Tokenless

Stablecoins

The Frontier Ideas a16z Wants to Fund Now | Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz & Chris Dixon

The Frontier Ideas a16z Wants to Fund Now | Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz & Chris Dixon

Chris Dixon, Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz, and Erik Torenberg discuss the expansion of a16z crypto into a16z Frontier, a mandate for founders building at the edges of technology. They explore why AI could pull decades of progress forward across hardware, robotics, entertainment, and science, the coming internet of AI agents, why open source matters for a decentralized AI future, and what the breakdown of the internet's traffic economy means for creators and businesses.

Why AI Agents Will Need Their Own Bank Accounts — Lincoln Murr, Coinbase

Why AI Agents Will Need Their Own Bank Accounts — Lincoln Murr, Coinbase

Lincoln Murr, head of AI product at Coinbase, explains agentic finance, covering agents that pay and agents that grow money. He traces the path from AgentKit, an early experiment giving an AI a wallet, to x402, an open payment standard built on the long-unused HTTP 402 code. He also discusses microtransactions as a replacement for the ad economy, agents executing trades from simple instructions, the trust-building lessons from two years of development, and the vision of agents that can pay for their own upkeep.

Inside Stripe's AI Strategy with Will Gaybrick

Inside Stripe's AI Strategy with Will Gaybrick

Stripe's President of Product & Business, Will Gaybrick, discusses how AI is transforming Stripe from a payments company into a multi-product financial infrastructure platform. He highlights AI's role in boosting product development velocity through internal tools like "Stripe Minions," which generate thousands of pull requests weekly, enabling a "build everything" philosophy rather than cost-cutting. The conversation also explores the future of "agentic commerce," the potential return of micropayments enabled by stablecoins, and how Stripe empowers internal "founder-like agency" while maintaining high product quality in an increasingly AI-driven software landscape.

How AI Agents Will Transform the Financial System with Circle Co-Founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire

How AI Agents Will Transform the Financial System with Circle Co-Founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire

Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire delves into how programmable money and the Arc blockchain will power the emerging AI agentic economy. He explains how stablecoins like USDC offer an internet-native financial infrastructure for micro-transactions and large settlements, addressing the limitations of traditional banking for AI agents. The discussion covers the foundational principles of full-reserve banking, the unique attributes of Arc blockchain for machine-driven economic activity, the tokenization of real-world assets, and a bold vision for AI's potential to drive double-digit GDP growth and foster new on-chain organizational structures within the next decade.

The History of The Fintech Industry, Explained

The History of The Fintech Industry, Explained

a16z's David Haber and Plaid CEO Zach Perret chart the dramatic seasons of fintech, from the explosive VC-fueled boom of 2020-2021 to the deep freeze of 2022 and its current resurgence. They explore the transformative forces reshaping the industry today, including AI's dual role as both a primary tool for sophisticated fraud and the ultimate defense against it. The conversation also covers the rise of embedded finance, the renewed importance of deposits, and how incumbents are finally embracing external software, with Plaid's own journey serving as a microcosm of the industry's evolution.

Now Is The Best Time To Build In Crypto

Now Is The Best Time To Build In Crypto

A summary of the conversation between YC's Harj Taggar and Base's Jesse Pollak about the 'golden age of crypto,' covering the evolution to Fintech 3.0, the technological and regulatory shifts enabling it, and the key opportunities for founders in stablecoins, tokenization, and the intersection of AI and crypto.