it does not necessarily equal JPMorgan’s net market view.

Bitcoin ETF holdings rise in JPMorgan’s disclosure

According to the Form 13F, JPMorgan reported about 10.4 million shares of BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT) in Q2. In Q1, the same disclosure listed about 8.3 million shares. The filing corresponded to a reported value of roughly $356 million in Q2.

While the increase is significant in percentage terms, a 13F filing is not designed to communicate directional trading strategies. As PrimeXBT senior market analyst Jonatan Randin explained to Cointelegraph, these reports can combine holdings from different parts of an institution, including positions linked to client flows and other internal uses. That limits how confidently readers can interpret the update as a clear bet on future price movement.

Randin also noted a structural limitation of 13Fs: they exclude short positions. As a result, the reported long holdings do not reveal net exposure after offsets, meaning the filing is best viewed as a snapshot of disclosed long positions rather than a full picture of risk.

Ether ETF position expands more dramatically

JPMorgan’s Ether-related exposure rose even faster. In the same filing, its holdings in the iShares Ethereum Trust ETF (ETHA) increased to about 1.17 million shares in Q2 from roughly 267,000 shares in Q1. This represents more than a fourfold increase.

The reported change suggests that, at least in terms of disclosed holdings, JPMorgan’s balance-sheet linkage to Ether-linked investment products expanded more quickly than its Bitcoin-related exposure during the same quarter.

As with the Bitcoin ETF position, the interpretation remains constrained by the nature of Form 13F reporting. Investors should view the figures as evidence of increased disclosed holdings rather than direct proof of a strategic shift toward a particular crypto asset’s price direction—especially because 13F submissions do not convey the full context of derivatives, hedges, or other trading that might be used to manage risk.

XRP-linked holdings appear after a blank prior quarter

Beyond Bitcoin and Ether, Randin pointed to small but notable positions tied to XRP investment products. In Q2, JPMorgan reported 181 shares of Grayscale’s XRP product valued at about $3,763 and 113 shares of Bitwise’s XRP ETF valued at about $1,356.

In Q1, JPMorgan showed no reported positions in either of those XRP-related vehicles. Randin connected the timing to the broader regulatory environment for XRP and to the emergence of spot XRP investment products in the United States.

“From my point of view this adds credibility to the regulatory improvements surrounding XRP,” Randin said, highlighting how the appearance of XRP-linked fund holdings can be interpreted as a sign of improving market accessibility. Still, the quantities reported are relatively small, so readers should avoid assuming the position signals a major reallocation toward XRP without additional supporting data.

Why 13F snapshots matter—and what they can’t tell

JPMorgan’s filing illustrates both the usefulness and the limitations of 13F disclosures for crypto-focused investors. On one hand, the report provides a recurring, regulator-filed window into how large institutions allocate capital or align exposure with crypto-linked exchange-traded products. On the other hand, it does not capture the full trading picture.

In particular, Randin’s explanation underscores three key points investors typically need to keep in mind when reading 13Fs:

• Multiple internal sources: An institution’s holdings can reflect a mix of business units, including client activity and inventory management.
• No netting of shorts: 13F reports do not show short positions, so the disclosure is not a complete net exposure measure.
• Quarterly timing: Changes reflect holdings as of a specific reporting date, not necessarily when a purchase or sale occurred.

This means the reported increases in Bitcoin and Ether ETF shares should be interpreted as movement in disclosed long holdings rather than a definitive statement about future market direction.

Reductions in miner positions also signal shifting proxies

Randin also highlighted that JPMorgan trimmed positions in several Bitcoin miners. He argued that miner equities can be a less reliable proxy for Bitcoin exposure as some miners expand into artificial intelligence and high-performance computing, potentially diversifying away from straightforward Bitcoin linkage.

“If that was the reason for holding them, trimming that part of the portfolio makes a lot of sense regardless of your view of the future direction of price,” Randin said.

For crypto investors, this is a useful reminder that institutional disclosures may reflect not only bullish or bearish expectations, but also a re-evaluation of what different crypto-adjacent asset categories are actually expressing—whether that’s direct token exposure through ETFs or more complex business exposure through mining-related equity.

Going forward, traders and long-term investors may want to watch whether JPMorgan’s ETF-related positions continue to trend upward or stabilize in subsequent filings, and whether additional disclosures show further expansion—or rebalancing—across Bitcoin, Ether, and smaller altcoin-linked products as regulatory conditions evolve.

Solana is preparing to change how it charges for computing resources on the network.

Solana Improvement Document (SIMD-0553) would make its most resource-intensive users pay more while cutting the costs for simpler transactions. As a bonus, it would increase SOL’s burn rate in stages — and one day could even help make it deflationary.

Cavey, a researcher at Solana infrastructure firm Temporal and author of the proposal, tells Magazine that fees currently don’t reflect the real costs:

“If I submit a transaction that does nothing versus a transaction that burns 200 million CPU cycles, I’m charged the same amount.”

This proposal would change that by tying fees more closely to the resources each transaction requests. Rather than going to validators, the resource fee would be burned, removing SOL from circulation.

Of course, reducing validator income has not been welcomed by all. Contributor bji argues on github:

“I like the aspect of this proposal that gives tx submitters extra incentive to be accurate with CU limits. Everything else I’m meh to negative on. ‘More burn’ should not be a goal. Validator incomes should not be arbitrarily reduced.”

