THE BIGGEST THREAT TO GLOBAL PAYMENT COMPANIES IS AI USING STABLECOINS.
Visa is down 4.6%.
Mastercard is down 5.7%.
American Express is down 7.2%.
Capital One is down 8.8%.
Markets are beginning to price a structural shift. And the concern is simple.
AI systems do not choose payment methods based on brand or existing infrastructure. They automatically select the fastest and cheapest way to settle transactions.
Today, card payments typically cost merchants between 2% and 3.5% per transaction. Cross border payments often exceed 4% once currency spreads and intermediaries are included.
If AI agents can instead settle payments instantly using stablecoins at near zero cost, expensive payment rails begin to lose their advantage.
And payments sit at the center of almost every industry. Every business depends on moving money. That is why stablecoins are becoming difficult to ignore.
Traditional payment systems still carry significant friction.
Card networks charge percentage based fees. International wires can cost hundreds of dollars. Settlement delays slow capital movement across businesses and supply chains.
Stablecoin networks change that structure.
Transfers settle within seconds or minutes. Cross border payments can cost only a few dollars. Network fees can fall to fractions of a cent while operating continuously without downtime.
At global scale, this difference becomes enormous. Global remittance fees still average 6.6%, according to World Bank data.
Now combine that with the size of global payments.
B2B payment flows alone exceed $1.6 quadrillion annually. Even small efficiency improvements shift trillions of dollars.
Adoption data already reflects this transition.
Stablecoin transaction volume reached roughly $33 trillion in 2025, growing more than 70% year over year.
Total supply has expanded to over $300 billion, compared with roughly $10 billion just a few years ago.
Citi estimates supply could reach $1.9 trillion by 2030 and potentially $4 trillion in a bullish scenario.
At that scale, stablecoin issuers could become some of the largest buyers of U.S. Treasury bills globally.
This creates pressure on banks as well.
Banks rely on deposits to fund lending activity. Stablecoins instead hold reserves directly in Treasury bills.
If companies begin holding operating capital in stablecoins rather than bank deposits, part of the funding base supporting traditional lending starts to shift.
Regulators are already paying attention.
During recent U.S. crypto regulatory discussions, banking groups pushed strongly against allowing stablecoins to offer yield.
The concern was clear. Digital dollars backed by Treasuries offering returns outside banks could accelerate deposit migration.
AI adds another acceleration layer.
Payments are increasingly moving from humans to software systems.
AI agents paying APIs automatically.
Software renting compute resources in real time.
Machines settling services continuously.
These systems optimize strictly for cost and speed.
When AI compares percentage based card fees with near instant stablecoin settlement, routing decisions become mechanical rather than behavioral.
Financial institutions are already preparing for this possibility.
Fireblocks research shows nearly half of institutions already use stablecoins for payments, while more than 80% report infrastructure readiness.
McKinsey estimates real world stablecoin payments across payroll, remittances, and business settlement already approach $390 billion annually and are growing rapidly.
Even Visa and Mastercard are now integrating stablecoin settlement infrastructure behind the scenes.
Payment networks are not disappearing overnight.
But markets may be starting to price a future where moving money becomes significantly cheaper.
And that directly challenges one of the most profitable layers in global finance.
Abrazos,
PD: Jorge Luis Borges dijo cómo ser un buen lector:
“Yo les aconsejaría lo que mi
padre me dijo: que leyera mucho ante todo, que viera en la lectura no una
obligación sino un goce.
Creo que la frase ‘lectura
obligatoria’ es un contrasentido, la lectura no debe ser obligatoria.
No se puede hablar de ‘placer
obligatorio’, ¿por qué?, el placer no es obligatorio, el placer es algo que
buscamos. ¿‘Felicidad obligatoria’?
La felicidad la buscamos también.
Pues bien, yo he sido profesor de
literatura inglesa durante veinte años en la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras de
la Universidad de Buenos Aires, y siempre les aconsejé a mis estudiantes: si un
libro les aburre, déjenlo.
No lo lean porque es famoso, no
lean un libro porque es moderno, no lo lean porque es antiguo. Si un libro es
tedioso para ustedes, déjenlo, aunque ese libro sea ‘El Paraíso Perdido’, que
para mí no es tedioso, o El Quijote, que para mí tampoco es tedioso.
Pero si un libro es tedioso para
ustedes, no lo lean, ese libro no ha sido escrito para ustedes. La lectura debe
ser una forma de la felicidad.
Lo que yo aconsejaría a esos
posibles lectores de mi testamento que no pienso escribir: yo les aconsejaría
que leyeran mucho, que no se dejaran asustar por la reputación de los autores,
que leyeran buscando una felicidad personal, un goce personal. Es el único modo
de leer.
Si no, caemos en la tristeza de
las bibliografías, de las citas, de fulano, luego un paréntesis, luego dos
fechas separadas por un guion, y luego, por ejemplo, una lista de libros que
han escrito de aquellos que han escrito sobre ese autor, y todo eso es una
desdicha.
Yo nunca les di biografía a mis
alumnos. Les dije: ‘No, no lean nada de lo que se ha escrito de fulano de tal,
Shakespeare no ley? una línea sobre ?l y escribi? la obra de Shakespeare,
ustedes no se preocupen de lo que se ha dicho sobre Shakespeare, lean ustedes a
Shakespeare’.
Si Shakespeare les interesa, muy
bien. Si Shakespeare les resulta tedioso, déjenlo: Shakespeare no ha escrito
aún para ustedes.
Llegará un día en que Shakespeare
será digno de ustedes y ustedes serán dignos de Shakespeare.
Mientras tanto, no hay que
apresurar las cosas. Sí, yo aconsejaría ante todo la lectura y la lectura
hedónica, la lectura del placer, no la triste lectura universitaria hecha de
referencias, de citas, de fechas.
Yo he tomado examen durante
veinte años en la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras y tengo un orgullo, uno de los
pocos de mi vida: no hice jamás una pregunta.
Yo les decía a mis estudiantes:
‘Háblenos, por ejemplo, del Doctor Samuel Johnson, háblenos de la poesía
anglosajona, háblenos de Shakespeare, háblenos de Oscar Wilde, háblenos de
Shaw, y hablen, digan lo que piensen, yo prometo no interrumpirlos, prometo no
hacerles una sola pregunta o preguntarles una sola fecha porque yo mismo no las
sé y se descubriría mi ignorancia, pero ustedes hablen si es que el tema les
interesa’.
E hicieron excelentes exámenes
así. En cambio hay profesores muy torpes que hacen preguntas, porque no saben
tomar exámenes".
