Most consumers hold their money in fiat bank accounts. These accounts provide FDIC insurance, debit / ATM cards, credit cards and bill pay. This will change over time. Fintech apps like Cash App and Robinhood Banking are a preview of where things are headed. But the transition will take decades.
Since most consumer money sits in bank accounts, the most addressable spend occurs through cards. Consumers use cards daily. Cards also have a lot of nice features: near-universal acceptance, chargeback and fraud protection, in the case of credit cards, rewards programs and 30-day (or more) float.
For consumers to adopt stablecoins for everyday spending, one of three things must happen:
Banks would need to support stablecoins natively. Most consumers won’t switch banks just for stablecoins, creating little competitive pressure. Banks also have disincentives: stablecoin support makes switching easier, and banks earn revenue from card payments.
Alternatively, consumers would need incentives to hold larger stablecoin balances in non-bank apps. To encourage this, Coinbase, Phantom and other crypto apps offer a share of stablecoin interest as rewards. But banks also offer interest on deposits, so the marginal benefit is small. Most consumers won’t optimize for small percentage differences.
Finally, consumers could earn stablecoins directly through apps—Farcaster Rewards is one example—but this remains small scale. If it scales, the dynamics change.
Without a near-term catalyst for larger consumer stablecoin balances, agentic systems will default to cards. Stablecoins will likely win on B2B transactions and backend financial infrastructure long term. But near-term AI agent implementations will optimize for what consumers use today: card-based payments.
First published on September 30, 2025
