Original: Bloomberg
Compiled & Edited by: angelilu, Foresight News
A 49-year-old American marketing director, who previously considered Bitcoin to have "no underlying value," spent several days this year opening an account, buying cryptocurrency, and making a transfer. His goal was to purchase 20 bottles of an investigational weight-loss drug from a Chinese seller. A Bloomberg report on July 20 revealed that such transactions are forming a crypto payment market, with annual transaction volume projected to exceed $100 million at the current pace—and the buyers are mostly ordinary consumers who had never touched cryptocurrency before.
A Transfer to Save Money
The buyer interviewed by Bloomberg is named Zach (surname withheld for privacy), from the Pacific Northwest region of the US. He wanted retatrutide—an investigational weight-loss drug from Eli Lilly. It is a triple GIP, GLP-1, and glucagon receptor agonist; in simple terms, it targets one more point than current market drugs like semaglutide and tirzepatide. Eli Lilly released its phase 3 clinical data in March this year, showing weight loss of up to 28% at the highest dose over 80 weeks. However, this drug has not yet been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and is unavailable through regular channels.
Zach searched for months and finally found a Chinese seller willing to sell him 20 bottles of what they claimed to be that compound, roughly a year's supply, for a total of $240. In contrast, buying from secondary dealers in the US would cost him $300 a month, or $3,600 a year.
The only condition: Bitcoin only.
According to Bloomberg's description, Zach had previously categorized Bitcoin as a purely speculative asset. But the more than tenfold price difference changed his mind—"The spread is too vast; it felt like a risk worth taking." The seller gave him a webpage teaching him how to buy and transfer cryptocurrency. A few days later, he opened a Coinbase account, bought Bitcoin for the first time in his life, transferred it to the seller, and received the package a week later.
What Peptides Are, and Why They Need Crypto Payments
Peptides are short chains of amino acids that participate in regulating various physiological processes in the human body. They have entered the public spotlight over the past two years alongside the weight-loss drug craze—injectable drugs like semaglutide (Wegovy) and tirzepatide (Zepbound), which have undergone full clinical validation and approval, are themselves peptide drugs.
But beyond these approved drugs, a large number of similar products that have not undergone full human safety and efficacy verification circulate online, often sold under the label of "research chemicals," with packaging clearly stating they are not approved by the FDA and are not for human or animal use. They are shipped directly from overseas laboratories, requiring no prescription and bypassing insurance.
Due to the unproven health claims of these products and the high legal and regulatory risks, banks and credit card networks are often unwilling to provide services to such sellers. Locked out of the traditional payment system, more and more sellers accept only Bitcoin.
style="text-align: left;">It should be noted that crypto payments themselves are stratified: Data cited by Bloomberg shows that among sellers with an average transaction value exceeding $1,000, stablecoins have surpassed Bitcoin as the preferred choice; but on the end catering to small retail customers like Zach, Bitcoin remains mainstream.Growing in Scale, but Still Small Overall
Data from blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis shows that in Q1 2026, gray-market peptide sellers received $32 million in cryptocurrency payments, a 700% year-on-year increase (a 159% increase from the previous quarter's $12 million). Projecting based on recent months' pace, the annualized scale now exceeds $100 million.
Security firm TRM Labs, using another method—combining on-chain analysis with public information investigations on drug precursor manufacturers—estimated crypto inflows into this sector at $41.4 million in 2025, a 20% year-on-year increase.
Ari Redbord, Global Head of Policy at TRM Labs, believes, "This market is huge and expanding. I'm not sure there's another pharmaceutical market in the world growing as fast as peptides."
This paints a somewhat dramatic scene: regular gym-goers, podcast listeners, middle-aged individuals wanting to lose weight—these demographics are being linked to gray-market buyers.
Despite the growth, industry investors estimate the overall size of the peptide black market to be between $1 billion and $3 billion. The volume using cryptocurrency as a payment method remains very small.
A Bar Adorned with Crypto Memorabilia
The most interesting scene in Bloomberg's report takes place in a corner of a bar in Manhattan—walls covered with crypto memorabilia, over a hundred people crammed into a stuffy room, listening to a lecture on peptides.
The organizer was DeSciNYC, a monthly in-person gathering for science enthusiasts, with the slogan "Science for everyone." Its past themes have included: longevity, CRISPR gene editing, AI & science, microbiome, bioelectricity, tardigrades, cellular metabolism, academic publishing fraud, prediction markets, etc.
This peptide-themed session was called "Peptides 101." The speaker was Julius Ritter, in his twenties, founder of the California Peptide Club, who also runs a longevity-themed meal delivery company and operates a hackathon house in San Francisco. He spent an hour covering peptide chemistry, potential uses, some risks, and several specific products, finally lifting his black T-shirt and injecting himself on the spot, earning a round of applause.
This scene illustrates something more direct than payment data: the connection between crypto and this market is not just a payment channel; it's the same crowd. The DeSci, longevity, biohacking, and fitness self-optimization circles are highly overlapping, with the crypto community being frequent visitors.
Regulation Is Moving, This Use Case Might Disappear
It's worth noting that the US is moving in the direction of "legalization."
The FDA is convening advisory committees to discuss whether to allow the legal domestic production of some popular peptides. US Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has publicly supported this direction, arguing that legalization "helps shift demand away from the black market." Lee Rosebush, President of the American Peptide Medical Association, which advocates for regulation, used the term "Wild West" to describe the current market state. He believes stricter rules could actually squeeze out "for research only" manufacturers, making it easier for patients to obtain safe medication.
If this path succeeds, crypto payments' position in this market could become awkward—its current share largely occupies the space left by the absence of the traditional payment system.
Zach himself plans to exit. He says he has already reached his target weight.
