Bill Gurley: Stablecoins threaten Visa, Mastercard model

Bill Gurley has a warning for Visa (V) and Mastercard: stablecoins are not a fringe experiment. The benchmark venture capitalist, speaking on a podcast this week, argued that the stablecoin model could gut the payments duopoly's economics by cutting fee structures to near zero.

Gurley, a longtime observer of payments and marketplaces, said the threat is structural, not incremental. Stablecoins like USDC and USDT allow instant, near-costless transfers without card networks, interchange fees, or settlement delays. He contrasted that with Visa and Mastercard's current model, where every transaction carries a fee that gets split among banks, processors, and the network itself.