Stablecoin subscriptions went mass-market: DIRECTV's DGO now takes USDT and USDC — what it means for subscription businesses in Latin America

What DGO and Sky+ announced, and when

DGO is DIRECTV's streaming and live-TV service in Latin America. DGO and Sky+, its counterpart in Brazil, are run by Waiken ILW, the media and technology group that also owns DIRECTV Latin America and SKY Brasil and operates in eleven countries in the region. In three months, they moved stablecoins from a side door to the front door:

• July 1, 2026: the card route. Under a partnership announced in mid-July, eligible holders of the Exodus Card, a spending card from the self-custody wallet company Exodus, could pay DGO and SKY+ subscriptions in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Colombia and Uruguay with dollar stablecoins loaded on that card. New customers got 25% cashback on their first month. The subscriber spent stablecoins. DGO received a card payment.
• October 1: the checkout route. Exodus launched Exodus Checkout, a merchant product for accepting dollar stablecoins, with DGO in Argentina as its first merchant. Eligible customers pick the stablecoin option at checkout and send USDT or USDC from their own wallet. Exodus says the product supports one-time and recurring payments. Federico Suarez, who runs OTT platform marketing at Waiken ILW, said it "gives customers another way to subscribe to the entertainment they love without changing the experience they already know."
• October 2: a confirmation gap. CriptoNoticias reported the launch and noted that it had not yet found any confirmation from DIRECTV or DGO.
• October 6: confirmed. DGO and Sky+ announced the option themselves, as Television.com.ar reported. It's live for DGO customers in Argentina, rolls out gradually to Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Uruguay "over the coming weeks," and reaches Sky+ in Brazil "soon": seven Latin American markets in total. Valentín Echeverry, CEO of Waiken ILW's entertainment platforms, presented it as part of making the service more convenient and accessible.

One detail differs between sources. Exodus's own list of planned markets includes Mexico and Brazil. DGO's October 6 announcement names Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Uruguay for DGO, plus Sky+ in Brazil, and doesn't mention Mexico.

Why stablecoin subscriptions at a streaming service matter more than another crypto headline

Plenty of brands have announced crypto acceptance before, and some quietly dropped it. Three things make this one worth a subscription business's attention.

Subscriptions are the hardest test for a push payment

A one-off purchase is easy to move to stablecoins: the customer is there, the amount is known, they pay. A subscription is the opposite. Card billing works because the merchant stores a credential and pulls every renewal without the customer doing anything.

Stablecoins don't work that way. The holder pushes each payment from their own wallet, and nobody can take money from that wallet without the holder's signature. When a mass-market streaming service decides to bill subscriptions on a push rail, the operational questions (reminders, grace periods, what happens when a renewal isn't paid) become worth solving at scale.

The customers already hold the dollars

Argentina wasn't chosen at random. Chainalysis's 2026 Latin America report, published September 23, 2026 and covering July 2025 to June 2026, puts Argentina's crypto activity at $88.5 billion, second in the region after Brazil and up 15.3% year over year. Across Latin America, stablecoins made up 32.1% of cross-border value, 22.1% of domestic peer-to-peer activity and 17.6% of personal wallet balances by June 2026. The report ties that demand to inflation, currency volatility and capital controls.

When a real share of your customers keeps savings in digital dollars, asking them to sell those dollars and pay by card adds a step, a spread and a chance to give up. Letting them pay from the balance they already hold removes all three.

One rail, seven countries

Card acceptance is local. Each country needs its own acquirer or partner, often a local entity, and has its own card habits: installments, debit networks, issuers that decline foreign recurring charges. That's why adding a payment method across Latin America usually takes quarters.

DGO's stablecoin option is reaching five more countries in a few weeks because USDT and USDC behave the same in Santiago, Bogotá, Quito, Lima and Montevideo. For a subscription business selling across the region, this is the most copyable part of the story.

Card route vs checkout route: what the merchant actually receives

From the subscriber's side, DGO's July and October announcements look alike: either way, they pay with dollar stablecoins. From the merchant's side, they're different products.

The card route changes nothing for the merchant. A crypto card sells the holder's stablecoins and pays the merchant through the card network. The merchant gets a card transaction, with card fees, a dispute window and the usual cross-border declines. It's a convenience for the holder, and it's growing fast, as we covered in crypto payment cards and stablecoin spending. Why that spending never reaches the merchant as a stablecoin is the subject of stablecoin settlement vs acceptance.

The checkout route puts the stablecoin at the merchant's own checkout. That's where the merchant-side benefits appear. A confirmed on-chain payment can't be charged back, there's no card credential to expire, and the money moves in seconds instead of on an acquirer's schedule.

One question decides how much of that the merchant keeps: where does the money land? A checkout provider can hold it in a custodial balance, convert it and pay out later, or settle it directly to a wallet the merchant controls. The public announcements about DGO don't say which model applies, which is normal for a launch press release. For your own business, it's the first thing to ask. Three questions cover most of it:

1. Who holds the funds between the payment and your payout? If the answer is the provider, it can freeze, reserve or delay them.
2. Can you keep the stablecoins, or are you forced to convert? Forced conversion turns a dollar receipt back into a local-currency one, with a spread, and puts you on the provider's payout schedule.
3. What do you pay per sale, and on which networks? A small monthly plan only works if the fee doesn't eat it.

