Card giant experiments with agentic payments, wallets, and on-chain rails

This cluster tracks how Mastercard is retooling its business as AI agents, stablecoins, and self-custody challenge traditional card economics. Posts cover AI models that could bypass interchange via stablecoins, critique of Visa/Mastercard/Google’s early agentic payments efforts, and Mastercard’s new US crypto card with MetaMask plus a broader wallet push. The acquisition of loyalty platform Session M and podcast commentary on these shifts highlight Mastercard’s strategy to stay relevant as payments move on-chain and become increasingly automated.