Agents and stablecoins
(I'm focused on American consumers here.)
1. Most consumers have most of their money in fiat in a bank account. Bank accounts offer: FDIC insurance, debit / ATM cards, good integrations with other financial services like credit cards and bill pay. It's unusual for people to not have a bank account. Will that change over time? Sure. e.g. Cash App, Robinhood "Banking", etc. But will be decades long process.
2. If most consumer money is in a bank account, then the most addressable spend is in the form of cards -- debit and credit cards. Consumers have these products and use them daily. They are extremely pro-consumer -- basically universal acceptance, chargeback / fraud protection, and if you're wealthier points.
3. In order to get consumers to use stablecoins:
a. the bank account needs to support stablecoins. Most consumers will not switch bank accounts just for stablecoins. So little pressure for bank to adopt. In fact, adding stablecoin support makes it easier to switch banks. Banks also make money from card payments.
b. if not banks, consumers need an incentive to hold larger stablecoin balances in non-bank apps. Coinbase does this with rewards. But banks also can offer interest, so the marginal difference is going to be low and most people won't care to maximize.
c. yes there is a version of the world where consumers earn stablecoins through apps, e.g. Farcaster Rewards, but that's still small today. If it scales -- great!
4. Absent a near term shift for much bigger consumer stablecoin balances, agentic stuff will just end up using cards. Stablecoins still probably win on the b2b and backend financial plumbing side in the long run, but all of the near term stuff with AI is going to bias for what consumers use today. 13 replies
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