Which cryptocurrencies are actually being used to pay for things?
There are a number of crypto payment processors, like Coingate and Bitpay, that allow people to pay for goods and services using crypto in online retailers who have crypto payments enabled.
Coingate
Coingate allows you to pay with 70 cryptocurrencies - Hive is not enabled alas. Their latest blog disclosed which coins were used to make payments in Q1 2024:
Tether (USDT) is dominating. USDC is enabled but is not being used. We can safely conclude that Tether has won the stablecoin race.
Of the alts, Litecoin is duking it out with Tron.
The blogpost mentioned that Bitcoin's use had decreased to 19.6% from 28.3% in Q4 2023. Ethereum's use had decreased to 8.1% from 9.8% in Q4 2023. Though Bitcoincash was explicitly created to handle large amounts of payments, no-one is using it.
Bitpay
Bitpay supports payment with over 100 cryptocurrencies - no Hive enabled alas. More surprisingly, Tron is not enabled either.
Here are the coins most used in the last six months:
Litecoin is dominating Bitpay. Stablecoins arn't much used, but where they are, USDC is used more than Tether (USDT).
Conclusion
When it comes to using crypto for ecommerce, to actually buy stuff, the surprising winner is Litecoin. I suppose it's listed on all the exchanges, confirms quickly and has low transaction fees. But it's achieving it's dominance with no media or publicity. It's gaining ground because it just works.