In March, Tisséo became the first public transport network in Europe to allow travellers to pay for their tickets with cryptocurrency. Dalvinder Kular, assistant editor at FStech investigates whether this is part of a wider push towards the use of cryptocurrency to buy goods and services.

On 22 May 2010, programmer and cryptocurrency enthusiast Laszlo Hanyecz purchased two pizzas for 10,000 bitcoins in Florida, which was then the equivalent of around $41 dollars.

Since that first transaction, on what is now celebrated as Bitcoin Pizza Day, around 15,200 businesses around the world accept bitcoin and 328,370 bitcoin transactions are made each day, according to small business advisory firm Fundera.

This number is tiny when compared to the roughly two billion daily transactions made by credit card around the world but there are indications that suggest paying for a coffee using Ethereum could soon be as normal as paying with contactless.

In March 2025, Tisséo, a public transport operator in the French city of Toulouse, became the first transit network in Europe to accept cryptocurrency payments. A few months earlier, French luxury department store Printemps started to offer crypto as a payment method to appeal to international clientele.

Outside of France, cryptocurrency is venturing beyond speculative trading and into everyday transactions. US president Donald Trump has stated his ambition to make the US the cryptocurrency capital of the world, launching his own meme coin, and Colorado’s Department of Revenue began to accept tax payments in cryptocurrency in September 2022.
While organisations eagerly roll out trials of cryptocurrencies, the uptake by consumers remains uncertain.

Ticket to ride

Sacha Briand, board member of Tisséo and deputy mayor of Toulouse, who is responsible for overseeing finance and public assets, tells FStech that cryptocurrency is used to make about 10 purchases through the app each week.

As Toulouse is a university town with a large young population familiar with cryptocurrencies, Briand expects this number to rise in September when students return to study and purchase their annual season tickets.

Toulouse is growing, recently overtaking Lyon to become France’s third largest city, and Briand says Tisséo is modernising its payment systems to coincide with the opening of a third metro line in 2028.

Tisséo partnered with payment platform Lyzi to enable Android users to purchase digital tickets using cryptocurrencies within the Tisséo app alongside traditional card payments. Tisséo spent around €50,000 in integration fees and said it earns no commission from the transactions.

“The main difficulty lies in the rules of public accounting, which had to be reconciled with this new payment tool, but the implementation was not overly complex,” Briand says.

Lysi connects the customers paying in crypto, with Tisséo explaining that its agents do not handle crypto on a daily basis but are trained to deal with refund requests and the process is similar to that of traditional credit cards.

According to estimates, around 18 per cent of the French population hold cryptocurrency and this number is expected to grow.

“Honestly, with 18 per cent holding crypto, I would expect maybe two to three per cent to use it immediately for something like Tisséo’s travel payments,” says Thomas Franklin, chief executive of crypto FinTech firm Swapped. “But usage could double year over year, hitting ten per cent penetration by 2027 if the experience is seamless.”

Franklin added that the purchase of transport tickets is a good place to start using cryptocurrency.

“Public transport is a surprisingly good fit for crypto payments,” Franklin says. “Small-ticket, high-frequency, low-dispute transactions. You’re not refunding a metro ride.”

Julia Barashkov, a PhD researcher at Delft University of Technology, agrees and points out the parallels between public transport and the token economy.

“Transit systems tokenise access to physical resources without transferring ownership,” she says. “Riders want quick transactions, operators need efficiency, and price points are predictable.”

Yet, she says that that the adoption of cryptocurrencies by businesses in the physical rather than digital world could present unique challenges.

“Physical infrastructure involves coordination between multiple stakeholders—regulators, citizens, suppliers—who might not be crypto users,” she adds. “This creates a complexity digital-only environments don’t face.”

Beyond the transport sector, countries are starting to slowly embrace crypto payments. Bhutan last week partnered with Biance Pay, becoming the first country in the world to offer a national-level cryptocurrency payment system for the tourism industry.

The new model will enable Binance Pay users to pay for nearly every part of their Bhutan journey using supported cryptocurrencies, including airline tickets, tourist visas and Sustainable Development Fees (SDF), hotel bookings, tour guides, monument entry fees, and local shopping, which can all be settled through static and dynamic QR code payments.

Papuna Lezhava, chief executive of crypto payments firm Keepz, sees this as a broader trend.

“In Georgia, people can pay taxes and buy apartments with crypto,” he says. “We’re seeing faster adoption in countries where regulation and infrastructure support it.”

