A bullion dealer runs one of the least forgiving payment operations in commerce. The product is priced off a spot market that moves while the customer is still at the checkout screen, the gross margin on a common one-ounce coin is a small percentage of the order value, and the goods are compact, liquid and effectively untraceable once they leave the vault. A card processor looks at that combination and sees fraud exposure. A dealer looks at the same combination and sees a payment method that costs a meaningful share of the margin and can still be pulled back weeks after the parcel was signed for.

That is why the large online dealers built their pricing around payment method years ago, and why stablecoins or crypto sit naturally in the same product line as a bank wire. A stablecoin payment confirms on-chain, cannot be reversed by an issuer, and can be converted to fiat at a rate locked before the customer sends. This guide covers what that setup looks like for a precious metals business, what the largest dealers already publish about their own crypto checkout, and how a crypto payment gateway for bullion dealers is put together with EukaPay.

Three pressures shape how a bullion dealer gets paid, and every payment decision is a trade between them.

The first is margin. Bullion is quoted as spot plus a premium, and competitive dealers advertise premiums measured in single-digit percentages on common bullion products. A payment method that takes a percentage of the order value takes a meaningful share of that premium, which is why dealers have historically pushed large orders toward bank wires and paper checks and reserved cards for smaller tickets.

The second is settlement speed against a moving market. The premium is quoted against a spot price that changes continuously, so the interval between the customer confirming the order and the dealer holding cleared funds is an exposure the dealer carries. Bank wires close that interval faster than checks and slower than a confirmed on-chain payment.

The third is reversal risk. Bullion is the textbook target for a card dispute after delivery, because the goods hold value, resell instantly and cannot be identified once melted or mixed into inventory. A dealer who ships against a card payment holds that risk for as long as the dispute window stays open.

This is not a theoretical payment method for the sector. APMEX, one of the largest online precious metals retailers in the United States, documents its crypto checkout in its own payment FAQ, and the details are instructive because they show a dealer treating crypto as a first-class payment rail rather than a novelty.

On its own FAQ pages, APMEX states that it accepts Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Ethereum (ETH), Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC), Dogecoin (DOGE), Litecoin (LTC), Shiba Inu (SHIB), ApeCoin (APE), Polygon (MATIC), five USD-pegged stablecoins (GUSD, USDC, USDP, DAI and BUSD) and Circle Euro Coin (EUROC). The customer selects the cryptocurrency option at checkout, receives an embedded crypto invoice from a third-party processor, and has 15 minutes to submit the payment. Crypto orders above $400,000 per week are not accepted.

Two things in that description matter more than the asset list. The 15-minute window exists because a crypto quote against a moving metals price cannot stay open indefinitely, which is the same reason a dealer's phone quote expires. The weekly cap exists because the dealer, not the processor, decides how much of its book it wants on any one rail.

APMEX also publishes its discount structure, and it is worth reading carefully. The dealer applies a 4% discount off list price for orders paid by paper check, eCheck, bank wire or trade, and states that the advertised prices include that discount unless the customer pays by credit card, PayPal, Bitcoin or Bitcoin Cash. In other words, this particular dealer prices crypto alongside cards rather than alongside wires. That is a pricing choice, not a property of the rail, and a dealer running crypto through a gateway with a lower cost of acceptance can make a different one.

A separate point from APMEX's own guidance is worth repeating, because it reads differently depending on which side of the counter you are on. APMEX warns buyers that crypto transactions are irreversible and carry no buyer-protection process. For the dealer shipping the metal, that same property is the reason the rail is attractive.

Card disputes are the structural problem with selling bullion online, and no amount of order screening removes them entirely. The dealer can verify the buyer, delay shipment, insure the parcel and collect a signature, and the issuer can still find for the cardholder months later on a claim the dealer cannot disprove.

A stablecoin or crypto payment does not have that path. There is no issuer, no dispute case and no third party who can move the money back after the fact. What the customer sends is settled, and a refund, when the dealer chooses to give one, is a new outbound payment the dealer initiates rather than a reversal imposed on it.

For most merchants, protection against chargebacks is a cost line that gets smaller. For a bullion dealer shipping a compact, liquid, high-value product, it changes which orders are worth accepting at all. Overseas orders, first-time buyers and large single tickets are the categories a dealer most often declines on a card and can reasonably accept on a confirmed on-chain payment.

The objection a dealer raises next is the obvious one. If bullion is priced against a moving spot market, why add a second moving price on the payment side.

The answer is that the payment side does not have to move. With EukaPay, the customer pays in stablecoins or crypto and the dealer receives instant crypto-to-fiat conversion at a locked exchange rate to remove all crypto volatility. The dealer quotes the order in fiat, the rate is fixed for the payment window, and the amount that lands is the amount the order was written for. Settlement in USD, EUR, GBP, CAD to your bank account means the dealer's books, its supplier invoices and its hedges all stay in the currency they were already in.

