a16z: real opportunity to stabilize the currency, not to destabilize but to fill the gap

Original title:Agentic company won't kill cards, but it will open a lap

Original by Noah Levine, a16z Investment Partner

This post is part of our special coverage Syria Protests 2011

 

A few weeks ago, Citrini Research published an article stating that the stabilization currency would bypass Visa and the MasterCard, which would directly lead to a sharp drop in the stock price of the card organization. The encryption ring is good。

THIS LOGIC SOUNDS CLEAR: AI INTELLIGENCE OPTIMIZES EVERY TRANSACTION, AND THE FEES ARE A "TAX" AND THE STABILIZER CAN BYPASS IT。

I've been in the encryption business all day, and I hope that's right, but it's mostly wrong。

Not because the stability currency is not important, but because the real opportunity lies not in replacing bank cards, but in serving businesses that have difficulty accessing traditional card payments。

Bank cards take most markets

Citrini's argument is based on a hypothesis:THE AI SMART BODY, WHICH IS FREE FROM HUMAN HABITS, WILL PROACTIVELY OPTIMIZE THE CARD ORGANIZATION FEES。

But bank cards are not just a transfer tool. It provides unsecured credit, pre-authorizes uncertain transactions and safeguards fraud protection through the right to refuse payment。

Stabilized coins can transfer, but they cannot be left。

Let's say your smart body booked you a hotel, and it didn't match the picture。

With a bank card, you can initiate disputes and recover money。

With the money, the money won't come back。

Eighty-two per cent of Americans hold incentive credit cards (for gifts such as credit cards, such as returns, credits, air miles, hotel points, etc.), and there are 18 billion cards in circulation worldwide。

For the vast majority of transactions, consumers will not voluntarily give up consumer security and points to choose a method of payment that is neither welfare-free nor irreversible。

Fraud detection is a great advantage for card organizations: the card network can run models for billions of transactions in real time。

There is no network-level anti-fraud layer comparable to the stabilization currency。

Small payments are often described as softy of bank cards, but card organizations have already adapted to such incompatible transactions。

Visa has processed over 2 billion traffic tickets by combining multiple swipe cards into daily settlements。

The card industry has never given up any kind of deal, and it always invents new products to cover them。

There is also a question: "A smart body cannot hold a card."

But the intelligent nature is just new equipment。

Your phone, watch, computer have a separate token pointing to the same card, like Apple Pay。

THE PHONE HAS NEVER BEEN KYC, JUST HOLDING YOUR BADGE, AND SO DOES THE SMART BODY。

Visa has issued more than 16 billion tokens, and smart bodies use them。

Visa's smart business framework is being piloted, and Agent Pay is now online for all American cardholders。

Stripe's smart-body business agreement with OpenAI is already connected to Etsy and over a million Shopify businesses are on the line。

The conclusions are clear:

For existing vendors and consumers, bank cards are almost destined to dominate smart-body commerce。

The chance to stabilize the currency, somewhere else — in those merchants that have not yet appeared。

The merchants that haven't shown up yet

Each time a platform migrates, it triggers a wave of businesses that cannot be served by existing payment systems。

when eBay appeared, the individual seller could not open a commercial account and PayPal served them

Shapify rose from 42 million to 5.5 million in 13 years

When Stripe was founded, many of its clients were not even born。

The pattern is consistent: winners and service providers are those that cannot be covered by existing giants。

THIS TYPE OF BUSINESS WILL BE GENERATED BY THE AI WAVE FASTER THAN ANY PREVIOUS PLATFORM MIGRATION。

Last year alone, 36 million new developers joined GitHub。

ONE QUARTER OF THE YC 2025 WINTER BATCH OF CORPORATE CODE LIBRARIES IS OVER 95% GENERATED BY AI。

On the hot AI programming platform Bolt.new, 67 per cent of 5 million users are not developers at all。

Those who could not write the grade code two years ago are now publishing the software。

They are both buyers and sellers of developers ' services。

Imagine:

A GENERAL DEVELOPER SPENT FOUR HOURS USING THE AI TOOL TO MAKE A PRESENTATION OF LISTED COMPANY FINANCIAL DATA. NO WEBSITE, NO SERVICE TERMS, NO LEGAL ENTITY。

Another developer's smart body calls it 40,000 times a week at 0.1 cents a week, generating $40. No one's ordered a closing page。

I see this type of developer making these tools every week。

The first question they ask always is: how do I collect money

For most people, the answer is that it is not currently available。

It is difficult for existing payment agencies to access such businesses。

It is not technology that fails, but the paying agencies assume the risks once they pass through the business。

In the event of a fraud by a business or a substantial refusal to pay, the paying agency takes the fall。

It is virtually impossible to pass through a controlled audit without a website, without a subject, without a recording tool。

The system is operating as designed, but it was not designed for this scenario。

The payment agencies can certainly be adjusted, and they have been adjusted before。

PayPal, however, introduced for the first time, from online to industry, an insurance guide for paying service providers, which took 16 years。

And these new traders, they have to collect now。

For them, the acceptance of stable coins is like a street vendor receiving only cash。

Rather than better cash, it has been difficult for such businesses to qualify for bank cards。

In this gap, currency stabilization is the only viable option at present。

Although the wallet experience is rough and the compliance framework is still in place, agreements such as x402 have enabled stable currency payments to be embedded directly in HTTP requests:

There is no need for business accounts, no need for processors, no need for presence and no liability for non-payment。

These businesses do not choose between a stable currency and a bank card。

They choose between stabilizing the currency and not receiving it。

New business will come from here

Each wave of new businesses is eventually absorbed by the traditional payment system, as is the rate this time。

But the order is always: the business comes first, the wind follows。

In the gap between these two periods, the currency of stability is the infrastructure。

:: Banking card service for all paying agencies that can cover

:: Stabilizing the services of businesses that cannot be covered by all payment agencies。

The next wave of business was born in this gap。