On June 13, the entire U.S. stock market for payments, including Visa and MasterCard, which have the deepest business model barriers, saw a significant drop in stock prices. Why could the “stablecoin expectations” instantly penetrate the payments sector?

On June 11, the U.S. Senate passed the procedural vote on the “GENIUS Act” by a wide margin of 68-30, which for the first time makes a national stablecoin license “almost a certainty,” significantly reducing regulatory uncertainty and lowering the threshold for issuing coins.

On June 12, Shopify and Coinbase announced the pilot of USDC settlement on the Base chain, with the first batch of merchants going live on the same day, indicating that small and medium-sized merchants can also bypass card organizations and directly receive payments in on-chain US dollars.

On June 13, The Wall Street Journal reported that Walmart and Amazon are evaluating the issuance of their own stablecoin; several media outlets followed up on the same day.

For Visa and MasterCard, the giants turning against them means that the “rate moat” is facing its first direct threat, which has triggered panic selling among institutions, causing significant stock price fluctuations during the trading session.

From the perspective of the entire payment industry chain, the decline is not a “market beta,” but rather a “business model delta.”

• Visa, transaction assessment fee + interchange sharing ≈ total revenue 55 %;
• Mastercard, the business structure is similar to V, with higher leverage;
• PayPal (leading the decline in the S&P payment sector), Branded Checkout rate 2.9%+, facing the greatest threat from alternatives;
• Shopify, Merchant Solutions (including Shopify Payments) ≈ gross profit 2/3;

Compared to the S&P 500’s daily decline of -1.1%, the payment stocks fell by 2 to 6 times the index.

So, which yield curve did the “stablecoin shockwave” actually hit?

Why is it said that this is the first time it truly threatens the 200 bp rate moat?

On Friday, as soon as the news of Amazon and Walmart launching stablecoins came out, the entire payment sector plummeted. The scale and bargaining power are significant enough, with Amazon, Walmart, and Shopify collectively accounting for over 40% of the online GMV in the United States. If they collectively guide users to switch to their “own coins,” they could bypass the cold start problem all at once. Unlike the “crypto payment” of the past, this time the on-chain cost-performance curve can already compete with card networks (Base chain TPS 1,200+, single transaction

① The core still lies in the rate difference: 2.5% (traditional card payment model) → 0.2% (stablecoin payment model)

The average total cost for US merchants is approximately 2.1-2.7% (card processing fee + assessment fee). For on-chain stablecoins settled in USDC/L2, the combined Gas + On/Off-Ramp costs can be reduced to

② The return on capital occupation is inverted

Stablecoin issuers must hold T-Bills at a 1:1 ratio, and the coupon income can be fully or partially transferred to merchants/users. However, the traditional card clearing’s daily “T+1/2” settlement does not involve interest sharing → The income structure is hit twice (rate compression + loss of liquidity income).

③ The lateral shift of barriers and the global acceptance network and risk rules of card organizations is a “multilateral network effect” that has been accumulated over decades. However, on-chain contracts + international clearing and settlement replace the “physical terminal network” with the “public chain consensus layer” and “offshore dollar reserves,” allowing for rapid migration of network externalities. The inclusion of Walmart/Amazon resolves the “cold start” issue all at once.

Sensitivity analysis at the company level?

Visa / Mastercard, each 1 bp rate change ≈ EPS 3-4 %;

For PayPal, its transaction profit margin is already under pressure; if stablecoins accelerate the replacement of Braintree (low-cost gateway), the gross profit of Branded Checkout will be diluted.

The take-rate of Shopify’s Merchant Solutions (2.42%) includes card fees; if shifting to on-chain, the Shop Pay fee needs to be repriced;

In terms of short-term hedging, both Visa and Mastercard are testing their own Tokenized Deposit & Visa-USDC settlement, but the scale is still

PayPal has issued PYUSD, which can leverage the position of the “issuer” for profit, but at the cost of sacrificing high-margin businesses.

For Shopify, the company has transformed into a “multichannel payment platform,” which allows it to transfer rates while retaining volume, but the burden of GMV has increased.

long-term moat level

Visa, after all, still faces hard thresholds in fraud risk control, brand trust, and acceptance interfaces covering over 200 countries. The moat remains the deepest within the payment stack.

