Which Crypto to Accept in Games – BTC, ETH & USDT Networks

The coin a player picks matters less than the network they send it on. Get that choice right and a $3 gem pack costs cents to move; get it wrong and the network fee is a third of the purchase. This page is about matching the asset to the payment size in a game economy.

At a glance

What to offer at checkout

Asset	Best for	Why players choose it	Watch out for
USDT Tether, on TRC-20 or ERC-20	Almost everything — top-ups, gem packs, iGaming deposits	Price-stable, so a $10 pack costs $10. Overwhelmingly the most held asset among players who pay in crypto.	The network choice is the whole game here. See below.
BTC Bitcoin	Larger purchases, whale deposits, prize pools	The asset the widest set of people already hold, and the one they trust most.	Base-layer fees and confirmation times make it a poor fit for a $2 microtransaction.
ETH Ethereum	Mid-size purchases, crypto-native and web3 audiences	Default holding for anyone already active in NFT or web3 gaming.	Mainnet gas is volatile — a quiet hour and a busy hour are not the same purchase.

VirtexPay supports Bitcoin, Ethereum, USDT and further assets, and new ones are added over time. For the definitive, current list — and the networks available for each — check your Virtex Gateway dashboard, which is always ahead of any page like this one.

The decision that matters

USDT on TRC-20 vs ERC-20

USDT is not one thing — it exists on several chains, and the chain decides what the transfer costs your player. For game payments this is the single most consequential option on your checkout screen.

Tron (TRC-20) — the cheapest and most popular network for USDT transfers, with fees often under $1. For a game store selling $2–$20 items, this is usually what you want defaulted.
Ethereum (ERC-20) — the original USDT network, more widely supported by institutional wallets and older integrations, but with higher gas fees that scale badly down to small purchases.

A practical default: offer both, pre-select TRC-20, and show the estimated network fee next to each option. Players optimise for total cost, and the ones paying $3 for a starter pack notice immediately. Our full write-up is in how to accept USDT payments on your website.

Sending on the wrong network is the number one support ticket in crypto checkout. Label the network on the payment screen, in the confirmation email and in your own store UI. It costs you one line of copy and removes most of the tickets.

By payment size

Matching the asset to the purchase

Under $10 — microtransactions

Gem packs, single skins, small top-ups. Lead with USDT on a low-fee network. At this size the network fee is the entire economics of the transaction, and a base-layer Bitcoin payment does not make sense.

$10–$100 — the bulk of revenue

Battle passes, bundles, account top-ups, standard iGaming deposits. Any of the three assets works; offer all of them and let the player use whatever they already hold.

$100+ — high rollers and prize pools

Large deposits, tournament pools, B2B reseller settlements. BTC and ETH come into their own — the fee is a rounding error and these are the assets big holders actually keep.

Paying out, not taking in

Prizes, creator revenue share and reseller payouts are usually best in a stablecoin so the recipient is not exposed to price movement between your approval and their withdrawal. Or skip crypto entirely and use fiat off-ramp payouts.

Coins & Networks