Why gaming platforms are switching to crypto paygates

1 July 2026. Today marks the beginning of a new chapter for Europe's digital asset industry. The transitional period under the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) has ended, and the standard for operating a crypto business in Europe has been raised for good.

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For years, much of the industry was built around a single jurisdiction. One license. One operating model. That worked while the rules were still evolving. It works less well now.

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We want to be transparent with our clients about where INXY stands and what we did about it. INXY did not obtain a MiCA authorization in Poland. So rather than depend on any single jurisdiction, we moved to a multi-jurisdiction operating model — and before 1 July, we completed the migration of every client off our Polish entity. No payments paused. No settlement stopped.

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Here's what MiCA is, what changed on 1 July, and how our model is built to keep your payments running through moments exactly like this one.

What is MiCA?

MiCA (Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation) is the European Union's comprehensive framework for regulating crypto-assets and the companies that provide crypto services. It replaces a patchwork of national rules with a single, harmonized rulebook across all 27 member states.

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In practice, MiCA does three main things:

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• Licenses providers. Any company offering crypto-asset services — custody, exchange, transfers, payouts — must be authorized as a Crypto-Asset Service Provider (CASP) by a national regulator. A CASP license can then be "passported" across the EU.
• Regulates stablecoins. Issuers of stablecoins ("e-money tokens") must be authorized and hold strict, fully-backed reserves. This is why compliant stablecoins like USDC and EURC stayed available on EU-regulated venues while non-authorized ones were delisted. (More on this in "Is USDC regulated?")
• Sets conduct and transparency standards for how services are marketed and delivered.

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MiCA's rules for service providers began applying on 30 December 2024, with a transitional window for existing firms.

What changed on 1 July 2026

MiCA included a transitional ("grandfathering") period under Article 143. Firms already operating legally under national regimes before 30 December 2024 could continue serving clients — but only until they obtained a CASP license or until 1 July 2026, whichever came first. That date has now passed, and there is no extension mechanism in the regulation.

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From today, any provider serving EU clients must hold a MiCA CASP authorization. A legacy national registration no longer provides cover.

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The situation in Poland made this especially clear. Poland has not yet enacted the national Crypto-Asset Market Act needed for its regulator (KNF) to issue CASP licenses — the act has been vetoed repeatedly, most recently in June 2026. In practice, that left Polish-registered providers with no domestic path to a CASP license before the deadline.

The limits of a single-jurisdiction model

MiCA is not simply making it harder to launch a crypto business. It is redefining what it means to run one: no longer just "get a license and go," but "operate reliably inside a regulated financial system."

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That shift began well before 1 July. Across the market, some companies are spending the coming months restructuring. Some are migrating clients. Some are rethinking how they serve Europe altogether. The common thread is that betting an entire operation on one jurisdiction has become a single point of failure.

INXY's response: a multi-jurisdiction operating model

For payment infrastructure providers, continuity is not optional. Payments cannot pause because the regulatory landscape changes. Businesses still need to settle funds. Cross-border commerce continues every day. Infrastructure should adapt so that businesses don't have to.

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That is why INXY expanded beyond a single jurisdiction and built a multi-jurisdiction operating model, spanning:

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• Canada — registered Money Services Business (FINTRAC MSB M23375535)
• El Salvador
• Cyprus
• Switzerland

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We did not build this because a deadline forced our hand at the last minute. We built it because our B2B clients need reliability that does not depend on the regulatory status of any one country. When the Polish route closed, that model is what let us complete the migration of all clients off our Polish entity before 1 July 2026 — with no interruption to payouts, settlement, or reporting.

What this means for you

• Your service continues. Clients were migrated ahead of the deadline and are served through our appropriately licensed entities. There is no gap in payouts or settlement.
• Your funds and reporting are unaffected. Fiat-denominated reporting, payout records, and reconciliation continue exactly as before.
• Your compliance standards are unchanged. Full KYB, KYC where needed, real-time transaction monitoring (KYT), and sanctions screening remain in force across every jurisdiction we operate in.

Regulation is becoming the foundation, not the obstacle

One conclusion runs through all of this: regulation is no longer just about compliance. It is becoming the foundation that enables institutional adoption of stablecoin infrastructure at scale. The businesses that treat regulatory resilience as core infrastructure — not paperwork — are the ones that will serve the next phase of the market.

