Who Wins the Payments Infrastructure of the Next Decade

TL;DR

• Value onchain goes first to stablecoin issuers, through their reserves, and to custody and infrastructure providers, which hold more distribution power than they appear to.
• Only three people in the room expect card networks to remain the default consumer rails in ten years. Mastercard expects the card to change and the network, with its consumer protections, to keep its role.
• Regulation is the main blocker for banks. The GENIUS Act sparked strong interest, but it takes effect in 2027 and issuers still have to be licensed.
• No single chain or stablecoin will win. Expect specialised networks, and chains such as Tempo and Base paying incentives to attract volume.
• Emerging markets still drive about 80% of the volume Utila sees; B2B settlement and agentic payments come next.
• The main risks are private keys, operational workflows and smart contracts, and liability will largely be set by contract.

Speakers

Who Wins the Payments Infrastructure of the Next Decade

• Michael Broderick, VP Digital Assets at Mastercard
• Margo Tank, Partner & Global Co-Chair of Financial Services Sector at DLA Piper
• Bentzi Rabi, Co-founder & CEO at Utila
• Pavel Kashuba, Strategic Leader at CoinsPaid Solutions

The panel was moderated by Raphaël Bloch, CEO of The Big Whale.

Issuers and custodians capture the value; networks sell trust

Bentzi Rabi sees value shared unevenly. Issuers earn on their reserves, and the way they distribute yield could set them apart. Custody, often seen as a commodity layer, also carries distribution power: Utila runs its own liquidity marketplace, connecting buyers and sellers who already use its platform. Pavel Kashuba sees the industry serving demand from a new generation of consumers and businesses, and expects the winners to be those who can scale fast across borders. For Michael Broderick, Mastercard's role is to provide trust and interoperability. That is why it bought BVNK, a team that had already done much of the regulatory and compliance work; two months after the deal, they are launching products together, including a single integration for fiat and stablecoins. “We don't think there's one stablecoin, one issuer or one rail to rule them all.”

Will card networks still be the default in ten years?

Only three people in the room raised their hands. Michael Broderick's answer:

• Ten years ago Apple Pay was two years old, and neither Pix nor USDC existed, so predicting 2036 is “a fool's errand”
• The plastic card will evolve, but payments will still need a trusted network: SoFi has moved its $25 billion card programme on Mastercard to settle in SoFi USD, its own stablecoin
• A wallet-to-wallet payment proves that funds moved, not that the goods arrived. Card rules cover protection and disputes, and a stablecoin-settled card keeps them

Regulation opened the door, but the GENIUS Act will take time

After eight months meeting banks in Australia, Europe and the US, Pavel Kashuba called regulation and compliance “the only obstacle”: banks ask their regulators before signing even a pilot, and the GENIUS Act gave them the signal they were waiting for. Margo Tank tempered the optimism: the act is long, it takes effect in 2027, and issuers still have to be licensed. Under it:

• Three types of issuers: subsidiaries of insured depository institutions, federal non-banks licensed by the OCC, and state-qualified issuers below $10 billion of issuance
• Exchanges, brokers and custodians may only offer stablecoins from permitted issuers
• Stablecoins cannot pay interest, but issuers earn on reserves; banks gain new business lines and a head start on tokenized deposits, while non-bank issuers are more nimble

Other frictions remain: differences in reserves, interoperability, reciprocity for foreign issuers, build-or-buy decisions and internal change management. Asked about timing, she suggested three to five years, without committing to it.

Many chains, specialised stablecoins and a race for volume

• Michael Broderick expects “hundreds of stablecoins and tokenized assets across dozens of blockchains”, with a pull towards a few of them and treasurers choosing by risk profile
• Pavel Kashuba expects fewer than 15 major blockchains within three to five years
• Bentzi Rabi expects specialised networks, some built for speed and gas management, others for access to yield: fewer than 200 stablecoins, but more than two or three

According to Bentzi Rabi, large players now compete on networks more than on tokens: Stripe launched Tempo, Airwallex its own chain and Coinbase has Base, and chains pay large incentives to fintechs, PSPs and banks to bring them volume. Banks ask Utila which chain to use, which gives infrastructure providers distribution power. Mastercard stays neutral and onboards chains through its crypto partner programme. Pavel Kashuba sees no point in issuing a token of his own, which he compared to the 2017 ICO boom.

Emerging markets lead; B2B and agentic payments come next

Early adopters used stablecoins because they had no alternative; newcomers choose them because they work better than what they have. Utila, which will serve around 500 organisations by year-end, sees LatAm as its largest region and about 80% of its volume linked to emerging markets, where USDT and Tron dominate. Michael Broderick listed three use cases:

• Cross-border payments in volatile economies, where USDC beats dollars under the mattress
• Business settlement in the US, where consumers already feel payments are instant but companies gain efficiency
• Agentic payments, with no volume yet: stablecoins settling behind an AI-initiated purchase, for example a payment to a designer in Brazil routed into Pix

Margo Tank added stablecoins as collateral in lending. Pavel Kashuba sees Asia ahead, with discreet stablecoin settlement between banks, and pushed QR-code payments that could replace card terminals in shops.

Security risks, and liability set by contract

Pavel Kashuba called for a new level of “digital hygiene” in financial institutions. Bentzi Rabi listed the risks:

• Private keys remain the main challenge, and banks now also ask about new threats to key security
• Operational workflows: onchain, a mistake cannot be reversed, so permissions and controls matter
• Smart contract risk, behind most recent attacks and growing with AI

Margo Tank stressed that liability is no longer centralised: it follows each function (custodian, broker, exchange), there is no chargeback, and much of it will be set by contract between the parties. Michael Broderick sees this as the case for networks, whose rulebook governs how value moves.

Conclusion

Stablecoin payments are already strongest in emerging markets and are moving into business settlement, while consumer payments still run on card networks. Regulation has opened the door, but licensing, interoperability and liability will take years to settle. The panel saw room for several winners: issuers, custody providers, crypto-native payment firms and networks like Mastercard each hold part of the value, and the open question is who will control distribution.