Money Magic? Not Quite!

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A Right Kettle of Fish

  • Old Jeremy Allaire, the top bod at Circle, is saying their USDC thingy isn’t trying to steal customers from the banks, Visa, or Mastercard. Honestly, the cheek!
  • He reckons these ‘stablecoins’ are like enormous, sprawling playgrounds – the more people build on them, the bigger and more important they become. A bit like a particularly persistent weed, really.
  • Visa and Mastercard are actually getting rather chummy with these stablecoins, which is a bit like a grumpy bulldog befriending a particularly bouncy chihuahua. Peculiar!

Now, Jeremy Allaire, a name you’ll be forgetting in five minutes, has declared that his company’s USDC – a sort of digital dollar, if you must – isn’t trying to compete with proper payment systems. Oh no. It’s simply a ‘neutral financial infrastructure’. Neutral, he says! As if money can ever be truly neutral. It’s all a bit fishy, if you ask me.

Speaking at a rather swanky gathering in Davos – the sort of place where important people go to admire the mountains and talk about things they don’t understand – Allaire insisted that Visa and Mastercard aren’t rivals. They’re “significant partners,” apparently. Which sounds suspiciously like “we’re letting them have a piece of the pie.” These stablecoins, he explained with a terribly serious face, are more like…shared platforms. A platform for what, you might ask? Making things slightly more complicated, that’s what!

“Stablecoins are network-effect businesses,” said Mr. Allaire, puffing himself up like a particularly proud pigeon. Apparently, the more developers, institutions, and people who fiddle with them, the better they work. He added, with a dismissive wave of the hand, “We’re a neutral company. We don’t compete with banks, we don’t compete payment companies, we don’t compete exchanges.” Oh, of course not. They’re just quietly taking over the world, one digital penny at a time.

A Future Ruled by Robots?

Allaire went on to waffle about a future where clever robots (AI agents, he called them) will be managing your money. Apparently, this will make things cheaper, though I suspect it’ll just make robots richer. He admitted that nobody actually knows what the payment business will even look like in this robot-ruled future. Sensible man, to admit that.

And what about banks launching their own stablecoins, I hear you ask? Mr. Allaire shrugged. More competition is good, he said! Like adding more sprinkles to a rather bland dessert. The more the merrier, apparently. Naturally.

Circle’s USDC is, at the moment, the second biggest of these digital doohickeys, with a whopping $73.6 billion sloshing around. Behind Tether’s USDT, which has an even more ridiculous $186.6 billion. Goodness gracious. It’s enough to make your head spin.

They’re predicting these stablecoins will handle a colossal $33 trillion by 2025, which, believe it or not, is more than Visa and Mastercard combined. Imagine! A bit of number juggling, perhaps? We’ll see.

Rules and Regulations (and a Rather Rocky Stock Price)

When asked about a rather important bill stuck in the US Congress, Allaire said politicians seem to agree, at least, that something needs to be done. A truly astonishing admission!

Apparently, this bill isn’t just about stablecoins, but about all sorts of digital tomfoolery. A source of great interest to both the stuffy old banks and these upstart crypto firms.

Allaire, being a cautious sort, is predicting “reasonable” growth of around 40% per year. Circle went public, and the share price did a bit of a rollercoaster ride – shooting up and then plummeting back down. A cautionary tale for anyone thinking of investing, perhaps.

Friendships and Frictions

Just recently, a firm called BVNK buddied up with Visa, and Mastercard started playing nicely with Circle. Seems these stablecoins are gradually worming their way into the existing financial system. A sneaky sort of takeover, if you ask me.

All this seems to confirm Allaire’s story that stablecoins aren’t replacing money, just…changing how it flows. A gradual change, he says. Let’s hope it doesn’t involve too much confusion and digital mayhem.

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2026-01-23 12:37