← pool

🪙 Stablecoins become the standard US payment rail and crush the card take rate

Chamath's policy-first case for stablecoins: real-time dollar payments on stablecoin rails are already in production use (SpaceX collecting Starlink revenue across long-tail countries, growing corporate adoption), so the first pro-crypto win is making those the standard US rails, and the second is pointing them at the ~300bp Visa/Mastercard/Amex toll and compressing it toward zero. The listed expression is the US stablecoin distribution and settlement complex rather than the card incumbents.

0 CONVICTION
peaked 48.5 WATCH
DORMANT
band
▲ LONG COIN
expression · bullish crypto
WRONG
result · return -12.1% · vs SPY -28.5%
2025-12-20
born 2024-12-20 (E208) → window closed
⚠ CONFLICTING IDEAS ON THE SAME TICKER — the board is arguing with itself; net it out (ticker view →)
COIN · OpenAI's withheld cryptography results put public-key crypto wallets at risk SHORT EMBER 17.0 ← stronger than this idea (14.8)
cg:ethereum · OpenAI's withheld cryptography results put public-key crypto wallets at risk SHORT EMBER 17.0 ← stronger than this idea (14.8)

⚖ Why this result

fully deterministic — computed from daily closes on the scoring date; nothing below is editable or hand-set

  1. Window: 2024-12-20 → 2025-12-20 — first mention + 12-month horizon, then the window locks.
  2. The call: ▲ LONG COIN (primary play). COIN fell 12.1% over the window → return (sign flipped for a SHORT) = -12.1% (the call lost money).
  3. Benchmark: holding SPY over the same window returned +16.5% → vs SPY = -12.1 − (+16.5) = -28.5% — what this call made or lost against just owning the index. This is the number the result uses.
  4. Rule fired:
    · RIGHT — return ≥ +10% AND beat SPY by 5+
    · HALF — return ≥ +5% OR beat SPY at all
    ▶ WRONG — everything else
  5. Credit: supporters of a WRONG earn 0 each, opposers the opposite — this feeds the scoreboard. supported: Aaron Levie, Chamath, Jason

Conviction timeline

bands: green ≥ 65 · watch ≥ 45 · ember ≥ 15

Plays vs SPY · % since first mention (2024-12-20)

Plays

expressionsymbolkindrelevancerationale
▲ LONG COINstock PRIMARY Coinbase is the listed USDC economics partner and the main US-listed beneficiary of stablecoin rail adoption and reserve float
▲ LONG cg:ethereumcrypto adjacent dominant stablecoin issuance and settlement chain — payment volume migrating onto stablecoin rails accrues as network demand

Mention log newest first

Bo Hines
Bo Hines (guest ×0.5) no crypto track record · E236 (2025-07-19) · explicit_prediction · strength 2 ▶ 40:35 SUPPORT
“But Genius is unique because it really updates the payment rails inside of our current financial system. I mean, the payment rails have been archaic, and I've likened it to the fact of the ways in which we've communicated have changed quite dramatically over the course of the last several decades. The ways in which we move money really haven't, and we have the technology there in blockchain technology. So what we're doing here is we're fixing the plumbing of our financial system”
Jason
Jason crypto 35% · n=13 · E217 (2025-03-01) · explicit_prediction · strength 2 ▶ 27:15 SUPPORT · horizon 60mo
“I do think Stripe's main business could be, if we're sitting here in five years, Chamath, could be sitting on $300 billion and getting whatever it is, three, four, five percent on some coupon, right? They could be making $10, $20 billion in pure profit if they have a stable coin out there that gets widely adopted.”
John Collison
John Collison (guest ×0.5) no crypto track record · E216 (2025-02-21) · explicit_prediction · strength 2 ▶ 19:23 OPPOSE
“I think stablecoins are going to be a big part of the solution. I actually don't think that's going to supplant all the consumer-facing networks. I think we're going to see consumer-facing networks built upon and substantially leverage these things.”
Patrick Collison
Patrick Collison (guest ×0.5) no crypto track record · E216 (2025-02-21) · explicit_prediction · strength 2 ▶ 8:05 OPPOSE
“Card programs are not actually big profit pools for most of the major banks... And maybe other points in that space are viable, but it is a set of trade-offs, and it's not as simple as this enormous rent extraction happening.”
Chamath
Chamath crypto 53% · n=20 · E216 (2025-02-21) · sentiment · strength 1 ▶ 7:49 SUPPORT
“Is there a moment guys where is it a regulatory event where you'll say the Visa Mastercard duopoly can get challenged?”
Aaron Levie
Aaron Levie (regular guest ×1.0) crypto: 1 resolved, unproven · E208 (2024-12-20) · sentiment · strength 2 ▶ 14:13 SUPPORT
“So the stable coin being the intermediary for that in the future makes total sense if you could get everybody to kind of coordinate against that.”
Chamath
Chamath crypto 53% · n=20 · E208 (2024-12-20) · explicit_prediction · strength 3 ▶ 13:14 SUPPORT
“So the idea that you can take that 300 basis points you pay to these companies and crush it to zero would be a boon to global GDP, because that's 3% on many tens of trillions of dollars.”

