Lesson Learned: Overlooking network fees for microtransactions with USDC

My mistake was building out a payment processing flow for a small e-commerce solution using $USDC on Ethereum mainnet without adequately factoring in gas costs per transaction. The idea was to leverage stablecoins for faster international settlements, but for payments under ~$100, the gas fees often ate up too much of the margin, making it unfeasible. We quickly pivoted to exploring layer-2 solutions and alternative chains like Solana and Polygon for those smaller transactions, but that initial oversight cost us a good month in dev time and some re-architecting. Always check the economics of the chain you're building on for your specific use case.