Ethereum is a programmable blockchain, and ether (ETH) is its native currency. Customers who are active in crypto usually hold some, because every action on Ethereum is paid for in ETH. That makes it a natural second coin after Bitcoin for many stores.
Who pays with ETH, and why offer it?
ETH holders tend to be people who use crypto regularly: developers, NFT and DeFi users, and buyers of digital goods and software. If your store sells to that audience, not offering ETH means asking them to swap first, which adds a fee and a reason to abandon the cart.
There is also a practical upside for you. The address you create for ETH is the same kind of 0x address used by USDT ERC20, USDC and Chainlink, and one Etherscan key covers all of them. Setting up ETH is most of the work for four coins.
How much are Ethereum gas fees right now?
A plain ETH transfer uses a fixed 21,000 units of gas. What changes is the price per unit, measured in gwei. In late September 2026 Etherscan's gas tracker showed a standard ETH transfer costing well under one US dollar. Token transfers use more gas than a plain transfer, so paying in USDT or USDC on Ethereum costs the customer more than paying in ETH.
Gas moves with demand. A popular token launch or a volatile market can multiply the price within minutes. That is why many merchants keep ETH for customers who want it but steer cost-sensitive buyers to USDT on TRON or Litecoin.
How long until an ETH payment is final?
Ethereum produces a block roughly every 12 seconds. Payfim waits for 6 confirmations by default, so a payment normally reaches paid within a couple of minutes after it is included in a block. You can raise or lower that number per coin.
On the payment page, the QR code for Ethereum carries your address only. The customer pastes the amount from the copy button, and the unique digits at the end of that amount are what link the transfer to their order.
What wallet should I use to receive ETH?
Use an ordinary account address (an externally owned account) from a wallet whose recovery phrase you hold, such as a hardware wallet or a mainstream non-custodial browser or mobile wallet. A smart-contract wallet also has a 0x address, but make sure it is deployed on Ethereum mainnet and can receive plain transfers before you use it.
Keep a little ETH in the same wallet. You will need it for gas when you later move tokens such as USDT or USDC out.
Setting up ETH in Payfim, step by step
- Create a free API key at etherscan.io (account → API keys).
- In the gateway, go to Wallets & coins → Blockchain APIs, paste it into Etherscan API V2 key and click Save API settings.
- Leave the option Also detect ETH sent through smart contracts (exchange withdrawals) switched on. It is on by default.
- In the coin list, paste your
0x…address (0x plus 40 hex characters) into the Ethereum row, switch it on and click Save wallets. - Click Test to confirm the key and connection work.
Without the key, Payfim cannot check Ethereum payments and the coin will report an error in the test.
Why the smart-contract detection setting matters
When a customer pays from an exchange account, the exchange often sends ETH through its own contract instead of a normal wallet-to-wallet transfer. On the blockchain that shows up as an "internal transaction". A checker that only reads normal transfers would miss it and the order would sit unpaid. Payfim reads both. If you ever switch the option off, exchange withdrawals may go undetected.
ETH payment pitfalls
- Layer 2 networks. Customers may hold ETH on rollups such as Arbitrum, Optimism or Base. Those use the same 0x address format, but Payfim watches Ethereum mainnet only. ETH sent on a layer 2 will not be detected, even though it arrives at an address you control on that network.
- Gas spikes during checkout. A customer who sets a very low gas price can get stuck pending. The rate lock is 30 minutes by default; once a transaction has been seen it is followed to confirmation even if that takes longer, and anything sent after expiry can be checked and marked paid manually in the gateway admin.
- Short payments. Exchanges that deduct their withdrawal fee can push the amount under the 0.5% tolerance, and the invoice becomes underpaid.
- Missing API key after a migration. If you move the gateway to a new server, bring the key along. The troubleshooting guide covers the error messages.
One more habit worth adopting: after any change to the Etherscan key, address or endpoint, press Test on each Ethereum-based coin. A failed test tells you immediately, before a customer is left waiting on an unconfirmed order.
Next steps
ETH is included with every module, from WooCommerce to the Magento 2 extension and the PHP and Laravel SDK. For how Payfim compares with hosted processors on Ethereum support, see Payfim vs Coinbase Commerce.
Sources
Third-party facts were checked on the date shown above. Prices and features of other services change - always confirm on their official pages.