Tallinn, Estonia, October 8th, 2026, Chainwire

SaaS and eCommerce lifted their combined share of classified partners on NOWPayments, a crypto payments platform, from 48.26% to 55.54% year over year, while Trading slipped from 14.07% to 13.15%, newly aggregated data shows.

Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies designed to hold a steady value against a reference asset, most commonly the US dollar. Businesses can build stablecoin infrastructure around the wrong problem. The mistake is treating stablecoins primarily as a coin-and-network decision. For a digital business, stablecoins may need to support a much broader set of operating workflows, including billing, checkout, settlement, payouts, and reconciliation — and which of those workflows matters most depends on the business model.

The aggregated data shows the industry mix shifting toward businesses that use payments as part of their day-to-day operations. Between January 16 and July 16, 2026, SaaS and web services accounted for 27.78% of classified partners, with eCommerce Marketplaces following at 27.76%. Together, the two sectors represented 55.54% of the sample. During the same period in 2025, their combined share was 48.26%, meaning the 7.28-percentage-point increase represents a 15.08% year-over-year rise. Because both measurement windows span the same January-to-July period, the year-over-year comparison is like-for-like.

Trading remained an important part of the sample, but its share moved in the opposite direction. It declined from 14.07% in 2025 to 13.15% in 2026, leaving trading in third place behind SaaS and eCommerce.

The clearest upward shift came from SaaS. Its share increased from 15.58% to 27.78% in one year, closing a gap of 17.10 percentage points with eCommerce. The emerging picture is not stablecoins replacing trading — it is stablecoin adoption expanding into the operating infrastructure of digital businesses.

Unless otherwise stated, industry-distribution figures compare January 16 to July 16, 2025, with January 16 to July 16, 2026.

The Partner Mix Is Shifting Toward Operational Use Cases

In 2025, eCommerce marketplaces led the dataset at 32.68%. SaaS and Web Services followed at 15.58%, with Trading close behind at 14.07%. One year later, SaaS had increased its share by 12.20 percentage points to 27.78%, while eCommerce stood at 27.76%, leaving only 0.02 percentage points between the two sectors. Their combined share rose from 48.26% to 55.54%, and more than half of the classified partners in the 2026 sample therefore came from two sectors built around digital transactions, recurring services, and online customer relationships.

The rest of the partner mix changed more gradually. Financial Services moved from 9.00% to 6.35%. Gambling and iGaming increased from 6.20% to 6.87%, and adult platforms rose from 4.99% to 5.89%. Charity declined from 2.27% to 1.40%, while TGE/Presale moved from 2.12% to 1.35%.

These figures measure changes in each industry's share of the sample and do not measure absolute partner growth. A category may lose share because another category expanded faster.

Methodology: Each percentage represents an industry's share of the full aggregated partner sample classified across the same nine categories. The comparison covers January 16 to July 16 in both 2025 and 2026, and each period was normalized independently. Absolute partner counts are not disclosed, and percentages are rounded to two decimal places. The findings describe partner distribution within the NOWPayments dataset, not payment volume, transaction value, or market-wide industry share.

Different Business Models Need Different Stablecoin Workflows

The industry data becomes useful when it is translated into the operating questions each business model may need to solve.

For a SaaS company, stablecoin payments may need to connect with recurring billing, invoice matching, account activation, renewals, settlement, and financial reconciliation. A marketplace may need stablecoins to work across a longer flow, where the payment begins at checkout and continues through refunds, seller settlement, affiliate commissions, and other payouts. Trading platforms face a different set of requirements, with priorities that may include asset and network coverage, confirmation policies, liquidity, and treasury controls.

These are potential workflow drivers, not a universal description of every company in each category. The same stablecoin can serve all three sectors while performing a different operational job in each one — which is why a business should define the workflow before choosing the asset and network.

The Network Mix Also Changes by Industry

Successful-payment data shows that industry differences extend to network usage.DT on TRON — Tether's US dollar stablecoin issued on the TRON blockchain — accounted for 54.58% of the measured successful-payment sample within eCommerce marketplaces, compared with 12.04% in trading and 9.60% in SaaS and web services. Within this dataset, USDT TRC20 was about 4.5 times as prominent in eCommerce as in Trading and 5.7 times as prominent as in SaaS.

The corresponding shares were 4.76% in Gambling and iGaming, 1.85% in Financial Services, 1.49% in Other, and 0.60% in Charity. Adult Platforms and TGE/Presale each recorded a 0% share in the analyzed sample.

The difference supports the same conclusion as the industry data: a stablecoin setup that fits one business model may not fit another. For an eCommerce business, USDT on TRON may play a visible role in checkout activity. A SaaS company may see a different asset and network mix, while trading platforms may need broader coverage across both. Businesses should validate these decisions against their own successful-payment data instead of importing the preferences of another industry.

Methodology: Each percentage represents USDT TRC20's share of the aggregated successful-payment sample within the corresponding industry. Absolute transaction counts are not disclosed, and failed, expired, refunded, and test transactions are excluded. The figures describe activity within the NOWPayments ecosystem and should not be interpreted as market-wide currency shares. A 0% result means that no successful USDT TRC20 payments were recorded in the analyzed sample for that category.

Build the Workflow Before Choosing the Rails

The five operating areas provide a practical framework for evaluating stablecoin infrastructure:

• Billing: Does the payment need to connect with invoices, subscriptions, renewals, or account access?
• Checkout: Which assets and networks produce completed payments for the company's actual customers?
• Settlement: Which asset should the business receive, and when should funds become available?
• Payouts: Will funds need to move to sellers, affiliates, contractors, or customers?
• Reconciliation: How will the finance team match transactions with invoices, orders, and internal reporting?

Not every business needs all five. A SaaS platform may focus on billing and reconciliation, a marketplace may need checkout, settlement, and payouts, and a trading platform may prioritize network coverage, liquidity, and treasury controls. A company should first identify which workflows apply; asset and network selection comes after that.

"The mistake is asking which stablecoin is best. The better question is: best for what?" said Kate Lifshits, Commercial Director at NOWPayments. "Businesses should define the billing, checkout, settlement, payout, and reconciliation flow first. The coin and network should serve that workflow – not the other way around."

Lifshits explores the commercial side of crypto payments in her Cryptopolitan series, Crypto That Works for Business. The first column, The 22% Sales Boost Hiding in Your Crypto Checkout, examined how payment infrastructure can affect checkout performance. Future installments will continue looking at where crypto payments can increase revenue, lower costs, and remove operational friction.

Stablecoin strategy starts with the job the money needs to do. The coin and network come next.

About NOWPayments

NOWPayments is a crypto business ecosystem designed to help companies accept payments, automate mass payouts, manage stablecoin treasury, and scale global digital asset operations through a single infrastructure. The platform supports more than 350 cryptocurrencies, over 30 stablecoins, flexible settlement options, and enterprise-grade APIs.