Stablecoins make this even simpler in practice, because a USD-pegged stablecoin is already denominated in the unit the order is priced in. Our guide to

fiat versus stablecoins in global payments

covers the difference in more detail.

A precious metals business does not have one checkout. It has a website, a phone desk, sometimes a showroom, and a set of standing accounts that order by email. EukaPay covers each with a different surface, and all of them run on the same merchant account.

The

crypto payment gateway

adds stablecoins or crypto as a payment option on your existing checkout. The customer selects it, EukaPay presents the payment screen with the amount, the asset and the address, and the order is marked paid once the payment confirms. If your store runs on a common platform, the

e-commerce plugins

install the same flow without a custom build.

A dealer taking a large order over the phone can generate a

payment link

for the exact amount and send it while the customer is still on the call. The link carries the quote, so the desk is not reading an address over the phone and the customer is not retyping it.

Regular buyers, coin shops and institutional accounts are billed rather than checked out.

Invoicing

sends a formatted PDF invoice with the payment link embedded, and recurring invoices go out on a weekly, monthly, quarterly or custom schedule for accounts that buy on a standing arrangement.

For a walk-in customer at a shop counter, the

online POS terminal

runs in a browser. Staff enter the amount, the customer scans the payment screen, and the sale is recorded against the same account as the online orders. No separate hardware is required.

Larger dealers run their own inventory and order management. A

custom API integration

lets your developer (or coding agent) create payments, receive webhooks and reconcile them against order records directly, so crypto orders land in the same pipeline as every other payment method.

Money moves out of a bullion business as well as in. Dealers settle with refiners and wholesale suppliers, and they pay customers who sell metal back over the counter or by mail.

Crypto payouts

handle the outbound side on the same account. You can send to multiple recipients in a single operation, upload the recipient list as a CSV file, or automate the whole process through the Payouts API and track the status of each payout. Our

guide to crypto payouts

walks through the mechanics.

The practical value for a dealer is a buy-back that does not wait on a banking calendar. A customer who mails in metal on a Friday can be paid once the assay is done rather than the following week, and a supplier in another country is paid without a correspondent chain in between. Our

international payment gateway

guide covers the cross-border side of the same setup.

Online orders, phone orders, showroom sales, standing accounts, supplier settlement and buy-backs all run on one merchant account: instant crypto-to-fiat conversion at a locked exchange rate to remove all crypto volatility, protection against chargebacks, support for a wide range of cryptocurrencies, and settlement in USD, EUR, GBP, CAD to your bank account.

EukaPay supports most major cryptocurrencies like BTC, ETH, LTC, SOL, USDC and USDT on the pay-in side, so a dealer is not asking customers to acquire a specific asset in order to buy metal. Because pay-ins and payouts sit on the same account, a buy-back is traceable back to the customer record that generated it, which is what your accountant will ask for at year end. Dealers comparing options across the wider market can start with our

best crypto payment gateways for e-commerce

guide, and our

e-commerce payments use case

covers the storefront side.

If you sell bullion, coins or other precious metals and want stablecoins or crypto on your order page,

book a call with our team

. We will go through your order sizes, which surfaces fit your desk and showroom, and how settlement would land against your current banking. Every merchant goes through onboarding and a business review, and a sandbox environment is available for your developer (or coding agent) to build against during that review. The

API documentation

covers payments, payouts and webhooks.

Can a bullion dealer accept stablecoins or crypto payments?

Yes. EukaPay adds stablecoins or crypto as a payment option on your storefront, on payment links for phone orders, on invoices for standing accounts and on an online POS terminal for showroom sales, all on one merchant account.

Do we have to hold the cryptocurrency a customer pays with?

No. EukaPay provides instant crypto-to-fiat conversion at a locked exchange rate to remove all crypto volatility, and settles in USD, EUR, GBP, CAD to your bank account.

How does this protect us against disputes after the metal ships?

Crypto pay-ins are not reversible and there is no issuer to open a dispute with, so protection against chargebacks is built into the rail rather than added on top of it.

Which cryptocurrencies can our customers pay with?

EukaPay supports most major cryptocurrencies like BTC, ETH, LTC, SOL, USDC and USDT.

Can we take a crypto payment at the showroom counter?

Yes. The online POS terminal runs in a browser, so staff enter the amount and the customer pays in person without any additional hardware.

Can we pay refiners and buy-back customers through the same account?

Yes. Crypto payouts send to multiple recipients in a single operation, by CSV upload in the dashboard or through the Payouts API.

How do we bill wholesale accounts that order every month?

Recurring invoices send an invoice on a weekly, monthly, quarterly or custom schedule through the dashboard and the API, with the payment link embedded in each one.

How long does it take to start accepting stablecoins or crypto?

Every merchant goes through onboarding and a business review, and a sandbox environment is available so your developer (or coding agent) can build and test the integration while that review is underway.