Payzum Blog

Crypto Payments Blog

Non-custodial, crypto-only payments — explained for the operators and developers who actually run the money. Pain, mechanics, and how Payzum solves it.

Law Firm

How to accept crypto payments as a law firm

A law firm's payment problem is rarely the technology — it's timing and reversibility. An international retainer sent by wire takes days to clear, arrives short by whatever the correspondent bank deducted, and can't start the matter until it lands. A retainer paid by card is reversible for months, which means a client who dislikes the outcome can dispute a fee for work that is already done. This guide shows how a law firm accepts crypto payments in practice: payment links and invoices for retainers and fee statements, recurring billing for fractional-GC and legal-plan clients, a front-desk QR for walk-ins, and stablecoin batch payouts to foreign counsel, expert witnesses and translators. It covers the volatility question that every bar ethics opinion on crypto fees raises — and why settling in USDC or USDT takes that variable off the table — plus what non-custodial settlement actually means when the money is a client's advance fee.

17 min read
Point of Sale

Convenience store stablecoin payments just went through a real POS register

In early August 2026, Lawson — Japan's third-largest convenience chain, 14,697 stores — ran the country's first stablecoin checkout wired directly into an ordinary POS register, at its Takanawa Gateway City store in Tokyo. The customer showed a barcode in a non-custodial wallet, the cashier scanned it with the same scanner used for onigiri, and a regulated yen stablecoin moved in about two seconds. The headline says 'JPYC'; the actual news is the register. Every previous retail stablecoin experiment bolted on a dedicated terminal or a separate QR app — this one disappeared into the checkout ritual that already exists, which is the hard part, and it took a retail chain, a telecom operator, a wallet firm and a payment processor to do it at one store for a closed group of staff. This analysis unpacks what the trial proves about stablecoins at the counter, what it says about who gets to offer them and when, and why an independent shop doesn't have to wait for its POS vendor: a phone with a QR per sale is already a terminal, settling non-custodially to a wallet the merchant controls, with no acquirer and no chargebacks.

17 min read
Regulation & Analysis

Brazil's new crypto transfer rules: the 24-hour hold, explained

On August 7, 2026, Brazil's central bank published Resolution BCB 584/2026: from January 1, 2027, exchanges and crypto service providers must hold transfers above $10,000 to self-custody wallets or foreign providers for 24 hours while they screen for fraud. It's the clearest official statement yet of where the regulatory perimeter actually sits — on the custodial platform, at the exact moment money tries to leave it. Wallet-to-wallet payments between parties who hold their own keys are untouched, because there is no intermediary to instruct. This analysis unpacks what the resolution says, why the fraud logic behind it is sound, and what it means for the largest crypto market in Latin America: custodial balances now come with legally mandated latency at scale, while non-custodial settlement keeps working at the speed of the chain. For a business that accepts stablecoins — an exporter invoicing abroad, a retailer taking USDT at the counter — the practical question becomes which side of that boundary your revenue lives on.

15 min read
Stablecoins

Crypto payment cards just hit $759M a month — your customers already spend stablecoins

On August 7, 2026, a16z crypto published the clearest demand-side data yet on stablecoin spending: crypto payment cards processed $759 million in July — 2.5× a year earlier, up from under $1 million when tracking began in October 2023 — across nearly 9 million purchases averaging about $86. USDC and USDT now account for roughly 84% of that volume. Read it from behind the counter and the report says something the headlines miss: millions of customers already hold digital dollars and are spending them at ordinary businesses — but through a card wrapper that converts the stablecoin back to fiat at the point of sale, so the merchant still pays card fees, still waits days for settlement, and still carries the chargeback window on money that was born instant and final. This analysis unpacks the a16z numbers, why the card is a compatibility layer rather than the destination, and how a business captures the same demand directly: stablecoins paid to a wallet you control, confirmed in seconds, with no interchange and no chargebacks.

13 min read
Developers & APIs

REST API Crypto Payment Gateway: Integrate in a Day

If your checkout is custom-built, you need a crypto payment gateway that speaks REST: create charges from your backend, drive the order lifecycle with signed webhooks, and rehearse everything in an integration playground. Payzum is non-custodial — every payment settles in seconds to a wallet you control, with no gateway balance and no chargebacks.

13 min read
Payouts

Visa Direct stablecoin payouts: the biggest push-payment rail goes on-chain

On August 5, 2026, Visa and infrastructure provider Zerohash announced that Visa Direct — the push-payments network reaching 18 billion cards, accounts and wallets across 195+ countries — will let eligible clients prefund accounts and disburse payouts in stablecoins. It's the clearest signal yet of where stablecoins actually enter business finance first: not the checkout, the payout leg. Recipients — freelancers, sellers, affiliates, contractors — increasingly want digital dollars, and now the largest disbursement rail is retrofitting itself to deliver them. The catch sits in one recurring phrase: 'eligible Visa Direct clients.' The capability arrives intermediated — through network clients, in permitted jurisdictions, on a platform account powered by a third party, with the supported coins and chains undisclosed. This analysis unpacks what was actually announced, why prefunding is the quietly expensive problem it solves, and what the median business that pays out — a marketplace, an affiliate program, an agency with remote contractors — can do without being a Visa Direct client at all: send stablecoin payouts today, non-custodially, from a wallet it controls.

15 min read
E-commerce & Online Stores

Add Crypto Checkout to Your Store: 4 Ways to Go Live

You don't need a blockchain team to add crypto checkout: pick a drop-in plugin, hosted checkout, no-code payment links, or the REST API with signed webhooks. Customers pay in USDC/USDT (or any coin, auto-converted), the order confirms in seconds, and funds settle non-custodially to a wallet you control — no chargebacks, no gateway balance.

12 min read