Pay the giant's chain game: 40 trillion-dollar battle for the clearing floor

the payment industry appears to be &ldquao; old &rdquao; but it has always been the earliest and most easily reformed technology in the financial system。

While the market is still arguing over “ whether the encrypted currency is an asset ” two major payment giants — — Visa and Mastercard have reached a consensus on a lower level of engineering: is there a more efficient settlement layer that can be embedded in the existing payment system, rather than being pushed back

The answer is stable currency。

Recently, Visa announced the opening of USDC settlements to banks via Solana on the mainland of the United States; previously, Mastercard joined up with Ripple to test RLUSD-based transactions on XRPL。

This is not a short-term pilot, but rather a clear signal of the beginning of migration to a new generation of settlements, more like a global payment infrastructure。

Visa: Stable currency & ldquo; settlement plugin ”

Visa seems to be on the front line, but its logic has always been very restrained。

It did not choose to build a closed block chain system, but to connect the Solana network directly with the USDC stabilization currency to its own settlement backstage as an available option in the current liquidation process。

Core data: In mainland America, Cross River Bank and others have started clearing through Solana using USDC. The annualized settlement rate disclosed by Visa was over $3.5 billion。

No sense of experience: For consumers, there's no change in the experience。

For banks, this change is intuitive: the T+1/T+2 liquidation rhythm, which was originally based on working days, was compressed to 7× and 24 hours of continuous settlement, with a significant reduction in the time spent on travel and liquidity。

Notably, Visa did not package this capability as “ financial paradigm transfer ” or “ subversive innovation ” It has repeatedly emphasized standardization, productization — — stable currency settlement as a deployable and replicable base capacity。

This explains why Visa recently introduced stabilization currency counselling services: its objective is not to push banks to &ldquao; to switch to encryption &rdquao; but to help them understand and access the next generation of settlement tools。

In this system, the stability currency is not an independent financial product, but more like a basic module embedded in payment networks。

Mastercard: build &ldquao; compliance interface layer &rdquao;

& ldquo; direct public chain & rdquo; unlike Visa, Mastercard chose a more complex & ldquo; joint horizontal & rdquo; road。

Multi-chain cooperation: It does not pledge a single path, but rather works with Ripple, Gemini and Middle East agencies。

compatibility puzzle: it is more inclined to construct a &ldquao; a defaultable compliance interface layer &rdquao。

Mastercard ' s self-positioning is very clear: it does not attempt to be an extension of a public chain, but rather places itself at the interface between the traditional financial system and the chain-based clearing network。

The core advantages of such a structure are flexibility & mdash; & mdash; and, regardless of future stable currencies and technological pathways that are mainstreamed, Mastercard has rapid access through connectivity and adaptability. This model applies in particular to complex and demanding scenarios such as cross-border payments, B2B settlements and RWA。

Settlement level contest, pointing to the redistribution of $40 trillion

The pipe path is different, but Visa is highly consistent with MasterCard in a critical judgement。

Their real concern was not to increase the size of a single stable currency, but whether future settlement activities would be closed off from existing payment networks and on a new technological level。

The intermediary value of traditional clearing networks will be reassessed once the flow of funds can be settled at the completion point-to-point of the chain. This is why the two major card organizations must intervene ahead of schedule and identify their positions。

The &ldquo referred to in the latest report of Visa; the stabilization currency or the reshaping of the $40 trillion global credit market ” not a simple narrative of scale, but rather a structural judgement: when the settlement tool is programmable, the underlying logic of credit issuance, risk control and fund movement will be adjusted accordingly。

Whoever masters the settlement level is closer to defining the rules for next generation flows。

It's a revolution outside the public eye。

It is not a user-oriented carnival, but a technology migration that occurs in back-office systems: quiet, gradual, but almost irreversible once completed。

As the world ' s largest payment network begins to see chain settlements as basic capacity, the block chains are no longer external variables of the financial system but are becoming part of its internal work。

Payments seem to be the same, but the settlement logic behind them is entering a new technological phase。