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That's the central theme of our latest research, Stablecoins 2026: The New Global Financial Settlement Layer, which maps the regulatory landscape and what it means for businesses building on stablecoin rails. (Link / request the report: [add URL].)

Frequently asked questions

Did INXY obtain a MiCA license? No. INXY did not obtain a MiCA authorization in Poland. Instead of relying on a single jurisdiction, we operate a multi-jurisdiction model across Canada, El Salvador, Cyprus, and Switzerland, chosen to give our B2B clients continuity.

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What happened to clients on the Polish entity? All clients were migrated off our Polish entity before 1 July 2026. The migration was completed ahead of the MiCA transitional deadline, with no interruption to payments.

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What is MiCA, in simple terms? MiCA is the EU's single set of rules for crypto companies and crypto-assets. It requires service providers to be licensed as CASPs and sets strict standards for stablecoins, consumer protection, and transparency across all member states.

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What happened on 1 July 2026? MiCA's transitional period ended. From this date, providers serving EU clients must hold a MiCA CASP license; legacy national registrations no longer provide cover.

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Will my payments pause? No. Continuity was the entire point of moving to a multi-jurisdiction model. Client migration was completed before the deadline, and settlement continues without interruption.

Talk to us

Regulatory change raises real questions for any business that moves money across borders. If you'd like to understand how our multi-jurisdiction model supports your payouts, contact our team — and we'd be glad to share our perspective as the industry enters this new phase.

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This update is provided for information and does not constitute legal advice. Regulatory details are accurate as of 1 July 2026 and may evolve.

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An INXY expert read on Finery Markets' "Stablecoin 2035: Back to the Future" report (H1 2026)

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Finery Markets just published its "Stablecoin 2035" report, and the headline number is hard to ignore: stablecoins reached 81% of all institutional OTC trades in H1 2026, up from 26% in 2023. The debate about whether stablecoins have product-market fit is over. The interesting questions now are operational — and they land squarely on the businesses that move money for a living.

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Here is how our team reads the data, and what it changes for anyone building on stablecoin rails.

The numbers that matter

• OTC is the only growing segment. In H1 2026, OTC trading volumes grew +76% YoY, while the top-20 DEXs fell -38% and the top-20 CEXs -13%. Institutional flow is consolidating into OTC, and it is settling in stablecoins — stablecoin OTC volume nearly doubled (+94% YoY).
• The dollar owns the rail. USD-pegged tokens accounted for 99.87% of OTC stablecoin volume. EUR stablecoins grew 32x year over year, but off a base so small it changes nothing structurally — yet.
• The market is deep and diversifying. Total supply is now north of $300B (~$319B). Tether sits around $190B and USDC around $76B, but their combined share slipped from ~89% to ~83% as issuers multiplied from 30 in 2020 to 215+ in 2025.
• Real assets are following. Tokenized U.S. Treasuries crossed $15B (+150% YoY); tokenized equities are near $1.5B (+400%). Roughly two-thirds of stablecoin supply is held in emerging markets — savings demand, not speculation.

Three signals for payment businesses

1. Payments and treasury — not trading — are the real entry point. The report's contributors converge on one idea: stablecoins become "ordinary" inside a company through the treasury and payments desk, not the trading floor. Cross-border corridors that took 2–5 business days now settle in minutes, with all-in costs compressing from 3–5% (correspondent banking) toward ~1%. For a payments provider, that is the pitch: released working capital and removed friction on flows that recur every single day.

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2. The winning infrastructure is invisible. Multiple authors describe the same 2035 endpoint — the word "stablecoin" disappears from the enterprise vocabulary because the rails sit beneath familiar fintech interfaces. Users initiate value in stablecoins; merchants and counterparties receive local fiat without ever touching a wallet, chain, or bridge. The value isn't the token. It's the compliance-first connective layer that hides complexity while preserving speed and 24/7 availability.

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3. "Regulated" is the moat. Across every contribution, the common thread is regulation. By 2035, regulated coins — dollar and local alike — are expected to hold the dominant share of supply and activity. Licensing, compliance translation across jurisdictions (MiCA, VARA, Singapore's PSA), and a single clean interface across a fragmented patchwork of currency regimes become the real competitive edge — not raw settlement speed.

