TLDR Tech / Crypto
Stablecoins were supposed to cut out the middlemen
Visa, Mastercard, Coinbase, and Stripe are absorbing stablecoin rails rather than being disintermediated, since settlement is only one part of a payment alongside identity, fraud, disputes, and the customer relationship. Visa's stablecoin settlement volume surpassed a $20 billion annualized run rate in September 2026, over 15x year-over-year, while issuers still depend on Visa for network acceptance. Mastercard's new Wallet Pay lets wallets like Alipay+, CRED, and Mercado Pago extend cross-border through its network, and Coinbase's Moov deal lets 1,000+ community banks add stablecoin capability without leaving their bank relationship. Stripe, having acquired Bridge and Privy and co-incubated the Tempo L1 with Paradigm, is positioning to control which rail a transaction routes through as cards, banks, and stablecoins converge.
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