Blockchain Payments: How They Work and Which Coins Actually Get Used

When you hear blockchain payments, a system for transferring value directly between users without banks or intermediaries, also known as decentralized payments, you might think of Bitcoin sending dollars across borders. But in reality, most blockchain payments today aren’t about Bitcoin at all. They’re about stablecoin payments, digital currencies pegged to real money like the US dollar, designed to avoid crypto volatility and enable real-world spending—and they’re quietly powering everything from remittances to online marketplaces.

What makes blockchain payments different isn’t just the tech—it’s who controls it. With traditional banking, your money sits on someone else’s ledger. With blockchain, you hold the keys. That’s why people in countries with banking bans, like Colombia or parts of the Middle East, rely on non-custodial crypto wallets, wallets where only you control access, with no middleman to freeze or block your funds. It’s not about speculation. It’s about access. And that’s why projects like ALT5 Sigma aren’t selling coins—they’re building crypto infrastructure, the behind-the-scenes systems that let businesses accept crypto as payment without needing to understand blockchain. These aren’t flashy tokens. They’re plumbing.

But here’s the catch: most crypto coins can’t handle payments. You can’t buy coffee with a memecoin like TROLLGE or Isabelle (BELLE). They have no liquidity, no merchant support, and no real users. The ones that work—like Solana, XRP, and VeThor (VTHO)—are built for speed, low cost, and enterprise use. Solana settles transactions in under a second. XRP connects global banks. VTHO pays for transactions on a blockchain used by big brands like Daimler and Walmart. These aren’t hype projects. They’re tools. And if you’re looking at blockchain payments as a way to spend crypto daily, you need to focus on these, not the coins with 99% price drops and zero volume.

What you’ll find below isn’t a list of coins to buy. It’s a collection of real stories—how airdrops tied to NFTs created payment incentives, how exchanges like iZiswap and Swych tried to make trading frictionless, and why some projects, like Atlantis Coin or Lum Network, vanished because they had no actual payment use. You’ll see how countries like Portugal and India changed their rules, how mining pools and smart contract audits keep the system safe, and why restaking and Money Legos matter more than you think. This isn’t about getting rich quick. It’s about understanding what actually moves value on-chain—and what doesn’t.