Can stablecoin payments reshape Visa and Mastercard strategies through 2026?

Card networks are racing to defend profits as stablecoin payments, AI agents, and new fintech rails challenge the economics of traditional credit and debit transactions.

Card networks under pressure from markets and regulators

The big payment groups have pulled back sharply from record highs. Visa has fallen 19%, Mastercard 18%, and American Express 23% from prior peaks, reflecting mounting disruption risks.

The selloff is driven by two key concerns. First, President Donald Trump has floated a proposal to cap credit card interest rates at 10%, which could compress yields. Second, investors increasingly fear that stablecoin rails may erode the card industry business model.

Stablecoin technology allows merchants to settle transactions faster and at lower cost than on legacy card systems. This potential shift has unsettled markets. However, the incumbents are not simply defending their turf; they are retooling their strategies to plug into the new infrastructure.

Mastercard’s record crypto move and Visa’s AI-enabled rails

Mastercard is leaning in with its largest crypto acquisition to date. The company agreed to purchase BVNK, a specialist in stablecoin infrastructure, in a deal worth up to $1.8 billion, marking the biggest stablecoin-focused transaction on record.

Keefe, Bruyette & Woods analyst Sanjay Sakhrani called the acquisition “a critical, long-term strategic move” that positions Mastercard as a conduit between traditional card rails and emerging blockchain-based settlement systems.

Visa is also executing an aggressive pivot. Its contactless payment stack, which can integrate on-chain settlement, now accounts for 80% of all in-person transaction volume worldwide. Moreover, Visa launched Visa CLI, a command-line interface that lets artificial intelligence agents trigger card payments directly through terminal environments.

AI agents and the Machine Payments Protocol

The competitive landscape is expanding beyond card issuers. This week, Stripe and blockchain startup Tempo unveiled the Machine Payments Protocol, an open standard designed so AI systems can autonomously buy services such as APIs, data streams, and compute capacity.

The protocol batches numerous micro-transactions into consolidated settlements on a blockchain. That said, its launch underscores how programmable money could bypass legacy billing flows if adoption scales among developers and enterprises.

Tempo raised $500 million at a $5 billion valuation in October 2025. Chief executive Matt Huang, a Paradigm co-founder who also sits on Stripe’s board, is positioning the company as a core infrastructure provider for autonomous commerce.

Early supporters of the protocol include Anthropic, OpenAI, DoorDash, Shopify, Revolut, plus both Visa and Mastercard. In this context, the card rivals are acting as collaborators, seeking relevance inside the next generation of machine-driven payments.

Scale of agentic commerce and stablecoin volumes

Morgan Stanley forecasts that agent-driven online buying could represent $385 billion of U.S. e-commerce by 2030, highlighting the potential size of autonomous transaction flows. Moreover, on-chain settlement is already large today.

Stablecoin transfer volume hit $33 trillion in 2025, expanding 72% year over year. This explosive growth reinforces why traditional issuers view stablecoin payments as both a strategic threat and an integration opportunity.

Interchange fees and the risk of AI-driven disintermediation

A February 2026 note from Citrini Research warned that AI agents, optimized to minimize transaction costs, could systematically avoid card rails. They may target the 2–3% interchange fees charged by Visa and Mastercard and instead route flows over networks where costs are fractions of a cent.

Visa processed $17 trillion in annual volume, underscoring how even small share losses could be material. However, the valuation backdrop already reflects some of this risk, with earnings multiples compressing from historical peaks.

At present, Mastercard and Visa trade at around 24x and 22x forward earnings respectively, both below their long-run averages. American Express sits near 16x forward earnings, further illustrating the sector’s de-rating as digital alternatives gain traction.

Profit outlook and revenue trajectory for 2026

Despite macro headwinds, analysts have nudged their 2026 earnings expectations higher. Wall Street now projects low-teen percentage growth in sector-wide earnings per share, supported by close to 10% revenue expansion.

Combined revenue for the group is projected to climb toward $163 billion in 2026. Moreover, investors expect the big processors to lean on pricing power, cross-border volume, and technology partnerships to sustain that growth even as new rails emerge.

Stripe’s expanding role in payment infrastructure

Stripe itself is becoming a direct competitor to the card networks in infrastructure control. The company processed $1.9 trillion in payment volume during 2025, underscoring its scale as an internet-native processor.

To deepen its blockchain capabilities, Stripe acquired stablecoin specialist Bridge for $1.1 billion. This crypto acquisitions deal reflects a strategy to embed programmable settlement directly into its platform rather than paying card networks for access to their systems.

As chief executive Matt Huang noted, “agentic payments is very early, and we still are figuring out the best way to structure these.” However, as frameworks like the Machine Payments Protocol mature, they may push more transaction logic off traditional card stacks.

Strategic crossroads for card networks and stablecoins

The rise of stablecoin payments is forcing Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and Stripe to rethink how value is captured across settlement layers. Card groups are betting that partnerships, crypto integrations, and AI tooling will keep them central to digital commerce rather than sidelined by cheaper rails.

For now, the sector still generates strong earnings and rising revenue, but pricing power and interchange economics face mounting tests. The next few years will show whether legacy networks successfully absorb blockchain innovation or whether autonomous agents and open protocols redirect a meaningful share of global transaction flows.