Use case · nft

NFT payments and royalties

NFT settlement has migrated from native chain tokens to stablecoins as a stability and accounting requirement. Major marketplaces (OpenSea, Tensor, Magic Eden) all support USDC bids; royalty engines route to creators in USDC directly; cross-chain NFT settlement standardizes on USDC to avoid bridging native gas tokens.

Updated today
Market size
Updated 1d ago
Addressable market
$16.0B
Annual volume
$1.8B
Growth (YoY)
+38.0%
USDC-denominated bids
~32%
Of OpenSea volume
How it works

How it works

Marketplace lists NFT with bid acceptance in USDC. Buyer signs an offer with USDC permit. Sale settles atomically: NFT transfers to buyer, USDC transfers to seller minus royalty + marketplace fee. Royalty engine (Manifold, Royal Republic) auto-routes the royalty cut to creator address(es). All accounting is on-chain.

Real-world examples

Real-world examples

Tensor USDC bids on Solana

~$420M in 2025

Tensor's USDC-denominated bid orderbook handles 35% of Solana NFT volume, providing price stability that breaks the SOL-correlation curse.

Manifold creator royalties in USDC

8K+ artists

Manifold's royalty router pays creators in USDC by default, eliminating ETH-to-USD conversion friction for non-crypto-native artists.

Key players

Key players

Stablecoins
usdc
Chains
ethereum solana base polygon
Projects
circle
Where it's strongest

Where it's strongest

Global (US, EU, SEA dominant)
Challenges

Challenges

  • ● Royalty enforcement still varies by marketplace and chain
  • ● USDC bids reduce upside for traders who would have benefited from native token appreciation
  • ● Regulatory uncertainty for stablecoin-denominated NFT secondary sales (commodity vs security)
Future outlook

Future outlook

EIP-7066 and similar royalty enforcement standards work much better in stablecoins because royalty amounts don't drift in value during multi-hop settlement. Watch for fully-stablecoin-denominated NFT marketplaces emerging on Base, where USDC native issuance and sub-cent fees make stablecoin-first design viable end-to-end.

More context

For live data on the stablecoins powering this use case, see their individual fichas linked above.