The INXY takeaway

The report describes a world where money movement runs on stablecoin rails without the end user ever needing to know it. That is exactly the layer payment infrastructure providers should be building toward: regulated on/off-ramps, stablecoin-to-fiat settlement in the currencies clients actually need, and an interface that treats "any currency, any chain" as a non-issue.

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The strategic mistake would be to read this as a race to launch yet another stablecoin. The report is explicit that by 2035, "the truly savvy stablecoin strategy may be not launching one at all." The durable advantage is not issuance — issuance is easy. It is liquidity, compliance, and distribution wired into the systems businesses already use.

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For merchants, PSPs, and treasuries evaluating stablecoin payments today, the question the report leaves us with is the right one to steal: not how do we add stablecoins to our stack — but what does our business look like when settlement is instant, always-on, and fiat never needs to leave the chain in the first place?

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This commentary is informational and not investment advice.

For most businesses, sending money across borders still feels like it did a decade ago: slow, opaque, and expensive. Cross-border crypto payments built on stablecoins are changing that. Instead of routing an international crypto payment through a chain of correspondent banks, a stablecoin transfer settles directly on a blockchain in seconds, for a fraction of the cost. In 2026 this is no longer a fringe experiment — it is one of the fastest-growing segments in business payments, and the data behind it is hard to ignore.

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This guide explains how cross-border stablecoin payments actually work, how they compare to SWIFT, where they make the most sense, and what it takes to start accepting them.

Why cross-border crypto payments are replacing the old rails

The traditional system was never designed for the speed of modern commerce. It was designed for banks talking to banks.

The hidden cost of SWIFT and correspondent banking

A typical international wire passes through two to four intermediary banks before it reaches the recipient. Each one takes a cut and adds a delay. The result is well known to any finance team: wire fees of roughly $40–$80 per transaction, settlement times of one to three business days (longer across exotic corridors), and almost no visibility into where the money is at any given moment. Add unfavorable FX spreads and the all-in cost of moving money internationally can quietly erode margins on every cross-border deal.

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For a company paying dozens or hundreds of overseas suppliers, contractors, or partners each month, that friction compounds fast.

What changed in 2026

Stablecoins — blockchain tokens pegged 1:1 to a fiat currency such as the US dollar — turned out to be an almost perfect fit for this problem. They hold a stable value, move on open networks 24/7, and settle without a banking intermediary.

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Adoption has gone vertical. Business-to-business stablecoin payment volume grew roughly 733% year over year heading into 2026, and total stablecoin transaction volume reached about $33 trillion in 2025. Juniper Research projects that cross-border B2B stablecoin payments will hit $5 trillion by 2035, up from an estimated $13.4 billion today, with the large majority of that future value coming specifically from cross-border business use. In short: the rail is being built right now, and businesses that learn it early gain a cost advantage.

How stablecoin cross-border payments actually work

The mechanics are simpler than the technology sounds. Every cross-border stablecoin payment follows the same three-stage path.

On-ramp, settlement, off-ramp

1. On-ramp. The sender converts local fiat (USD, EUR, etc.) into a stablecoin such as USDC or USDT, either from existing treasury or through a payment provider.
2. Settlement. The stablecoin moves across a blockchain network directly to the recipient's wallet. This is the step that replaces the entire correspondent-banking chain.
3. Off-ramp. The recipient either holds the stablecoin or converts it back to their local currency and withdraws to a bank account.

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A provider like INXY handles the on-ramp, settlement, and off-ramp as a single flow, so the business never has to touch a crypto exchange directly.

Stablecoins and networks used

Most B2B volume runs on US-dollar stablecoins — USDC, USDT, and increasingly PYUSD — because they remove currency-volatility risk while keeping the speed of crypto. The network matters too, because it determines how fast and how cheaply a payment finalizes:

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• Solana — settlement finality in under half a second, with sub-cent fees.
• Tron — finality in roughly one to two seconds; widely used for USDT.
• Ethereum Layer-2s — low fees with fast confirmation, anchored to Ethereum security.

