Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire said stablecoins could become the default medium of exchange in rapidly emerging economies where autonomous artificial intelligence agents can transact with each other. He said traditional payments are too slow, expensive and cumbersome for the world being built.
Circle is a fintech company and issuer of USD Coin (USDC), the second-largest U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin after Tether.
Unlike other forms of cryptocurrencies, stablecoins maintain a consistent price when pegged to another asset such as the U.S. dollar.
Speech during Where are we on stablecoins? In a recent discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Allaire argued that the combination of mature blockchain networks, smart contract platforms and increasingly autonomous artificial intelligence systems is driving finance toward “machine-to-machine” payments, and stablecoins are the only currency suitable to power it.
“Stablecoins are becoming the backbone of payments for AI agents,” Allaire said.
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“We now have very mature blockchain networks that can execute code through publicly verifiable smart contracts. This is critical when validating transactions between AI agents,” Allaire said.
“Taking out a Visa card or initiating a bank wire is ridiculous. We need a medium of exchange that scales to fractions of a cent and has speed and interoperability across applications and devices.”
The conversation comes amid a flurry of companies researching how to use autonomous artificial intelligence agents and software tools to make decisions, conduct transactions, process data and even purchase goods or services without human approval.
More than 700 AI agent startups launched on Stripe last year alone, indicating that the infrastructure layer for autonomous commerce is accelerating.
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Unlike large language models such as ChatGPT, these agents can be configured to run independently, including for payments. This immediately creates a bottleneck, because traditional financial rails are not designed for 24/7, small-increment, cross-border trading machines.
AI agents don’t sleep. They trade around the clock, analyzing charts, on-chain data, liquidity conditions and market sentiment in real time. Smart contracts used on networks such as Ethereum (ETH-USD) are responsible for execution, while the blockchain verifies each transaction.
Payment companies are already adapting. Stripe has launched expanded tools and developer support to help enterprises integrate stablecoins and emerging AI-driven commerce, enabling new programmable payment processes.
Stripe CEO Patrick Collison has described stablecoins as “the room-temperature superconductor of financial services,” saying they can transfer value quickly, cheaply and programmably.
Against the backdrop of the explosive growth of stablecoins, prospects are emerging. The total stablecoin market capitalization recently hit an all-time high of over $310 billion, surpassing the peak reached in December last year. Most are pegged to the U.S. dollar, making it an increasingly important distribution channel for the U.S. dollar.
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If the U.S. Treasury Department’s forecasts hold true, the total supply of stablecoins could reach around $2 trillion by 2028, making issuers one of the largest non-sovereign buyers of U.S. Treasuries, a potential shift that would have a significant impact on global U.S. dollar liquidity.
According to the Treasury Department’s first quarter 2025 report, “the total market value of U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoins is expected to reach approximately $2 trillion by 2028.”
Major issuers already hold large Treasury positions, and Morgan Stanley predicts the market could even exceed $2 trillion, “driven by use cases that extend well beyond cryptocurrency trading, from remittances and e-commerce to global B2B settlements.”
As the dollar migrates on-chain, tokenized stocks, bonds, and other assets may follow, enabling programmatic and global settlement of instruments that are currently cleared in slow, siled systems.
This shift has not been without regulatory friction. In the United States, the proposed Clarification Act could ban stablecoin yields, a move that has drawn close attention from the industry.
“Stablecoin yields should not undermine long-overdue cryptocurrency regulation in the United States, but outright banning it would be a policy mistake,” said Anil Oncu, CEO of Bitpace. “With reasonable safeguards and clear rules, lawmakers can protect consumers without freezing responsible innovation.”
Regulators in the UK and Europe are exploring separate frameworks, with the Bank of England saying stablecoins widely used for payments should be issued in a regulated, secure manner. Currently, there is no stablecoin of this scale in the UK.
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