PayPal’s 430 million active accounts and the BNPL/wallet ecosystem still have a locking effect, but the company also needs to undergo a profound transformation.

Shopify’s SaaS binding + OMS/logistics ecosystem, payment is just an entry point, and profits can be migrated to SaaS ARPU by maintaining the front end.

Scenario simulation: What does a 10% traffic outflow mean?

Assumption: In 2026, U.S. online retail is $1.2 T, stablecoin penetration is 10%, and the fee difference is 200 bp.

Visa + Mastercard: Potential annual revenue decrease ≈ $1.2 T × 10 % × 200 bp × 55 % share ≈ $1.3 B → EPS impact ≈ –6 %.

PayPal: If 15% of Branded TPV is withdrawn, operating profits may decline by 8-10%.

Shopify: Assuming only a 20% GMV migration and a 40 bp decrease in take-rate torque, the gross margin compression is approximately 150 bp.

But the more important low fees of stablecoins have a significant impact on the overall payment system’s fee rates. Even if it replaces 10%, the rate pressure on the total fee cake basket that this payment stack can share has clearly increased.

Here we will analyze the merchant payment stack in the United States.

The average total fee for most merchants in the US and Canada falls between 2.0% and 3.2%; the example in the text is 2.34% (1.80% + 0.14% + 0.40%). Let’s break down the jump from “2.5% → 0.2%” and analyze it step by step—specifically, which fee components were slashed to a fraction by on-chain stablecoins.

1. Traditional card payment path: 2%–3% “three-level distribution”

Interchange = The “cake” of the issuing bank (covering credit, points, fraud risk).

Assessment / Network & Processing fee = The “cake” of Visa and Mastercard, with a rate of approximately 0.13%–0.15% (domestic benchmark), plus a processing fee of a few cents per transaction.

Card organizations “set but do not differentiate” interchange fees, charging acquirers only through independent network fee items, which are then passed on to merchants. This constitutes the core revenue in the annual reports of Visa / Mastercard.

2. Stablecoin Path: Reduce “each level of fee” to one decimal place.

Scenario assumption: A Shopify merchant receives a $100 order, and the customer pays with USDC (Base chain). The merchant is willing to hold onto the USDC and not immediately exchange it back to their bank account.

If merchants insist on exchanging back to fiat, they can use Coinbase Commerce’s “1% off-ramp”—overall cost ~1.07%, which is still significantly lower than 2%+. However, long-tail merchants often retain USDC to pay suppliers and advertising costs, directly skipping this “withdrawal” step.

Why can it be as cheap as #### First, Interchange was completely cut off, with no issuing banks and no credit risk → the largest portion of 1.5 % + is directly reduced to zero.

Secondly, the costs of the Network are extremely compressed, with the consensus fees (Gas) of the public chain priced at a few cents; it can be almost ignored on a face value of $100–$1,000.

Then, the commercialization of the acquiring/gateway stage, Coinbase, Circle, and Stripe are competing with “zero to a few tenths of a fee” to grab volume, and merchants’ bargaining power has greatly increased, putting the most pressure on aggregated payment platforms.

There is also a reverse subsidy: Shopify announced a 1% USDC cashback for consumers, essentially offsetting the residual fee with “interest + marketing budget,” and then locking the traffic back into its own ecosystem.

3. A comparison bill ($100 transaction)

In the Shopify pilot, the acquisition fee is subsidized by the platform to 0; if using the Coinbase Commerce channel, it changes to $1.00.

4. What other “invisible income” has also been siphoned off?

So, 2.5% → 0.2% is not a slogan, but rather transforming the entire three-tier commission of Interchange, Network, and Acquirer into “Gas + DEX + ultra-thin gateway,” reducing the magnitude by two decimal places directly.

Shopify/Amazon and other “giants have turned against the tide,” allowing zero-fee/negative-fee plans to achieve considerable GMV for the first time, leading to a repricing of the payment giants’ rate moats.

