THE BALANCE OF POWER

Summary from the TLDR Crypto newsletter

Stripe's Link Balance converts user deposits to USDC on its Tempo chain, holds them in Privy non-custodial wallets, and liquidates back to a Lead Bank virtual card at checkout, letting merchants receive a standard Visa payment while Stripe accumulates stablecoin float. The three-step roadmap moves from card-funded to bank-transfer-funded balances, then to Stripe's Machine Payments Protocol, which routes consumer-to-merchant flows on Tempo with no Visa involvement, no interchange, and instant settlement. With 350M Link users, $1.9T in annual merchant volume, and a free open stack of Tempo (rails), OUSD via Bridge (money), and MPP (protocol), Stripe is commoditizing each payments layer while concentrating network effects at the wallet. Autonomous agents route to whatever rails are cheapest. Stripe is now using this against Visa interchange, but future entrants could apply the same logic against Stripe's own network moat.