COINBASE IS QUIETLY TAKING ON VISA AND MASTERCARD

Summary from the TLDR Crypto newsletter

The GENIUS Act legalized stablecoin issuance in the U.S., prompting Visa and Mastercard stocks to fall while Coinbase and Circle's increased. Coinbase's new Commerce Payments Protocol introduces core features of traditional card networks like authorization, capture, refunds, and merchant fees into stablecoin payments powered by smart contracts and programmable "Operators." By enabling onchain equivalents to issuers, acquirers, and reward systems, Coinbase has laid the groundwork for a permissionless, incentivized payments ecosystem, one that could scale faster than expected as firms like Shopify, Amazon, and Walmart explore stablecoin adoption.