The current impact on Visa and Mastercard is limited. Based on the latest complete fiscal year (FY 2024, ending September 2024) public financial report data from Visa, the “platform Take Rate”—i.e., net operating income ÷ payment amount:

Visa net operating income $35.9 B, payment amount $13.2 T, 35.9 ÷ 13,200 ≈ 0.00272

≈ 0.27% (≈ 27 bp), if using “payment + cash withdrawal total amount”, the total amount during the same period is $16 T.

35.9 ÷ 16 000 ≈ 0.00224≈ 0.22 %（≈ 22 bp）

The payment volume is a benchmark commonly used by Visa for pricing, excluding ATM cash withdrawals; therefore, 0.27% is the more commonly referenced take rate in the industry. If ATM/cash withdrawals are included, the denominator increases, diluting it to about 0.22%. This take rate includes all of Visa’s operating revenue (service fees, data processing fees, cross-border fees, etc.), but does not include the interchange received by issuing banks— the latter is not income for Visa.

Further breakdown of FY 2024 revenue: Service fees $16.1 B → Corresponding to Payments Volume approximately 12 bp, data processing fees $17.7 B, cross-border fees $12.7 B, etc. are mainly priced based on transaction count/cross-border weight and cannot be directly converted simply based on payment volume.

Therefore, according to Visa’s FY 2024 annual report criteria, the most commonly used “net revenue Take Rate” is approximately 0.27% (27 bp); if cash withdrawal amounts are included, it is about 0.22%. This is not much different from domestic payment channel fees, where WeChat Pay and Alipay are at a normal rate of 0.6%. Service providers can reduce it to 0.38%/0.2% (promotions, small and micro), so the core in the U.S. is still that the Interchange fee rates are much higher than those in the domestic market.

The two lines to watch next:

The penetration speed of merchants after the bill is passed - a penetration of 10% GMV is enough to erode Visa/MA EPS by 5%+

Can the card network “pipeline” the on-chain settlement again - if it can recover the clearing fee of 0.1% - 0.2%, the stock price or current average may revert.

Once the rate moat is thinned, the denominator of the valuation model changes - this is precisely the fundamental reason why payment stocks were heavily sold off by institutions last week.

What “high-frequency signals” should we focus on next?

• Senate final vote on June 17 & House schedule in July (legislative implementation rhythm).
• Amazon / Walmart white paper or patent application (distinguishing genuine coins vs negotiation chips).
• Shopify-USDC TPV KPI: If the monthly turnover exceeds $1 B, the feasibility on the merchant side will be validated.
• Visa/MA stablecoin clearing network actual test rates: Can “on-chain settlement” be incorporated into their own pipeline.
• Circle, Tether, and other reserve scales: If the T-Bill holdings increase by more than 25% in half a year, it indicates that capital outflow has indeed occurred.

Therefore, the collective adjustment of payments is not “speculation” on news, but rather the premise of the valuation model has been rewritten. Concerns have already arisen, and the entire chain and rates of traditional payments in the United States will face impacts. Moving forward, we need to observe the overall development trend of stablecoins, with limited short-term impacts.

Stablecoin legislation + retail terminal implementation brings the “threat of ten years later” into a valuation window of 24-36 months, and the market preemptively reassesses the “net fee rate curve” with stock prices.

Payment giants are not sitting idly by: Network-as-a-Service, custodial settlement layers, and Tokenized Deposit may build barriers again, but they require time and capital.

In the short term, the decline reflects the “most pessimistic rate compression - EPS sensitivity” scenario. If legislative provisions are ultimately tightened, or if organizations successfully “pipeline” on-chain payments, there is room for beta-mean-reversion in the stock price.

In the medium to long term, investors need to use the second derivative (changes in gross profit structure) rather than the first derivative (revenue growth) to assess whether the moat of payment companies is genuinely narrowing.

Stablecoin = “zero fee + interest return” parallel clearing network. When the strongest buyers (Walmart/Amazon) and the most inclusive sellers (Shopify merchants) embrace it at the same time, the myth of a traditional one-size-fits-all 200bp fee rate becomes difficult to maintain—the stock price has already given a warning ahead of income.

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