Chainfeeds Summary:
Stablecoins, RWA, Agents, privacy, security, prediction markets, verifiable computing, and on-chain wealth management.
Article source:
https://x.com/stacy_muur/status/2007007813965677009
Article Author:
Stacy Muur
Opinion:
Stacy Muur: The story of stablecoins has moved beyond the "feasibility verification" stage. After annualized transaction volumes reached trillions of dollars, the question is no longer whether stablecoins can run, but whether they can seamlessly integrate with the existing financial system. a16z believes that stablecoin settlement is at a critical inflection point: throughput has increased 100-fold, and cross-chain interoperability is maturing, but resilience and sovereignty remain missing. Neura's Sovereign Stack is filling this gap. a16z's statement is crucial: stablecoins are not just currency, but a ledger upgrade. Banks and fintech companies don't need to rewrite decades-old legacy systems; simply allowing stablecoins to run in parallel with existing systems provides real-time settlement, programmability, and global accessibility. This means that value capture is shifting from "issuing stablecoins" themselves to distribution, compliance, and system integration. Winning directions in 2026 include embedded payments, card issuance (new crypto banks) and wallets, bank-grade compliance capabilities + APIs and globalization, and programmable settlement. The first wave of RWA adoption primarily involved tokenizing existing offline assets (loans, government bonds, credit products) and redistributing them to crypto users. While this did improve accessibility, it largely retained the inefficient structure of traditional finance: opaque risk control, high service costs, slow settlement, and fragmented liquidity. In many cases, tokenization was merely putting a new shell on old processes. a16z's key insight is that the real advantage of crypto lies not in replicating traditional finance, but in redesigning the credit system from the point of asset origination. When loans are initiated on-chain: risk control logic is programmable, service costs decrease significantly, and risk can be priced and monitored in real time. At this point, crypto is no longer just a distribution channel, but begins to truly become financial infrastructure. Winning directions in 2026 include on-chain risk control and underwriting, transparent risk pricing, compliant lending, and deep liquidity (often through perpetual contracts). When AI agents begin to trade autonomously, payments must become a native capability of the internet. The key shift is from user-driven execution to intent-driven execution. Agents won't click buttons or approve invoices; they will identify conditions, fulfill obligations, and automatically trigger actions. In this world, traditional payment processes (invoicing, reconciliation, settlement cycles) are no longer operational details, but structural bottlenecks. Blockchain offers a completely different model: smart contracts have enabled global final settlement in seconds, while new primitives are making value transfer responsive and composable. Funds are no longer an independent operational layer, but are beginning to be routed natively by the internet, like network traffic. Winning directions in 2026 include agent-native identity, programmatic payment tracks, and user experiences without human intervention. [Original text in English]
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