Stablecoins are expanding their use for everyday payments in Europe, according to a report published on May 6, 2026 by the OKX exchange, based on its card transactions in the European Economic Area (EEA). The analysis points to a change in the use patterns of these assets, traditionally linked to trading.
As CriptoNoticias reported, this behavior occurs in the context of the deployment of the OKX Card in Europeenabled under the MiCA regulatory framework and in association with Mastercard. The card allows you to pay with stablecoins such as USDC in merchants that accept this network, with automatic conversion to euros at the time of payment, without manual recharges and with a spread close to 0.1%.
The data, corresponding to settled operations between January 28 and February 26, 2026, show that 26% of transactions were carried out in supermarkets. Overall, spending on food — which includes supermarkets, restaurants and fast food — accounted for 44% of the total. Restaurants represented 12% of operations and online marketplaces 13%.
The breakdown by country reflects differences in consumer habits. In France, 5% of transactions take place in bakeries, more than double the European average. Germany concentrates 30% of its activity on electronic commerce platforms. In the Netherlands, 37% of spending corresponds to supermarkets and nearly 20% to travel and accommodation. In Poland, convenience stores account for 16% of transactions and fuel use is close to one in ten payments.
Despite these data, There are no official figures that indicate mass adoption of stablecoins in retail payments. The European Central Bank (ECB) places the stablecoin market among the 450 and 700 million euros at the beginning of 2026, which reflects a still limited scale compared to the traditional financial system. The organization indicates that its impact is limited for now, although it maintains monitoring of its growth.
In that context, OKX data shows a developing trend: the use of stablecoins is beginning to extend towards daily consumption within regulated environments and connected to traditional payment infrastructures.