Who built this conviction

each voice's total push on the score, in conviction points across every mention — supports and opposes · share = % of all mention-driven movement

Chamath
Chamath 53%
2 scoring events · 54% of moves
+49.6 → net +49.6
Jason
Jason 35%
1 scoring event · 17% of moves
+15.3 → net +15.3
Bo Hines
Bo Hines guest ×0.5
1 scoring event · 9% of moves
+8.6 → net +8.6
Aaron Levie
Aaron Levie regular guest ×1.0
1 scoring event · 7% of moves
+6.5 → net +6.5
Patrick Collison
Patrick Collison guest ×0.5
1 scoring event · 7% of moves
+0.0 / -6.0 → net -6.0
John Collison
John Collison guest ×0.5
1 scoring event · 7% of moves
+0.0 / -6.0 → net -6.0

⏳ decay drained -53.2 over the idea's life — that's time passing, attributed to no one

Score events

episodekindΔafternote
E208 2024-12-20 init +42.0 42.0 E208 born by Chamath (explicit_prediction x3)
E208 2024-12-20 reinforce +6.5 48.5 E208 Aaron Levie support x2 (new voice) [w=0.50]
E209 2025-01-04 decay -1.9 46.6 E209 silent
E210 2025-01-11 decay -1.9 44.7 E210 silent
E211 2025-01-18 decay -1.8 42.9 E211 silent
E212 2025-01-25 decay -1.7 41.2 E212 silent
E213 2025-01-31 decay -1.6 39.6 E213 silent
E214 2025-02-07 decay -1.6 38.0 E214 silent
E215 2025-02-15 decay -1.5 36.5 E215 silent
E216 2025-02-21 reinforce +7.6 44.1 E216 Chamath support x1
E216 2025-02-21 oppose -6.0 38.1 E216 Patrick Collison opposes x2 [w=0.50]
E216 2025-02-21 oppose -6.0 32.1 E216 John Collison opposes x2 [w=0.50]
E217 2025-03-01 reinforce +15.3 47.4 E217 Jason support x2 (new voice)
E218 2025-03-08 decay -1.9 45.5 E218 silent
E219 2025-03-15 decay -1.8 43.7 E219 silent
E220 2025-03-22 decay -1.7 41.9 E220 silent
E221 2025-03-29 decay -1.7 40.2 E221 silent
E222 2025-04-05 decay -1.6 38.6 E222 silent
E223 2025-04-11 decay -1.5 37.1 E223 silent
E224 2025-04-19 decay -1.5 35.6 E224 silent
E225 2025-04-26 decay -1.4 34.2 E225 silent
E226 2025-05-02 decay -1.4 32.8 E226 silent
E227 2025-05-09 decay -1.3 31.5 E227 silent
E228 2025-05-17 decay -1.3 30.2 E228 silent
E229 2025-05-24 decay -1.2 29.0 E229 silent
E231 2025-06-13 decay -1.2 27.9 E231 silent
E232 2025-06-21 decay -1.1 26.7 E232 silent
E233 2025-06-28 decay -1.1 25.7 E233 silent
E234 2025-07-04 decay -1.0 24.7 E234 silent
E235 2025-07-11 decay -1.0 23.7 E235 silent
E236 2025-07-19 reinforce +8.6 32.3 E236 Bo Hines support x2 (new voice) [w=0.50]
E237 2025-08-01 decay -1.3 31.0 E237 silent
E238 2025-08-09 decay -1.2 29.7 E238 silent
E239 2025-08-15 decay -1.2 28.5 E239 silent
E240 2025-08-22 decay -1.1 27.4 E240 silent
E241 2025-08-29 decay -1.1 26.3 E241 silent
E242 2025-09-07 decay -1.1 25.2 E242 silent
E243 2025-09-19 decay -1.0 24.2 E243 silent
E244 2025-09-27 decay -1.0 23.3 E244 silent
E245 2025-10-03 decay -0.9 22.3 E245 silent
E246 2025-10-10 decay -0.9 21.4 E246 silent
E247 2025-10-17 decay -0.9 20.6 E247 silent
E248 2025-10-24 decay -0.8 19.8 E248 silent
E249 2025-10-31 decay -0.8 19.0 E249 silent
E250 2025-11-07 decay -0.8 18.2 E250 silent
E251 2025-11-14 decay -0.7 17.5 E251 silent
E252 2025-11-22 decay -0.7 16.8 E252 silent
E253 2025-12-06 decay -0.7 16.1 E253 silent
E254 2025-12-13 decay -0.6 15.5 E254 silent
E255 2025-12-19 decay -0.6 14.8 E255 silent