Spiral, the Bitcoin development team at Jack Dorsey’s Block, says Bitcoin payments suffer from weak demand, not weak technology. Meanwhile, major payment firms are building their new rails around stablecoins instead.
The team frames the stakes as irrelevance or a long, expected grind, and says the time to act is now. If stablecoin rails lock in first, Bitcoin holders may own an asset that few people spend.
Why Do Merchants and Holders Both Pass on Bitcoin?
The technology gap has largely closed, the team says. Lightning, a layer on top of Bitcoin for fast, cheap transfers, now runs in production.
More than one million US merchants can accept Bitcoin through Square, according to Spiral. Yet few people spend it.
Holders would rather save than spend. Merchants, in contrast, prefer to hold dollars, so new platforms leave Bitcoin payments out.
US survey data backs that up. In 2025, 9% of American adults bought or held crypto as an investment, but only 2% used it to pay for something, the Federal Reserve found.
That payment share has stayed between 1% and 2% every year since 2021.
Price swings add friction, and US tax rules treat every purchase as a taxable sale.
Stripe, Shopify, and Coinbase are integrating stablecoins instead, while Circle is pitching digital dollars for AI.
Early tools for AI agent payments show the shift most clearly. x402, Coinbase’s protocol for agent payments, is built around stablecoins, and about 99% of its payments settle in USDC, according to the report.
Dorsey set the bar in January 2025.
“If [bitcoin] ends up just being digital gold, I think it’s failed. If it ends up being a currency that people can use daily, then it’s succeeded.”
What Would Make BTC Payments Stick?
Spiral now asks builders, payment providers, and funders for moonshot ideas. One would let users pay in dollars or Bitcoin over the same Lightning network.
Tether is already bringing USDT back to Bitcoin. Other proposals include spending incentives for holders and per-use payments for creators or AI services.
Replies to the post show the size of the task. One user argued that everyday people reject money that can lose value before rent is due. For that user, price stability against the dollar is the only moonshot worth chasing.
Real-world shifts point the same way. El Salvador now backs a stablecoin remittance app while keeping Bitcoin as a reserve.
Therefore, the fight over Bitcoin payments is a fight over which rails AI agents and checkouts adopt first.