Spending digital assets

Due to fluctuations in exchange rates and the volatility of the cryptocurrency market, many users have seen crypto as an investment asset rather than a form of money which can be exchanged for goods and services, leaving cryptocurrencies languishing in digital wallets.

“Most crypto users still see Bitcoin and Ethereum as investment vehicles,” says Franklin. “Why spend an asset that might double next quarter? However, stablecoins like USDC, pegged to fiat currencies, are changing the equation.”

Franklin continues: “People will spend stablecoins or Layer-2 tokens way before they part with their Bitcoin. These tokens offer low volatility, making them suitable for day-to-day purchases—assuming merchants can integrate them smoothly.”

For crypto payments to become as effortless as tap to pay Franklin believes several challenges have to be solved.

Currently, paying with crypto involves three to five steps. He says the holy grail is “invisible” conversion, which allows users can pay in cryptocurrency without manual calculations or delays.

“We’re realistically five to seven years away from it being truly invisible to the end user,” Franklin estimates.

Risks and barriers

Barriers for merchants are also substantial.

“Crypto payments don’t auto-sync with traditional accounting systems,” Franklin explains. “Without middleware that handles real-time conversion and ledger entries, it becomes a reconciliation nightmare.”

To overcome these hurdles, many merchants are turning to specialised processors that offer instant conversion and stablecoin support. “The winners will be those who outsource the complexity,” he adds.

The volatility of cryptocurrencies is a huge concern for merchants and customers. If a retailer receives £100 worth of crypto and its value drops before it can be converted to fiat, it directly impacts revenue.

However, Lezhava says newer platforms are addressing these challenges. “Many now offer real-time conversion from crypto to local currency,” says Lezhava. “That way, merchants get paid what they expect, and customers can use digital assets confidently.”

It’s not just volatility, Franklin says, explaining that the “the devil is in the details” when it comes to merchant risks. Along with exchange rate fluctuations, merchants also have to navigate chargebacks, settlement times, and regulatory classification issues.

“If a merchant receives $10 in BTC and by the time they cash out it is $9.40, that hits the bottom line hard,” Franklin says.

Merchants also have to think about regulation, with a risk that payment innovation could be held back due to bureaucracy.

“The UK has strong blockchain innovation, but regulatory bottlenecks slow down crypto adoption,” Franklin says.

While the Bank of England explores a digital pound and UK FinTech firms urge customers to adopt innovations like Open Banking, there seems to be a lack of mass movement towards crypto payments in retail or public services. Franklin thinks that with Brexit-era caution and regulatory conservatism still looming, widespread adoption may be years away.

The US has its own unique problems.

“Some US cities are crypto havens, others treat it like radioactive waste,” Franklin says. “Recent headlines involving Donald Trump’s meme coin might have boosted crypto visibility, but experts agree that it’s not spurring serious payments adoption.”

Outside the US and Europe, the pace of crypto integration varies and El Salvador seems to be leading the way, having made Bitcoin legal tender in 2021. Franklin says parts of the UAE are leading because they treat crypto payments like an infrastructure play, not a PR stunt.

The journey from pilot to purchase

If cryptocurrency is to become a normalised payment method, it is unlikely to happen overnight. As with the internet, smartphones, or contactless cards, mass adoption will likely come in phases and will be driven by its potential rather than hype.

“Success depends not just on the tech, but on governance,” Barashkov says. “Crypto in physical spaces requires buy-in from people who don’t even hold the token.”

Tisséo will review the option to pay by cryptocurrency later this year and currently has no firm plans to phase out or expand the scheme.

“We didn’t introduce crypto because of a trend, we did it because payment tools are evolving, and Toulouse must evolve with them,” says Briand. “Toulouse is a city of innovation in every field, capital of aeronautics and space, with strong demographic and economic growth, so it was only natural that we should also innovate in terms of payment methods.

“We believe that cryptocurrencies are set to grow very rapidly, so this payment tool is proof of our desire to be in step with a city of innovation and development.”

Cryptocurrency may have started as an alternative to traditional finance and investment vehicles, but it could be evolving into something more day-to-day.

As the infrastructure improves and use cases become more seamless, paying by crypto could become less of a novelty and just as normal as tapping a card. However, it seems that although there are use cases demonstrating how cryptocurrencies could be embedded into daily life, we are still a long way away from seeing this come to fruition.

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