Original title: (The Next Stop for Stablecoins: International Payments, U.S. Stock Tokenization, and AI Agents)
Original author: Li Xiaoyin, Wall Street Journal
The new track of stablecoins is rising, and U.S. stock tokenization along with AI Agents is expected to siphon off global liquidity.
Driven by accelerated legislation, active corporate participation, and rapid growth in trading volume, stablecoins are moving from a peripheral role in cryptocurrency to the core of financial innovation, attracting global market attention.
According to information from the Trading Desk, Gusheng Securities analysts Song Jiajie and Ren Heyi stated in their latest research report that stablecoins, leveraging the advantages of payment and settlement and lightweight account systems, not only demonstrate disruptive potential in traditional payment fields but also become key driving forces in U.S. stock tokenization (RWA) and AI Agent payment scenarios.
The report states that U.S. stock tokenization provides cryptocurrency investors with more asset allocation options, while also potentially driving rapid expansion of stablecoin scale. AI Agent payments may relieve users of operational burdens, giving rise to entirely new payment models. The integration and innovation of these two new tracks are expected to become new catalysts worth anticipating in the second half of the year.
U.S. stock tokenization reignites the RWA craze.
As an important branch of Real World Asset tokenization (RWA), U.S. stock tokenization is entering a critical period for accelerated implementation.
In the past, stock tokenization briefly rose on platforms like Mirror Protocol, supporting synthetic tokenization of U.S. stock assets such as Tesla and Google, but fell silent due to regulatory and market volatility. Now, with the advancement of the RWA regulatory framework, market interest in stock tokenization is heating up again.
In the context of a gradually clarifying regulatory environment, traditional financial institutions represented by BlackRock and cryptocurrency institutions are actively lobbying regulators to promote the restart of stock tokenization.
The report shows that cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase is seeking approval from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to offer 'tokenized stock' trading services; established exchange Kraken has taken the lead, announcing a partnership with Backed Finance to launch 'xStocks' services, covering over 50 U.S.-listed stocks and ETFs, including Apple, Tesla, and Nvidia.
The report analyzes that this service not only provides cryptocurrency investors with channels for allocating traditional financial assets but may also significantly enhance the circulation scale of stablecoins by expanding their usage scenarios.
The report expects that the vast scale of the U.S. stock market is sufficient to drive rapid expansion of stablecoin demand. As an on-chain 'fiat currency,' stablecoins are expected to play an infrastructural role in U.S. stock tokenization trading and become the next important application scenario for stablecoins.
AI Agents usher in a new era of intelligent payments.
The deep integration of stablecoins and AI Agents is also seen as another potential market. Especially in future AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) scenarios, AI Agents may replace humans in completing a large number of payment operations.
The report points out that the complex authorization processes of traditional financial accounts are not friendly to AI, often requiring multiple steps such as user authorization and financial institution review, while the lightweight account system based on blockchain is naturally suitable for AI Agent manipulation.
The introduction of blockchain smart contracts further strengthens the integration of AI decision-making and payments, allowing AI Agents not only to provide analytical recommendations but also to directly operate user accounts, achieving truly intelligent payments.
Moreover, blockchain accounts are essentially smart contracts, inherently possessing AI genes, which are reflected in features like flash loans and automated market maker (AMM) protocols.
The report mentions that in intent-centric applications, users only need to authorize with 'one click,' and AI can optimize the trading path through algorithms, achieving efficient exchange from token A to token B without manual intervention from users. This high degree of integration between AI and blockchain accounts provides a broad imagination space for stablecoin payment scenarios, especially in automated trading and intelligent payment fields.
However, the report also adds that AI Agent payments are still in the early stages, and the decentralized architecture of blockchain networks leads to evident efficiency bottlenecks.
For example, the Ethereum mainnet can only process a few dozen transactions per second, far below the efficiency of traditional payment systems (such as Alipay's peak of 256,000 transactions per second during Double 11). Technical scaling and network congestion issues urgently need to be resolved, or else it will be difficult to meet large-scale user demand.
Competition in payment scenarios is becoming increasingly fierce, and stablecoins have enormous potential.
The application potential of stablecoins in the international payment field is also significant, with their peer-to-peer and payment-as-settlement characteristics showing clear advantages over the high costs and low efficiency of traditional financial systems.
The report points out that in underdeveloped areas, stablecoins have even achieved 'leapfrog development,' allowing USD payments to be completed by registering a blockchain account via mobile phones, solving the problem of lack of bank service coverage. Additionally, payment giant Stripe acquired Bridge for $1.1 billion, launching stablecoin financial account services covering 101 countries, further connecting stablecoins with fiat payment systems.
The report also mentions that there are 'non-homogeneous' characteristics among different types of stablecoins, making market competition exceptionally intense.
Even for USDC under Coinbase, its trading volume is only one-eighth of that of USDT; the stablecoin PYUSD launched by payment giant Paypal has a scale of only about $950 million, far below market expectations.
The report adds that for stablecoins to be widely applied in the payment field, it is necessary to resolve the efficiency bottlenecks caused by the 'impossible triangle' limitations of blockchain. Traditional payment systems, such as Alipay, reached a peak of 256,000 transactions per second during the 2017 Double 11, while the Ethereum mainnet can only handle a few dozen transactions per second.
The main points of this article come from the research report published on June 24 by Gusheng Securities analysts Song Jiajie and Ren Heyi (The Next Stop for Stablecoins: International Payments, U.S. Stock Tokenization, and AI Agents).
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