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The practical takeaway: a payment that took three days on SWIFT can finalize in seconds on the right chain.

Stablecoins vs SWIFT: cost, speed, and transparency

The clearest way to understand the shift is a side-by-side comparison of low fee crypto payments against the legacy rails.

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The economics are most dramatic at scale. Dropping from $40+ per wire to under $1 per transfer changes what is financially viable — micro-payments, frequent payouts, and thin-margin corridors that never made sense on SWIFT suddenly do.

Top use cases for global crypto transactions

Stablecoins are not a fit for every payment, but for global crypto transactions between businesses they solve real, recurring pain.

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• Supplier and vendor payments. Pay overseas manufacturers and service providers same-day instead of waiting for a wire to clear, improving supplier relationships and unlocking faster terms.
• Contractor and team payouts. Pay international contractors and remote staff in stablecoins without losing 5–10% to fees and FX on every transfer. (INXY also covers dedicated crypto payroll.)
• Marketplace and platform payouts. Distribute earnings to sellers, affiliates, or creators across many countries in a single batch, at predictable cost.
• Treasury and intercompany transfers. Move funds between entities and regions instantly, holding value in a dollar-pegged asset rather than parking it in slow, fee-heavy banking channels.

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These are exactly the corridors where the old system performs worst — many small-to-mid payments, many destinations, tight margins.

Are low fee crypto payments compliant? GENIUS Act and MiCA

A fair question from any finance or legal team: is this allowed? In 2026, the answer is increasingly yes — and the regulatory ground is firmer than it has ever been.

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In the United States, the GENIUS Act established the first federal framework for payment stablecoins, requiring issuers to be licensed, to hold 1:1 reserves in high-quality liquid assets, and to honor redemption on demand. In the European Union, MiCA (Markets in Crypto-Assets) provides a parallel framework. Together they have moved stablecoins from a regulatory gray zone into supervised, standardized instruments — which is a large part of why institutional adoption accelerated.

What a regulated provider handles for you

Compliance does not have to live on your team. A regulated payment provider performs KYB (Know Your Business) onboarding, screens transactions against AML requirements, and maintains the audit trail you need for reporting. The business gets the speed and cost benefits of stablecoins while the provider absorbs the regulatory heavy lifting. 

How to start accepting cross-border crypto payments

Getting started is closer to onboarding a payment processor than to learning crypto.

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1. Choose a regulated provider that supports on-ramp, settlement, and off-ramp in your corridors — not a raw exchange.
2. Complete KYB onboarding and connect your bank account or treasury.
3. Pick your stablecoins and networks (USDC/USDT on a fast, low-fee chain) and set how recipients receive funds — held as stablecoin or auto-converted to local fiat.
4. Integrate and pay. Use the dashboard for one-off and batch payments, or the API to automate payouts inside your existing systems.

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Once live, a cross-border payment that used to mean a wire form and a three-day wait becomes a few clicks and a few seconds.

The bottom line

Cross-border B2B payments are being rebuilt on stablecoin rails, and the trend lines — 733% volume growth, a projected $5 trillion market, and clear regulation under the GENIUS Act and MiCA — point in one direction. For businesses that move money internationally, stablecoins offer dramatically lower fees, near-instant settlement, and full transparency, without the volatility of traditional crypto. The companies adopting it now are the ones that will spend the next decade paying cents where their competitors pay tens of dollars.

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Start accepting cross-border crypto payments with INXY →

FAQ

Are stablecoin payments legal for business? Yes. In 2026, US-dollar stablecoins are regulated under the GENIUS Act in the United States and MiCA in the EU. Using a licensed provider keeps your KYB and AML obligations covered.

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How fast is settlement? Depending on the network, a stablecoin payment finalizes anywhere from under a second (Solana) to a couple of minutes — versus one to three business days for a SWIFT wire.

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What fees apply? The main cost is a small blockchain network fee, often under $1, plus any provider conversion fee on the on-ramp or off-ramp. This compares to $40–$80 per traditional international wire.

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USDC or USDT for cross-border payments? Both are widely accepted dollar-pegged stablecoins. USDC is often preferred for its regulatory transparency; USDT has deeper liquidity in some corridors. A good provider supports both so you can match the recipient's preference.

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