TrustLinq just went live with something the crypto world’s been needing for a while—a way to pay bills and expenses directly from your crypto holdings without jumping through the usual hoops. The Swiss-regulated platform lets you send fiat payments to anyone in over 70 currencies, straight from your digital assets. No need to convert to fiat first, no need for the recipient to understand crypto or open a wallet.
The company’s based in Zug, Switzerland, which matters because Swiss financial regulation actually means something. They’re not operating out of some gray-area jurisdiction—this is bank-level compliance with Swiss AML oversight. For people who’ve been burned by sketchy crypto platforms, that probably counts for something.
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Why This Actually Solves a Real Problem
Here’s the disconnect they’re addressing: there are over 580 million crypto holders worldwide, but less than 0.005% of businesses actually accept cryptocurrency directly. That’s not a typo—it’s basically nobody. So what happens when you’ve got crypto but need to pay rent, cover payroll, or settle invoices? You’re stuck converting to fiat, moving it to a bank account, then making the payment. It’s clunky, slow, and defeats the whole point of having digital assets.
TrustLinq cuts out those steps. You pay from crypto, they handle the conversion behind the scenes, and your landlord or supplier receives regular fiat through their normal banking setup. They don’t need to know or care that you paid with Bitcoin or Ethereum. It just shows up as a standard wire transfer or local payment.
What’s interesting is that TrustLinq clients don’t even need their own bank account to use the platform. That opens doors for people in regions where banking access is limited or for those who prefer keeping their finances primarily in crypto. The recipient still gets fiat through whatever banking setup they already use—SEPA, SWIFT, Faster Payments, ACH, whatever works locally.
Who’s Actually Going to Use This?
TrustLinq is targeting two main groups. On the individual side, it’s crypto holders who want to pay real-world expenses—rent, tuition, international transfers—without constantly shuffling money between exchanges and bank accounts. If you’re holding crypto and actually trying to live on it rather than just speculate, this makes life considerably easier.
For businesses, the use case gets even more compelling. Trading firms, affiliate networks, SaaS companies, e-commerce operations—plenty of businesses receive crypto as legitimate revenue. Right now, paying vendors or running international payroll from those holdings means converting everything to fiat first. TrustLinq lets them pay directly from crypto while vendors receive standard fiat payments. Less friction, faster settlements, fewer conversion steps.
Sharon Gal Franko, TrustLinq’s CEO, framed it pretty clearly: “The future of payments requires bridging crypto and fiat seamlessly. With 580m+ crypto users globally holding substantial digital assets, the demand for practical, compliant fiat utility is immense.”
She’s right that there’s real demand here. Plenty of people hold crypto but still need to operate in a fiat world. The question is whether TrustLinq’s execution matches the promise.
What Makes Them Different?
TrustLinq claims there aren’t really direct competitors doing exactly this. Most crypto payment processors require merchants to accept digital currencies on their end—think BitPay or similar services. TrustLinq flips the model. The crypto holder initiates the payment, TrustLinq handles conversion, and the recipient just gets fiat through normal channels.
They’re also running a non-custodial intermediary model, meaning they don’t actually hold your funds. That’s a meaningful distinction after watching so many custodial platforms implode or freeze withdrawals. You maintain control of your crypto until the moment you authorize a payment.
The platform covers 70+ local currencies and plugs into existing payment rails worldwide. So whether you’re paying someone in Europe via SEPA or settling an invoice in the US through ACH, it works through established infrastructure rather than trying to reinvent banking.
What’s Coming Next
TrustLinq’s planning to roll out debit cards in Q1 2026, which would let people spend crypto directly at regular merchants worldwide. That’s the logical next step—once you’ve solved B2B and P2P payments, retail spending is the obvious gap to fill.
Whether this turns crypto into “a practical financial instrument for daily operations” like they’re claiming depends entirely on adoption. The infrastructure looks solid, the regulatory framework is legitimate, and the problem they’re solving is real. But crypto-to-fiat bridges have tried and failed before, usually because either the fees were too high, the process was too complicated, or trust issues killed momentum.
TrustLinq’s got the Swiss regulation angle working in their favor, and the fact that recipients don’t need to change anything about how they bank removes a major adoption barrier. If they can keep fees reasonable and the platform reliable, this might actually stick. We’ll know soon enough whether 580 million crypto holders are ready to start paying bills directly from their wallets.