It was truly fantastic catching up with so many of you in person at Money 2020! It’s clear that payments, AI, and digital assets are accelerating at an unbelievable pace. If you didn’t manage to make it, or if you were too busy grabbing coffee to focus on the news flow, here are my top takeaways from the floor. I hope to see some of you in Miami at Simon’s Fintech Nerdcon!

The core theme I kept hearing is that the future of commerce is moving rapidly toward machine-to-machine (M2M) interactions. As this happens, the role of V/MA networks (governance, economics, trust, identity, and authorization) becomes even more crucial. The technology is the easy part; the governance is the real competitive moat.

Key themes I observed:

1. Stablecoins Dominate B2B: Stablecoins are rapidly transforming the Business-to-Business (B2B) payments landscape, especially in cross-border payments, by addressing deep-seated correspondent banking frictions. Most also agreed that separate US and EU bank consortia will be successful in their stablecoin issuance efforts.
   
2. Stablecoins Bypass Retail: My skeptical view on stablecoin adoption in consumer commerce was widely reinforced. Stablecoins are unlikely to gain traction in retail or eCommerce or Agentic commerce within the US or EU. Merchants overwhelmingly prefer cards for maintaining high conversion rates, managing fraud, and simplifying dispute resolution. As one merchant put it, optionality doesn’t improve conversions, and customers in OECD markets aren’t asking for stablecoin payment options.
   
3. Tokenized Everything. While the buzz often centers on consumer crypto, the institutional world, led by JPMorgan Chase are tokenizing institutional finance and wholesale. Kinexys uses a permissioned blockchain for programmable, near real-time, multicurrency B2B payments and cross-border settlement, which is vital for corporate treasuries. The platform has already demonstrated significant volume, processing over $1.5 trillion in transaction volume since its launch over four years ago. The strategic goal here is twofold: to capture new digital asset flows and to maintain their core position as the primary financial intermediary. Banks want to make stablecoins “invisible” to commercial clients, operating them as “just another rail” internally for efficient settlement and conversion, while retaining control and profitability, particularly in areas like FX. This focus on building closed, regulated ecosystems is how existing players are leveraging Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) to improve efficiency while maintaining control over governance and risk management.
4. V/MA Momentum in Value-Added Services (VAS): The view of Visa and Mastercard was definitely favorable, with significant momentum building around their Value-Added Services (VAS). As commerce becomes more M2M, the necessity for defined roles, governance, trust, identity, and authorization grows, favoring these networks. The bull case for networks rests on their ability to expand their governance models beyond card payments to new commercial interactions. This move into VAS like fraud prevention, tokenization, and authentication services is central to their growth narrative.
   
5. The Agentic Arms Race: The excitement around Agentic commerce remains intense. While some people I spoke with believe OpenAI will capture the majority of searches and transactions, I remain aligned with the view that Google and Amazon haven’t even begun to fully deploy their assets. It was particularly interesting to note that major retailers are leaning heavily into partnering with Google and Facebook to leverage their data and create better customer experiences within their own domains (which they view as “next generation search”). Meanwhile, warnings from leaders like the Cloudflare CEO about how AI is consuming web content without providing compensation highlight the governance knot that must be untangled for the internet business model to survive.
   
6. AP2 vs. Stripe’s Traction: Google’s Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) has amassed a large list of nearly 160 partners, including Mastercard and Amex. However, many agree that AP2 currently has few prospects outside of Google’s domain in the near term. Why? Because AP2 has a governance gap (see blog). The blockchain audit trail of mandates is not meaningful without commercial agreements that compel action against them (ex authorization of payment or settlement of dispute). In contrast, Stripe’s ACP  is seeing tangible traction, positioning Stripe to bridge traditional and new financial worlds (next 18 mo).
   
7. China Outbound Rumor Mill: There was buzz regarding how card networks will play in China outbound flows. This aligns with reports showing Visa is actively expanding cross-border QR payments in the Asia Pacific region, leveraging Alipay’s vast merchant acceptance network for travelers. This strategic positioning is critical, especially given central bank efforts in Asia toward CBDCs rather than stablecoins, often driven by concerns over US sanctions and dollarization.
   
8. Partnership Insanity: Absolutely! The density of strategic partnerships is staggering. Whether it’s banks forming stablecoin consortiums (like JPM, Citi, BofA, Wells Fargo) or the card networks integrating with platforms like Stripe’s Bridge, Baanx, and BVNK, it is nearly impossible to track all the interwoven collaborations and competitive moves in real-time.
   

Great seeing everyone, and I hope you are taking the time to digest all the changes! The journey continues, and I hope to catch up with some of you soon in Miami at Simon’s Fintech Nerdcon.