Bitcoin Dominates 2025 Crypto Payments, Litecoin Claims Third Spot: CoinGate Report Reveals

Forget the hype—the real adoption story just got its report card. Bitcoin didn't just lead the crypto payments race in 2025; it lapped the field. Meanwhile, Litecoin quietly cemented itself as the workhorse in third place, proving that sometimes the boring tech just… works.

The King Stays King

Bitcoin's top billing is no surprise, but the sheer scale of its lead tells a deeper story. It's the asset that merchants actually want to receive and that customers are most willing to spend—a dual endorsement that separates digital gold from mere speculative tokens. The network effect is now a payments effect.

The Dark Horse Emerges

Litecoin grabbing the third-most-used position is the quiet headline. While others battle for DeFi dominance or NFT relevance, LTC's focus on faster, cheaper transactions carved out a real-world utility niche. It's the pragmatic choice in a space obsessed with the next shiny thing—a refreshing, if unsexy, victory for fundamentals.

The Payments Landscape Solidifies

The leaderboard is starting to look less like a volatile crypto chart and more like established infrastructure. A clear hierarchy is forming, separating the assets built for transactions from those built for tweets and treasury bets. This is where theory meets the cash register—or, more accurately, the digital point-of-sale.

So, while Wall Street debates ETFs and ATHs, actual commerce is voting with its wallet. The results? Bitcoin reigns, and Litecoin earns its keep. The rest are still trying to explain their whitepaper at the checkout counter. Sometimes, the market's most profound statement isn't a price pump—it's a simple, repeated 'Payment Successful.'

Bitcoin Was The Most Used Cryptocurrency On CoinGate In 2025

In a new thread on X, digital asset payments processor CoinGate has shared insights from its latest report about transactions that occurred on the platform in 2025. In total, CoinGate processed 1.42 million cryptocurrency payments during the year, bringing its total lifetime payments beyond 7 million.

As the below pie chart shows, Bitcoin accounted for the largest share of these payments.

Back in 2024, Tether’s USDT ranked the highest in payments on the platform, beating Bitcoin. With a share of 22.10% in 2025, however, the original cryptocurrency managed to reclaim the top spot over the stablecoin, which ended the year with a payments dominance of 16.60%.

The third position was occupied by Litecoin, which was involved in 14.40% of CoinGate payments. In Summer 2025, LTC even briefly became the second-best coin in the metric. Litecoin being preferred over some other popular assets could be due to the fact that its blockchain offers cheap and fast transactions as core features.

Ethereum and Tron, the fifth and sixth most used coins, both observed growth in payments dominance during 2025. “TRX payment share grew from 9.1% to 11.5% and ETH from 8.9% to 10.6%,” noted CoinGate.

In terms of networks, the Bitcoin blockchain, including the Lightning Network, was the most widely used on the platform in 2025, symmetrical with the token’s payments share itself.

As displayed above, the second and third largest networks on CoinGate were TRON and Ethereum, occupying shares of 19.6% and 15.1%, respectively. These blockchains being above Litecoin despite their native tokens accounting for lower payment shares is because they also facilitate stablecoin transactions.

The United States led in country rankings on the platform, with 24.37% of payments on the platform taking place in the nation. Germany and Netherlands rounded out the top three with shares of 6.83% and 5.16%, respectively.

Cryptocurrencies saw significant usage on the platform in terms of being a payment mode, but that’s not all they were used for. According to the report, merchants also increasingly chose to settle in digital assets.

More specifically, cryptocurrency settlements ROSE from 27% in 2024 to 37.5% in 2025. Stablecoins were the preferred option for merchants, being involved in 25.2% of all settlements, while Bitcoin occupied a smaller, but still notable, 9.7% share.

Merchants also used cryptocurrencies to pay vendors, affiliates, partners, and contractors. “The most popular payouts were in USDC, Bitcoin, and Ethereum,” said CoinGate. Stablecoins once again dominated here, occupying a payouts share of 87.8%.

BTC Price

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading around $88,300, down more than 9% over the last week.