When stablecoins weren’t inevitable: The story of USDC
How stablecoins won. Plus, reimagining user sovereignty in a post-interface world
IN THIS EDITION
The real story of stablecoins — as told by Bridge co-founder Zach Abrams and USDC co-creator (now Catena CEO) Sean Neville
Why we think stablecoins will reshape today’s payment landscape, from terminology and use cases to the future of financial infrastructure
How users can maintain agency in a world of AI agents
a16z crypto expands into Asia
BEHIND THE TREND
The real story of stablecoins
Circle cofounder and USDC co-creator Sean Neville (now CEO of Catena Labs) and Bridge cofounder Zach Abrams (now at Stripe) sit down with host Robert Hackett for a deep dive into the story behind the rise of stablecoins, from how they found product-market fit to the future of payments infrastructure. The idea of “money running at internet speed” wasn’t inevitable — until now.
00:41 — The origins of USDC
01:46 — Why stablecoins are having their moment now
03:16 — Circle’s early product experiments
05:20 — Surviving crypto cycles
06:36 — Bridge: from NFT payments to stablecoins
08:21 — What counts as product-market fit (and why founders rarely “feel” it)
19:59 — Why Bridge joined Stripe
25:19 — Building a new company in the AI age
28:35 — What students should study now
29:28 — Why new payment chains (Tempo & Arc)?
34:55 — Decentralization as imperative
THE EXPLAINER
How stablecoins are quietly eating payments
Sam Broner
Stablecoins processed $9 trillion in adjusted transaction volume over the past year — on par with PayPal, and more than half of Visa’s throughput. But what are the different categories of stablecoins, and how can businesses use them?
In this new “whiteboard” explainer, a16z crypto’s Sam Broner walks through three major stablecoin models — fiat-reserve, asset-backed, and yield-bearing — and breaks down how retailers of all sizes, from Walmart to the neighborhood coffee shop, could meaningfully boost margins by switching payment rails.
00:36 — What are stablecoins, and why they’re useful
03:09 — Scenario 1: A neighborhood coffee shop
03:53 — Breakdown of intermediaries: POS → card networks → acquiring banks
07:10 — Scenario 2: Large retailers
09:36 — Doubling profitability: Kroger, Walmart, Chipotle
10:50 — Scenario 3: Cross-border B2B manufacturing payments
11:26 — Comparison of existing rails: cards, ACH, P2P, wires, checks
13:12 — Redefining what “efficiency” means for payments
17:06 — Network effects: Why stablecoin volume already rivals Visa
17:33 — Adoption is happening: everyday users + businesses
WHAT’S AHEAD
17 things we’re excited about for crypto in 2026
In the latest installment of our annual “big ideas” series, we share 17 things that a16z crypto partners (plus a few guest contributors) observe for 2026 on topics ranging from agents and AI; stablecoins, tokenization, and finance; privacy and security; to prediction markets, SNARKs, and more.
PRODUCT DESIGN
How to preserve user agency in a world full of AI agents
Christian Crowley
What happens when interfaces disappear?
For decades, each new interface — from command lines to GUIs to apps to APIs — abstracted away more complexity. But humans always stayed in the loop. AI agents change all that. They don’t just abstract how things get done; they abstract who does them. And as agents start to become more prevalent in crypto systems, founders across the ecosystem are wrestling with the same questions.
If momentum around agents continues, what changes most is the users’ role: they become orchestrators instead of the operators. They set parameters, and then step back as the system runs itself. Unless they intervene, the default state is “on.” Agents act on their behalf, often without prompts or approvals.
This shift could unlock a whole new interface paradigm, but it also brings new challenges: ambiguity, silent failures, and loss of visibility into what’s being done on the user’s behalf.
Crypto gives us the primitives, including verifiable state, composability, and cryptographic trust, to help keep users in control even when they’re no longer “in the loop.” Those same foundations — transparency, auditability, and interoperability — are exactly what agentic systems need to preserve user agency as execution becomes more autonomous.
This piece explores the rise of agentic systems as an opportunity to reimagine what user sovereignty means in a post-interface world. In it, we survey existing tech around:
Agent permissioning frameworks
Intent-based coordination
Privacy-preserving execution
Authenticated delegation
Zero-knowledge agent frameworks
Read the list of technologies helping users maintain their agency
NEWS AND UPDATES
a16z crypto expands to Asia
Asia has become one of the world’s most dynamic centers of crypto activity. South Korea is the second-largest crypto market, with nearly one in three adults owning crypto (outpacing stock investors there); Japan has seen onchain activity grow 120% in the past year; Singapore has one of the world’s highest rates of crypto ownership; and India is ranked first in Chainalysis’s Global Crypto Adoption Index.
That’s why we’re opening our first office in Seoul, South Korea, to better support our portfolio companies as they enter and scale across markets in Asia — from forging strategic partnerships to building strong local communities. And this is just the beginning; over the coming years, we plan to grow our presence in Asia, add new capabilities to support our crypto companies operating there, and keep exploring new ways to expand our geographic footprint.
We also previously shared observations on go-to-market in Asia here:
Partnerships, M&A, and more
Multi-chain crypto wallet Phantom introduces prediction markets, powered by Kalshi
Crypto wallet Valora is joining Stripe, bringing its experience in crypto wallet infrastructure and onchain developer tools to their ongoing crypto efforts
Fact checks and debates
A recent New York Times article attempting to explain stablecoins, and specifically “how stablecoins in your crypto wallet differ from a traditional bank deposit,” is rife with misrepresentations and misdirections, as pointed out by many. See rebuttals here and here:
Kalshi founder’s kombucha test
— a16z crypto editorial team
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