Crypto retail checkouts now have two levers that can move quickly: trading rails that lower processing costs, and consumer apps that enable and disable crypto buying and spending.
Walmart’s OnePay has recently found itself at the intersection of both Zero hash The partnership will allow the app to support Bitcoin and Ethereum trading, hosted wallets, peer-to-peer transfers, and on-chain deposits and withdrawals if the operator enables these features.
According to the Zero Hash documentationCustody would be at Zero Hash entities and execution would be supported by an affiliated liquidity services unit. Prices may include a spread in addition to any platform fees.
The hinge is the decision to allow external transfers, as a walled garden model concentrates balances into omnibus portfolios. An open model, on the other hand, moves some of the daily purchases to public networks where activity is visible.
OnePay’s distribution channel is important because of its scale.
Synchrony is being rolled out Walmart cards that live in the OnePay app, which offers its own wallet to add crypto financing and transfers later if that switch is enabled.
According to company materials, Walmart reports high proximity to U.S. households, lowering the cost of acquiring a payment app tied to retail checkout. The conversion math is simple: user eligibility multiplied by activation, purchase incidence, and average ticket.
If 10 million actives qualify, half of them have crypto enabled, 1.0 percent buy monthly, and the average ticket is $150, the flow implies about $1.7 to $2.5 million per day in Bitcoin purchases, depending on the share of assets.
US exchange-traded Bitcoin funds regularly record daily net flows in the hundreds of millions, so app-driven purchases of that size would be small compared to an intense ETF session, but still persistent and driven by shopping behavior rather than model-based allocators.
The box office side of the story is already happening elsewhere.
According to Shopify And Coin basemerchants can accept USDC on Base within Shopify Payments with a delayed capture, refunds, and receipts protocol that mirrors card operations, reducing the operational gap between crypto and legacy systems.
Users can buy up to $100,000 per week and send crypto to external wallets. In September, the company added peer-to-peer crypto features, a shift that was covered by the broader product push happening alongside compensation incentives for PYUSD.
Cash App supports Lightning sends and on-chain transfers within consumer limits. These product choices turn crypto off-ramps into two-way rails that can hit the mempool and, in the case of stablecoins, provide predictable denominations for traders.
Cost and latency forces are stable enough to frame scenarios. Ethereum’s average transaction fees are approx 40 centswhile layer 2 fees for simple sends and swaps are roughly between 4 and 20 cents, per L2 costs dashboards.
Bitcoin’s Lightning Network processes payments in subseconds at minimal cost under normal conditions, while on-chain confirmations remain probabilistic for approximately ten minutes with congestion-dependent costs.
This split determines the practical menu for merchants: Lightning for Bitcoin, layer 2 or stablecoin rails for Ethereum ecosystems, and stablecoins for fiat-like denominations.
Steak ‘n Shake serves as a live case study for culture and business operations. According to company statements surrounding the May 16 Lightning rollout, the chain noted a quarter-over-quarter same-store sales rose about 10.7 percent in the second quarter and credited Bitcoiners.
Management described an approximately 50 percent reduction in processing costs versus cards, with a launch day share of global Bitcoin transactions, as reported by business commentary.
The chain’s communication around Ethereum adoption has not been formalized, putting the optics of asset choice and the reaction it provokes on the agenda before any technical difference.
The technical question for retailers is not whether Bitcoin or Ethereum can process a checkout payment; it is the configuration that reduces reimbursement friction, reconciles back-office systems, and maintains unit economics.
A simple flow model illustrates how a OnePay launch might interact with ETF-driven pricing and on-chain activity. The table translates user input into a daily Bitcoin purchase flow, not as a forecast, but as a benchmark against ETF numbers that traders view daily.
| Eligible active persons (U) | Crypto enabled | Monthly buyers | Average ticket | Estimated daily BTC purchase (USD mln) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5,000,000 | 30% | 0.5% | $75 | 0.19 |
| 5,000,000 | 30% | 1.0% | $150 | 0.75 |
| 10,000,000 | 50% | 1.0% | $150 | 2.50 |
| 10,000,000 | 50% | 2.0% | $150 | 5:00 am |
| 20,000,000 | 50% | 1.0% | $150 | 5:00 am |
| 20,000,000 | 50% | 2.0% | $150 | 10am |
Whether these purchases are registered in the chain depends on the product size. Zero hash show materials partner platforms can enable on-chain deposits and withdrawals. If OnePay launches without that feature, market makers will still need to acquire crypto to fulfill customer orders, but the balances will remain off-chain within omnibus custody.
If on-chain transfers are possible, self-custody withdrawals and exchanges would increase address activity and mempool load for Bitcoin and drive to layer 2 or bridge paths for Ethereum, which ties retail purchases to visible network metrics.
Making prices public will influence repeat behavior.
According to Zero Hash, affiliated liquidity services can quote prices with a spread over reference rates, and platforms can charge their own fees.
Retail cohorts respond to return costs, so a lower all-in spread, combined with cash rewards, tends to increase purchase incidence, while a higher spread depresses repeat tickets.
KYC levels and rolling limits will be set per trading ceiling, but in practice the meaningful constraints on network liquidity are the presence of external transfers, supported networks such as Lightningand specific Tier 2s, and any wait times associated with card or ACH financing.
The merchant readiness story is now less about raw throughput and more about operations. According to Shopify, the framework includes reimbursement flows, partial captures and receipt status, the controls that card schemes have built up over the past decades.
For Bitcoin, Lightning resolves the confirmation time for the payment event, and merchants can move to cold storage or settlement accounts later. For Ethereum, layer 2 and stablecoins reduce the fee and latency profile to a consumer-acceptable range, and stablecoins avoid price conversion steps for fiat-denominated companies.
The store appearance will continue to influence which product is on the counter.
Bitcoin brings community energy that translates into earned media and early adoption, which is reflected in the Steak ‘n Shake quarter. Ethereum provides a building foundation and capabilities through layer 2 networks that can be cheaper or faster than the base layer.
Stablecoins present a third path that frames the decision as internet dollars rather than tribal choice. The practical outcome for most major retailers is a mix: Lightning where Bitcoin issuers operate, stablecoins for e-commerce and kiosks, and selective support for Ethereum routed across layer 2 to meet fee and latency targets.
The question in the headline concerns product switches and back office design rather than technology availability. Today, checkout can use Lightning, USDC on Base in Shopify Payments, or similar rails.
OnePay has a path to offer trading, custody and transfers via Zero Hash if it enables these settings, supported by its trust company approval. ETFs remain the benchmark against which retail app flow is compared when assessing price impact.
The setting that determines whether retail demand reaches the public networks is external transfers at launch.