How stablecoin subscriptions renew, and what to design for

Moving a subscription to a push rail changes how renewals happen. Whatever provider you use, this is what we'd design for:

• Each cycle is a payment the subscriber makes. With no card on file, the subscriber pays each cycle from their wallet. A missed renewal is a visible lapse rather than a silent decline, so you can actually respond to it. We go deeper on that trade-off in crypto subscriptions without chargebacks.
• Remind before the due date. Send the renewal request a few days early with a clear deadline. An invoice with an expiry date tells the subscriber exactly how long the amount is valid.
• Sell longer cycles. Quarterly and annual plans paid up front cut the number of renewals, and each payment is final from day one. Where inflation is high, a dollar-priced annual plan is also easy for the customer to read.
• Choose the currency of the price. A dollar price suits customers who save in digital dollars. If you price in local currency, quote the stablecoin amount at payment time and let the quote expire.
• Connect access to webhooks. A confirmed payment should extend access automatically, and a lapsed cycle should downgrade it. Signed webhooks make that automatic and tamper-evident.
• Accept on the networks your customers use. Ask your subscribers which networks they hold USDT and USDC on. Fees on Polygon, Base or Solana are cents, which keeps a $5–$15 monthly plan worth collecting.

How Payzum runs stablecoin subscriptions

Payzum is a non-custodial, crypto-only payment processor. When a subscriber pays, the funds go straight to a wallet you control. Payzum never holds, pools or controls them, so there's no processor balance to freeze, no reserve and no payout schedule.

Recurring subscriptions are one of its collection methods, next to hosted checkout (redirect, modal or inline), no-code payment links and buttons, and invoices with expiry and overpayment detection. Optional auto-convert settles every cycle as USDC or USDT, so a $9.99 plan is $9.99 of stablecoins in your wallet whatever the subscriber sent.

Each payment confirms on-chain in seconds (about 0.4 s on Solana, about 2 s on Base and Polygon) and is final: no chargebacks. Signed webhooks fire on confirmed payments to grant or revoke access. Payzum charges 0.5% per processed sale plus the network's gas, which is cents on Base, Polygon and Solana. It settles on Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, Polygon, Base, Arbitrum, Optimism, BNB Chain and Avalanche.

If you already run a platform, there are open-source integrations for WooCommerce, Paid Memberships Pro, Tutor LMS, WHMCS, Blesta and other billing and membership tools, plus SDKs for Node.js, PHP, Python and Rust.

Setting up stablecoin subscriptions, step by step

1. Create your account and connect a wallet you control. A hardware wallet suits a solo founder; a multisig suits a company. Turn on auto-convert to USDC or USDT so every cycle lands as dollars.
2. Define your plans. Monthly, quarterly and annual, priced in dollars, and the networks you'll accept.
3. Add the option where subscribers sign up. Use hosted checkout on your plans page, a payment link in renewal emails or WhatsApp messages, or the plugin for your platform. It sits next to your card option. It doesn't replace it.
4. Connect signed webhooks to your app. A confirmed payment extends access and a lapsed cycle downgrades it. Then tell the subscribers who've asked to pay in dollars.

Who should pay attention: use cases across Latin America

DGO is a streaming service, but the same pattern fits any business that bills on a cycle and sells to people who save in digital dollars:

• Streaming, OTT and digital media: monthly plans, season sports passes, pay-per-view events. A dollar-priced annual pass paid in USDT is one final payment instead of twelve card renewals that can each decline.
• SaaS selling across the region: customers in Argentina, Colombia or Peru paying a dollar plan by card face declines and FX spreads on every cycle. A stablecoin cycle is priced and paid in the same dollars. See accepting USDC payments in a SaaS.
• Online courses and academies: monthly library access or installments on a cohort program. Each installment is final, which matters in a vertical where "I finished the course, now I'll dispute it" is common. More in crypto payments for online courses.
• Gyms, clubs and studios: online signup through hosted checkout, renewals at the front desk through the POS, with a fresh QR per payment, any phone as a terminal and PIN logins for each cashier.
• Hosting and IT services: monthly invoices with an expiry date and the WHMCS or Blesta integration, for clients who'd rather pay a dollar invoice in USDC than wire money abroad.
• Paid communities and newsletters: small monthly amounts stay worth collecting because network fees on Base, Polygon or Solana are cents.

Card subscriptions vs stablecoins on a card vs stablecoin subscriptions at your checkout

What we don't know yet

The launch is real, but it's two weeks old, and a fair reading leaves several gaps:

• No numbers. Neither company has shared how many subscribers pay in stablecoins or what share of payments that is.
• No technical details. The announcements don't say which networks are accepted or whether DGO receives stablecoins or converted money.
• "Eligible customers." Both announcements use the phrase, and the eligibility terms aren't public.
• Rollout lists differ. Exodus lists Mexico and Brazil among planned markets. DGO's own announcement names five countries plus Sky+ in Brazil.
• Cards aren't going anywhere. Most DGO subscribers will keep paying with cards and local methods. Stablecoins are an added option, just as they would be for you.

None of this changes the signal. A mass-market subscription brand decided that enough of its customers hold digital dollars to put them at its own checkout.

Fair objections

"My subscribers don't hold stablecoins."

Some don't, and they'll keep paying the way they do now. The option costs a page and a webhook, not a migration. In markets where people save in digital dollars, the subscribers who do hold them can be the same ones whose cards decline on dollar charges.

"Without a card on file, won't renewals drop?"

Some lapses become visible instead of silent. Card billing doesn't prevent churn. It hides part of it as involuntary declines and leaves you chasing it with dunning emails. With reminders, an expiry date on each renewal request and an annual plan worth choosing, you're working with your subscribers' real intent instead of an expired card number.

"I need local currency to pay my costs."

Then be clear about the trade-off. Payzum is crypto-only: it settles in crypto, never to a bank account. Auto-convert keeps the value in USDC or USDT. Turning dollars into local currency is a separate step that you choose and control, with a provider in your country, as covered in non-custodial stablecoin off-ramps. Many businesses in the region keep part of their revenue in dollars on purpose.