Visa, Mastercard Aren't The Real Casualties In Citrini's AI-Stablecoin Scenario

A Citrini Research scenario published Sunday sent shockwaves through financial markets Monday, dragging down shares of Mastercard Incorporated (NYSE:MA), Visa Inc. (NYSE:V), American Express Company (NYSE:AXP), and others. But a CEO building payment infrastructure for AI agents says the the piece got the direction right while misidentifying the primary casualties. Citrini’s Scenario Rattled Markets Citrini Research’s over 7,000-word Substack post, titled “The 2028 Global Intelligence Crisis” and explicitly framed as “a scenario, not a prediction,” modeled a speculative future where AI agents autonomously reroute transactions away from card networks toward stablecoin rails, wiping out interchange economics in the process. By Monday’s open, the S&P 500 turned red and closed down more than 1%. Mastercard, Visa, American Express, and DoorDash Inc. (NYSE:DASH) each fell between 4% and 6%. Issuers, Not Networks, Are the Vulnerable Link Louis Amira, CEO of Circuit & Chisel, an agentic commerce platform backed by Stripe and Coinbase Global Inc. (NASDAQ:COIN), told Benzinga the market reaction conflated two distinct layers of the payments stack. “It’s also important to separate the networks from the issuers. Visa and Mastercard take only a small number of basis points. They pride themselves on being ‘technology companies,’ even if their original stakeholders were the issuing banks. Most of that 2–3% goes to issuers and other intermediaries. If fees compress, the greater pressure is likely on those players,” Amira said. Citrini’s scenario specifically called out card-focused banks, including American Express, Synchrony Financial (NYSE:SYF), Capital One Financial Corporation (NYSE:COF) and Discover Financial Services, as carrying the sharpest exposure, noting their “moats were made of friction.” Stablecoins Make the Math Real for Agents Amira said the economic logic underpinning Citrini’s thesis is sound. “If AI agents are optimizing for cost and efficiency, they will naturally route transactions toward cheaper rails when possible. In machine-to-machine commerce, a 2–3% interchange fee is significant, especially when stablecoins can settle near-instantly at a fraction of the cost,” he said. On the broader business model shift, Amira said this will reshape transaction economics over time. When software controls transactions, it optimizes for efficiency, putting pressure on models built on friction and fees. Incumbents won't vanish overnight, but companies are already exploring stablecoins and alternative rails, because even a 1–2% savings can materially change the economics for low-margin businesses. Photo by JOURNEY STUDIO7 via Shutterstock