Privacy Concerns Seen as Key Barrier to Stablecoin Adoption in Global Payroll

According to a recent LinkedIn post from Ligero, the global payroll market is framed as processing about $55 trillion in salary payments annually, while stablecoins are described as having processed $33 trillion in 2025. The post contrasts this scale with an estimate that less than 1% of businesses currently use crypto for payroll.

The post highlights a viewpoint that the main barrier to wider crypto payroll adoption may not be technology or compliance, but concerns over transaction transparency and employee privacy. By quoting Toku’s CEO on CFO worries that stablecoin-based payrolls could be publicly visible, the content suggests that solving privacy constraints could unlock meaningful growth in crypto-enabled payroll services.

For investors, this framing points to a potential long‑term addressable market at the intersection of payroll processing and blockchain infrastructure, if privacy-preserving solutions gain traction. It also implies that companies able to deliver compliant, private stablecoin payroll tools could benefit from early-mover advantages in a segment portrayed as significantly underpenetrated relative to its theoretical scale.