a16z crypto show Bridge CEO Zach Abrams: Stablecoins Are The Next Platform for Money
36 snips
Feb 2, 2026 
Zach Abrams, founder and CEO of Bridge (now part of Stripe) and payments entrepreneur focused on stablecoin infrastructure. He lays out stablecoins as the next payments platform. Short takes on AI-to-AI commerce and agentic payments. Discussion of needed APIs, treasury tools, and why open, decentralized rails matter. Quick thoughts on lower fees, fraud prevention, and new use cases like microtransactions.
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Stablecoins As A New Money Platform
- Stablecoins are a new form factor for money that enable cheap cross-border transfers, programmability, yield, and micro-payments.
- Zach Abrams compares stablecoins to credit cards as a platform that will spawn many new financial applications.
Credit Card History Mirrors Crypto's Early Days
- Early credit cards faced moral panic, fraud, and adverse selection before becoming ubiquitous.
- Zach Abrams uses that history to illustrate how crypto and stablecoins are in a similar early, turbulent phase.
Infrastructure Evolves With Early Customers
- Stablecoin infrastructure is nascent and evolving rapidly as different customers surface new requirements.
- Bridge's product evolved from manual cross-border payments to high-volume government and bank use cases, demanding new systems and regulatory tooling.
