Global payments infrastructure provider Mercuryo said in London on August 20 that its fiat-to-crypto purchase conversion rate rose by 75% year on year in the first half of 2026 after it simplified the digital token purchasing process. According to the company’s internal data, the overall conversion rate increased from 12% in the first half of 2025 to 21% during the same period this year. This represents an increase of nine percentage points, or 75% on a relative basis.
Mercuryo attributed the improvement to reducing the number of steps in its crypto on-ramp process, clarifying navigation and adapting payment options and checkout interfaces to different devices and markets. The figures are based on the company’s own data and do not represent an independent industry-wide measurement. They nevertheless provide an indication of where potential customers may be lost during the transaction process.
The results highlight a persistent structural problem in crypto payments. Although regulatory compliance and payment approval remain essential, many users abandon purchases before submitting payment because the process is unfamiliar, time-consuming or poorly aligned with local payment practices. This means that a technically successful payment system may still produce weak commercial results if customers do not reach the checkout stage.
According to the 2023 Global Crypto Onramp Report, more than half of fiat-to-crypto transactions failed even after users had completed know-your-customer procedures, while abandonment during some purchase flows reached as high as 90%. Transaction success rates varied depending on the user’s location, fiat currency, selected cryptocurrency, payment method, transaction value and on-ramp provider. Europe recorded the highest average success rates in the study, while Africa and South America posted the lowest.
The report also found that local payment methods and bank transfers generally performed better than credit and debit cards, although results differed by market and transaction type. These variations suggest that applying a standardized checkout model across multiple countries may be less effective than designing payment flows around local financial infrastructure and consumer habits. For global crypto platforms, localization is therefore becoming part of payment performance rather than simply a marketing consideration.
Mercuryo’s analysis showed that customers were most likely to abandon a transaction before payment was submitted, with drop-off declining considerably once payment had begun. The finding points to a broader shift in digital asset payments: the decisive point in customer conversion may not be payment acceptance itself but the design of the steps leading to it. Crypto platforms can lose customers before their compliance, fraud-prevention and settlement infrastructure is fully engaged.
“An incessant focus on improving the UX for our customer base is delivering tangible benefits as we see a significant reduction in customer drop-off at the pre-payment stage,” said Ashna Vaghela, chief customer officer at Mercuryo. “We’re acutely mindful that customers expect the on-ramp process to be clear, intuitive and suited to the way they want to purchase digital tokens.” She added that reducing unnecessary complexity would be important to the wider adoption of Web3 services.
The findings also carry implications for wallets, exchanges and other digital platforms that embed fiat-to-crypto payment services. Improving conversion may depend not only on offering more payment methods but also on reducing uncertainty at each stage, clearly presenting fees and requirements, and adapting the process to local preferences. At the same time, providers must maintain identity verification, transaction security and regulatory compliance without making those safeguards unnecessarily disruptive.
As digital assets become more closely integrated with mainstream financial services, users increasingly expect buying and selling crypto to resemble conventional online banking or e-commerce transactions. The next stage of competition among crypto payment providers may therefore be determined less by access to digital tokens alone and more by how effectively they combine localized checkout design with compliance and settlement infrastructure. Mercuryo provides payment and on-chain integration services connecting conventional currencies and digital assets for wallets, exchanges and other digital platforms.