SIMD-0553 entered Solana’s new onchain governance process in early August and cleared its initial support phase on August 4.

It is currently in the support and discussion phase, which typically lasts seven epochs, or roughly two weeks. If it’s approved, it would change the incentives around Solana’s cheap blockspace.

So what’s the catch?

Wasting resources becomes expensive

Cavey says that Solana’s current fee structure creates a problem for developers.

Core Solana devs have spent years making the network faster, but applications have almost no financial incentive to stop wasting resources — an inefficient transaction costs the same as an efficient one.

Related: Ethereum, Solana led crypto hack losses in H1 2026: Blockaid

“By installing this resource pricing right now, suddenly app developers have to optimize,” Cavey says.

If the proposal is adopted, developers who reduce resource use could lower costs for end users and make their apps more attractive. Developers who consume more of Solana’s computing capacity would have to pay their fair share.

Solana Improvement Document (SIMD-0553). Source: Solana Foundation GitHub

Cavey says the proposal is particularly aimed at computationally wasteful arbitrage, where searchers can submit huge numbers of transactions that mostly fail, while paying very little.

In the past 30 days, he says, five of the traders with the highest failure rates submitted 11.5 million transactions, consuming 929 million compute units across 2,477 trades that generated $16,091 in profit, while paying just 78 SOL in fees.

A resource fee would push arbitrage searchers toward more informed and reactive strategies.

Stablecoin and token transfers could become roughly 20% cheaper, Cavey says. Temporal’s modeling also finds that vote transactions would cost around 12.3% less and oracle updates 16.9% less under the proposed model.

The trade-off?

Some trading activity would become considerably more expensive.

Temporal estimates that a high-priority swap routed through DFlow would cost 9.72% more under the proposed terminal fee rate, while a mid-priority OKX swap would cost 301% more and a pump.fun swap with zero priority would cost 3150% more.

That means some of the network’s heaviest users could see their transaction costs balloon, particularly traders using bots that submit large numbers of transactions.

Don’t worry though, as the fee increase is off a low base. Cavey argues that even the most compute-intensive transactions would cost around $0.05 under the proposed model, compared with the $2 to $5 fees a user might pay to swap $100 on a centralized exchange.

Who pays more, who pays less. Source: Temporal.xyz

The current proposal rejects a uniform increase to Solana’s existing 5,000-lamport fee, arguing that it would disproportionately hurt high-volume senders such as market makers while still failing to properly price resource usage.

Other costs to consider

“There have been a few people that have raised concerns about the parameters, but overall, everyone’s been very supportive,” Cavey says, citing validator income, higher costs for high-frequency users and increased complexity among the core issues.

One contributor, mschneider, asks why fees should be based on the resources a transaction requests rather than what it actually uses. “Units used seems more natural,” he says.

Cavey says there’s a reason the fee is based on the resources a transaction requests, rather than what it actually uses: it lets users know the cost upfront and allows validators to check they can afford it before processing the transaction. But it also means users can pay for resources they don’t end up using, giving developers an incentive to estimate their needs accurately.

Validators could initially see a small reduction in base-fee revenue by around 4%. While Cavey says the parameter can be adjusted to offset that impact if needed, some contributors like bji remain unconvinced and believe validator income should take precedence over the additional burn.

Related: MoneyGram expands crypto cash ramps to Solana

The proposal also raises questions about complexity, with some contributors questioning whether the new fee model could make Solana harder to use. Cavey rejects the concern, saying most users will not have to calculate fees themselves because applications and exchanges generally handle it. Automated traders are already “sophisticated” enough to adapt to changes in Solana’s fee structure, he says.

What about the SOL burn?

SIMD-0553 would increase the amount of SOL burned by transaction fees, reducing more of the token from circulation rather than paying it to validators.

According to the proposal, the current daily burn of around 648 SOL could rise to roughly 7,500 to 9,000 SOL at the proposed terminal fee rate, representing a roughly 12 to 14-fold increase if current resource demand remains unchanged.

SIMD-0553 would increase the amount of SOL burned by transaction fees. Source: Temporal.xyz

Cavey says the higher burn could eventually push SOL into deflationary territory:

“If Solana wins, there’s a chance that Solana could actually become a deflationary currency.”

Burning the resource fee also reduces incentives for validators to include unnecessarily resource-intensive transactions.

Solana currently issues roughly 60,000 SOL a day, so even a 9,000-SOL daily burn would not by itself make the token deflationary (although a separate proposal called SIMD-0550 would curb inflation faster than currently scheduled). Network activity would need to grow substantially before the burn outweighed new issuance. Cavey says that would be “a nice secondary effect” rather than the main objective.

“The primary goal is to align core devs, developers, and app developers to make Solana faster. That is objective number one, and that is enough of a reason for this proposal, in my opinion.”

Magazine: El Salvador’s Bitcoin experiment turns 5: ‘It was for us, not them’

Cointelegraph is committed to providing independent, high-quality journalism across the crypto, blockchain, AI, and fintech industries.

All news, reviews, and analyses are produced with full journalistic independence and integrity. For more details on our standards and processes, please read our Editorial Policy.