X @s4mmy

AI + Payments Landscape - The industry observes a rapid development in AI + payments, similar to the earlier crypto x AI developments, involving Neo banks, stablecoins & DeFi [1] - The industry identifies hundreds of protocols within this vertical, supported by substantial capital [1] - Institutional capital is being heavily invested in creating the next generation of payment systems [1] Disruption of Traditional Finance - Incumbent financial systems face disintermediation due to their cumbersome and expensive international transaction processes [2] - Traditional payment rails are compelled to adopt new technologies to avoid being displaced [2] - Enhanced payment rails integrated with physical AI will enable robots to integrate into general society in the long term [2] Key Players and Initiatives - Tether is developing a Wallet Dev Kit + Plasma (XPL) [3] - Visa is building "Intelligent Commerce" for AI Agents to shop for users [3] - Mastercard announced Agent Pay, a VISA rival, within 2 days of VISA [3] - Coinbase is involved with x402 (HTTPS & payments) [3] - Circle's partnership with Coinbase will benefit from the downstream effects of x402 [3] - Cloudflare is developing NET Dollar, specifically an AI Agents focused stablecoin for compute [3] - Tria is a Neo Bank leveraging AI for optimal swapping using "Best Path" [3] - Revolut acquired AI travel agent startup "Swifty" incubated by Lufthansa [3] - Almanak offers autonomous liquidity vaults for stablecoin yield optimization and Pendle strategies [3] - Giza provides autonomous stablecoin strategies + Pendle [3]