Stablecoins have made a big splash in payments. The tokens leverage the same blockchain technology as cryptocurrencies, but without the inherent volatility. Stablecoins are often pegged to fiat currencies like the U.S. dollar, meaning they try to track the currency’s price at all times.
While increasingly viewed as an innovative payment method, stablecoins just got a ringing endorsement from one of the best investors of all time. Billionaire Stanley Druckenmiller recently said he thinks the global payments system will largely run on stablecoins within the next 10 to 15 years.
Does this pose a major threat to the two global payment giants, Visa (NYSE: V) and Mastercard (NYSE: MA)? Are these stocks in trouble?
Why stablecoins pose disruption
As mentioned, stablecoins are digital assets that run on blockchain networks, but without the volatility that most tokens pose. The core use case for all digital assets is that they can move money between any two parties with internet access, bypassing the need for a bank account and the other traditional payment rails that currently power most global payments.
If you don’t need the traditional rails, then you may not need all of the middlemen that currently power traditional payment transactions, each of which takes a cut of the small fee charged for each transaction. The blockchain also powers payments to be transmitted and settled instantly, at all hours of the day and on any day of the year, which makes it easy to see why people are bullish on stablecoins.
Not only is Druckenmiller one of the best at spotting future trends, but he’s not historically been a huge bull on crypto. Still, he views stablecoins becoming dominant because they are “efficient, quicker, and cheaper” and “incredibly useful in terms of productivity.” Stablecoins are also flexible because they can be converted into other cryptocurrencies or fiat currencies.
The largest stablecoins are currently Tether and USDC, with market caps of roughly $184 billion and nearly $78 billion, respectively. Both track the U.S. dollar.
Stablecoin usage also continues to surge. In 2025, global stablecoin transaction value totaled $33 trillion, according to Bloomberg, a 72% increase from 2024. Bloomberg Intelligence also predicts that stablecoin payment flows will hit $56 trillion by 2030.
Are Visa and Mastercard in trouble?
Visa and Mastercard run the two largest payment networks in the world. For the 12 months ending Sept. 30, Visa saw $16.7 trillion in total volume flow through its network. Both networks have long had impenetrable moats, enabling many investors to view these companies as set-it-and-forget-it stocks. Many challengers have tried and failed to disrupt Visa and Mastercard.
Visa and Mastercard have long been aware of cryptocurrencies and have begun to embed them into their businesses. In presentations last July, Mastercard executives downplayed the threat of stablecoins and said they view them as an opportunity. At the time, Mastercard chief product officer Jorn Lambert said that about 90% of stablecoin volume was still used to trade other cryptocurrencies, so the technology is not yet being used for traditional payments.
Still, Mastercard has offered stablecoins for certain uses and partnered with companies seeking to use them. Three use cases Mastercard foresees for stablecoins are issuing cards for buying and selling stablecoins, helping financial institutions offer stablecoins, and providing digital wallets for business-to-business and cross-border transactions.
Last year, Visa CEO Ryan McInerney said that the company would offer access to stablecoins and help them scale if it sees demand for the technology.
While executives at the payment giants have brushed off the risk of stablecoins, they are certainly real to an extent. If you are in any business, why would you want to pay a fee on each merchant transaction if you didn’t have to, or if it could cost less? It is possible that the percentage of Visa and Mastercard transactions erodes over time or that the networks lose volume.
Still, Visa appears to be focused on interoperability across various crypto networks and traditional payment rails, while also adding value-added services, such as payment technologies and fraud capabilities. After all, if payments can be made instantly, catching fraud before it happens becomes critical.
Ultimately, stablecoins could force Visa and Mastercard to seek new sources of revenue or change their business models, but I don’t believe they will make the payment giants irrelevant, and I haven’t seen enough evidence to suggest they will significantly hurt their market positions.
