For years, one of the simplest and most effective criticisms of cryptocurrency was the same question repeated over and over: “Where can you actually use it?”
Bitcoin (BTC) was pitched as money, but outside a handful of novelty merchants, it rarely behaved like one. The question lingered through bull markets and crashes, reinforcing the idea that crypto was something to hold, trade or argue about rather than something to use.
That looks different in 2025. Crypto is still not everyday money at the checkout counter, but it is used across specific digital workflows, where speed or direct settlement are prioritized over familiarity.
Here are the places where people are actually using crypto today.
YouTubers and freelancers get paid in crypto
One of the most common ways people use crypto today is to pay for work and receive income online. Freelancers, contractors and creators use stablecoins like USDC (USDC) or Tether’s USDt (USDT) to settle payments directly between wallets, without relying on traditional payment processors.
A recent example comes from YouTube. The world’s largest video-sharing platform reportedly enabled US-based content creators to cash out using PayPal’s stablecoin, PayPal USD (PYUSD).
For clients and employers, this removes delays, fees and transfer limits that often come with international payments. This model is especially common in remote work and creator economies.
However, those who opt for crypto payments may still face difficulties when converting crypto into fiat. Industry participants have said banks continue to close or restrict the accounts of crypto firms with little explanation despite a more crypto-friendly stance taken by the current US administration.
Use crypto to purchase digital goods
Beyond paying individuals, crypto is also used to settle payments with businesses. This is most common among online services with global customers, where traditional payment systems introduce friction through fees, delays or regional restrictions.
Domain registrars, hosting providers and privacy-focused software companies are among the most visible adopters. Providers like Mullvad VPN allow customers to pay using cryptocurrency, while Namecheap and Porkbun accept crypto for domain registrations and hosting services. On Sept. 9, Namecheap CEO Richard Kirkendall said the company received a $2-million BTC payment for a domain sale.
More recently, mainstream payments and commerce platforms have started integrating stablecoin payments. Stripe has enabled businesses to accept USDC payments and launched the public testnet of its own stablecoin blockchain, Tempo. Shopify has piloted stablecoin-based checkout options for merchants selling internationally.
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Clearer regulatory treatment of stablecoins in the US, driven by the signing of the GENIUS Act into law, has reduced uncertainty for some merchants considering these pilots.
Digitizing and extending physical collectible cultures
Crypto has also found use in the digitization of collectible cultures that were already thriving offline. In 2025, interest in physical collectibles surged again, driven by renewed demand for Pokémon cards, Labubu figures and other toys.
Alongside that revival, digital and tokenized versions of collectibles gained traction as an extension rather than a replacement of physical collecting.
Tokenized Pokémon-style cards and digital gachas — popular randomized item vending machines — became popular ways for collectors to participate in familiar formats online, especially as marketplaces and communities shifted from binders and display cases to apps and web platforms.
Crypto’s niche inside DeFi and GameFi
In decentralized finance (DeFi), users swap tokens, provide liquidity to farm yield, lend assets or borrow against collateral through smart contracts.
Blockchain-based games operate in a similar way. Often, blockchain and crypto add economic layers to games running on Web2 infrastructure. Players use crypto to buy or trade in-game items and move assets between marketplaces.
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A popular model is play-to-earn gaming, where players earn crypto through gameplay. A well-known example is Axie Infinity, which became a primary source of income for some communities in the Philippines during the pandemic. In 2025, play-to-earn games are more likely to provide extra income rather than a primary livelihood. Developers also face persistent challenges, including cheaters using bots to farm rewards, which takes value away from fair players.
According to DappRadar, World of Dypians, which operates across multiple chains, including Ethereum and BNB Chain, leads blockchain games with more than 1 million unique active wallets interacting with the game. Treasure-collecting game Pixudi Runs, which also operates across multiple chains, such as Sei and Polygon, ranks second with nearly 570,000 active wallets.
Running organizations with crypto onchain
Deeper in DeFi, crypto is used to coordinate decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs). In these groups, tokenholders are the members. They use their tokens to vote on proposals, approve spending and decide how the organization is run. Votes are recorded onchain, and once a proposal passes, actions such as payments or rule changes are carried out automatically through smart contracts.
DAOs are mostly used to manage crypto-native projects. Taking part usually means holding governance tokens, navigating onchain voting proposals and managing a wallet. These requirements make DAO governance impractical for most casual users.
As a result, DAOs remain largely the domain of people already active in the crypto ecosystem.
Crypto’s current uses are broader than its early ambitions, and development continues. Financial companies are using blockchains to tokenize real-world assets, settle transactions with stablecoins and test onchain versions of traditional financial products.
Other experiments, such as wallet-based identity systems and Bitcoin-backed lending, remain in early stages. But they follow familiar patterns, with crypto most likely to integrate into existing services and remove frictions created by intermediaries.
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