Got it, thanks! I love that, and I think this will be the key factor that determines who actually is going to win their customers in the long-run. A good example that comes to my mind here is Ramp and their recent AI efforts. I believe Block via Cash App is trying to do something similar too...
Fantastic synthesis of 2025's convegence theme. The stablecoin-as-rails insight is particularly sharp because it explains why so many companies rushed to build their own (PayPal, Klarna, etc) rather than just using USDC or USDT. When settlement infra becomes commodity, the value migrates to whoever controls the user experience on top of it. I saw this play out in the early days of cloud computing too, where AWS made infra cheap and suddenly every SaaS company could compete on product instead of infrastructure.
Really enjoyed the write up - thank you!
Thank you for reading! Much appreciated. And happy NY!
I agree with the convergence you describe.
But I believe 2026 and onward will be about quality — because quality is the only thing that truly scales into a positive bottom line.
And quality doesn’t emerge from integration alone.
It comes from responsibility, deep expertise, and doing something genuinely unique inside those unified systems.
Thanks Peter, I like this framing. What kind of quality are you specifically thinking about? AI model? FinTech services?
Great question.
When I talk about quality, I’m not thinking primarily about a better AI model or a single FinTech feature.
I mean things like:
- Unique data and insights, built through real work over time, that AI can help scale across a platform
- Human service and judgment layered on top of platforms, where trust and accountability matter
- Responsibility, someone clearly owning outcomes, not hiding behind systems or abstractions
In short: everything that is hard to copy and deeply human.
AI scales it, but it doesn’t create it.
Got it, thanks! I love that, and I think this will be the key factor that determines who actually is going to win their customers in the long-run. A good example that comes to my mind here is Ramp and their recent AI efforts. I believe Block via Cash App is trying to do something similar too...
Agreed — I think Ramp is a good example.
The real advantage isn’t the AI itself, but how it reinforces judgment, ownership, and trust in real decisions.
That’s hard to copy — and that’s what tends to win long-term. Many simple services will scale away.
Amen to that!
Amen
Fantastic synthesis of 2025's convegence theme. The stablecoin-as-rails insight is particularly sharp because it explains why so many companies rushed to build their own (PayPal, Klarna, etc) rather than just using USDC or USDT. When settlement infra becomes commodity, the value migrates to whoever controls the user experience on top of it. I saw this play out in the early days of cloud computing too, where AWS made infra cheap and suddenly every SaaS company could compete on product instead of infrastructure.
Thank you for reading! So stables will become even more mainstream in 2026, according to you?
This is good, thanks!
Thank you for reading - good to hear this. :)