Gregory Bent
CFA, Equity Analyst, US & Canadian Markets, 30+ Years of Experience
Growing stablecoin payments and business adoption position Visa, Mastercard, Coinbase, Circle and PayPal for a massive shift in global payments. Stablecoins are moving from crypto speculation into real-world financial infrastructure; payments reached $482B year to date, up 45%. Autonomous AI-agent transactions may be the next frontier. x.comÂ
Visa is no longer just a bet on card payments growing with GDP, because it is building the data, risk and settlement infrastructure that makes new payment rails usable at scale. It has 160+ live stablecoin-linked card programs, and stablecoin settlement recently passed a $20B annualized run rate, up more than 15x a year. It is also linking VisaNet settlement data with onchain lending and building AI fraud tools for account-to-account payments. Its moat is trust at global scale. x.comÂ
New payment technologies such as stablecoins and agentic payments are being built on top of Mastercard and Visa rather than disrupting them. Building an entirely new system makes no sense when large, secure and widely accepted networks already exist. Incentives now align with Mastercard and Visa more than ever, making these innovations a tailwind. x.comÂ
Card networks like Visa and Mastercard and percentage-fee processors like PayPal face long-term disruption markets aren't pricing in, as AI agent payments settle in stablecoins. Per Circle's global markets head, AI agents completed 140 million payments worth $43 million in nine months, 98.6% settled in USDC, averaging $0.31. Visa and Mastercard won't disappear, but fee-free rails and USDC may cannibalize most of their future growth, while the market assumes Visa compounds forever. x.com x.comÂ
Mastercard benefits as cash payments keep moving to cards worldwide, making it a five-year buy at today's valuation. It keeps about 60 cents of each revenue dollar as operating profit; revenue grew 14% and EPS 21% last quarter. Stablecoins and bank-to-bank apps could bypass the network, but stablecoins might instead drive growth. x.comÂ
Mastercard may be the only scaled, capital-light network benefiting from AI, with bloated technical debt uniquely addressable by coding tools. Nominal inflation-linked recurring revenues and hardware attach add to the case at low-teens free-cash-flow yields. While payments getting bid in a red market probably signals the rally is over, these traits could mean it is not. x.comÂ
Visa's roughly 30x earnings multiple and $750 billion valuation leave less upside than other opportunities, even if it keeps executing; the best case may be another doubling over a few years. Its once-impenetrable moat may look different in five years, while its reputation as a safe compounder is already priced in. This is a relative judgment, not a prediction that Visa cannot keep rising. x.com x.com x.com x.com x.comÂ
Visa's volume and earnings growth show its network benefits from the global shift to digital payments. FY revenue rose 15% to $45.9B, adjusted EPS 16%, payments volume 9% and cross-border volume 13%. One of the world's highest-quality businesses, it is among the few most comfortable to hold for the next decade. Adjusted operating expenses rose 16%, ahead of revenue; client incentives rose 16% to $18.3B but threaten margins only if they get out of control. Regulation and litigation remain risks. … Show more
Coinbase can earn from growing agentic payments through Base transaction fees and yield on dollars backing USDC on Base. Its x402 protocol lets agents pay instantly for web services with stablecoins; cumulative Base x402 transactions rose from 1.5K to 138.5M in five quarters. After a Q4 2025 testing jump, quarterly activity rose from 14M to 18M to 23M in 2026, which looks like accelerating organic use, not just testing. x.comÂ
Circle faces pricing pressure because stablecoin infrastructure has low barriers to entry, which is why it stays an underweight with only small exposure. The risk showed when Circle fell 13% as Stripe, Coinbase and BlackRock backed a rival stablecoin, Open USD. x.com x.comÂ
Circle still benefits from the large stablecoin trend and USDC's utility for businesses and users, so early AI-agent cash recommendations are no reason to turn bearish. Mizuho cut its target to $43 and sees a 10-20% reserve-revenue hit after sampled agents favored insured, higher-yield options over USDC. Few people let agents manage their money, and those who do are not a large share of USDC holders. Agent-only stablecoin payments may be overhyped. x.comÂ
