The Digital Payment Race That Will Reshape the World

This episode dives into the critical race to establish the dominant currency for the emerging AI-driven internet, exploring how scalable stablecoin infrastructure could reshape digital economies and navigate a brewing global currency conflict.

The Looming Currency Conflict and Its Genesis

• The discussion opens by referencing a pivotal late August 2019 speech by Mark Carney, then head of the Bank of England, at the Jackson Hole economic symposium. The speaker from Radius highlights Carney's unscripted warning about an impending "currency conflict," the potential end of the US dollar's dominance, and the historical precedent of world wars accompanying major currency shifts.
• Carney's speech, delivered without prior notice, shocked attendees by urging central banks to proactively address this to prevent widespread conflict. "Usually when currencies change, we have a world war," Carney reportedly stated, emphasizing the need for collaborative solutions.
• This stark warning, along with another speech around the same time, became a foundational element for Radius's strategic thinking and development focus.
• Strategic Implication: Investors and researchers should closely monitor pronouncements from central bank officials and geopolitical analyses on currency stability, as these can signal foundational shifts in the global financial landscape impacting crypto and AI.

Radius's Vision: Scalable, Near-Free Value Transfer

• Radius has concentrated on developing a linearly scalable smart contract execution network, a blockchain system where transaction processing capacity increases directly with added compute power, designed to be almost free. This infrastructure is crucial for their broader vision.
• The speaker notes their testnet achieves "multiple millions of transactions per second" and operates at approximately "10 million transactions per dollar," making it virtually free for users.
• This scalability is not just a technical achievement but a means to an end: fundamentally altering the internet's incentive model.
• Actionable Insight: The development of near-free, high-throughput transaction networks is a critical area. Crypto AI researchers should assess how such infrastructure could unlock new dApp categories and economic models previously unviable due to cost or speed limitations.

Reimagining Internet Incentives Beyond the Attention Economy

• The core use case for Radius's scalable network is to enable a shift away from the current "attention economy," which relies on clicks, eyeballs, and user engagement metrics for monetization. The speaker questions how the internet will incentivize itself if user interaction moves beyond these traditional metrics, especially with increased reliance on AI tools.
• Stablecoins, cryptocurrencies pegged to stable assets like fiat currency, are proposed as the mechanism to break free from this "hamster wheel."
• The speaker, a father of three, expresses a personal motivation: "Is there is there a way to incentivize the internet that doesn't involve eyeballs and clicks and swipes? That's really really exciting. And we think stable coins are a mechanism for that."
• The goal is to allow "humans to do human things again," reducing screen dependency fostered by platforms designed to maximize engagement.
• Strategic Implication: Crypto AI projects that pioneer alternative monetization strategies for digital content, services, and interactions—moving beyond advertising—are poised for significant growth as user fatigue with the attention economy increases.

The Rise of Agentic Systems and Native Digital Currencies

• The conversation pivots to agentic systems, or AI agents—autonomous programs that can use compute, data, and inference to perform tasks. The speaker envisions these agents transacting with each other, buying and selling data, compute, or inference capabilities using a native digital currency.
• This new economy needs a default currency, and the currency that fulfills this role will likely become the "default language or the default model of this new version of the internet," effectively replacing systems like Google Ads (formerly AdWords), Google's dominant online advertising platform.
• The speaker expresses concern over reports of OpenAI developing ad models, viewing it as a "failure" that would perpetuate the attention economy. Radius is actively working to prevent this outcome.
• "We have to have agents doing this stuff with authorization, with permissioning, with identity so we can get away from our phones and get away from our screens."
• Actionable Insight: Investors should identify and support platforms that facilitate seamless, low-cost micro-transactions for AI agents. The infrastructure enabling AI agents to autonomously exchange value for services (compute, data, inference) will be foundational.

The Geopolitical Stakes: USD Stablecoins, China's ECNY, and Bitcoin

• The speaker outlines a high-stakes competition for which currency or system will underpin this new AI-driven internet economy. The primary contenders are USD-backed stablecoins, Bitcoin, and China's ECNY (Digital Yuan), its central bank digital currency (CBDC).
• While the Radius team are "big Bitcoiners" and appreciate its censorship-resistance, they acknowledge Bitcoin's scaling challenges, despite advancements like the Lightning Network. Their primary bet is on USD stablecoins.
• A significant concern is China's proactive and asymmetric approach to geoeconomics. The speaker notes, "If USD stable coins are not this mechanism, there's a non-zero chance that another actor comes into play. And the only actor with liquidity to do so is China."
• China's ECNY is already being integrated into the backend code of multiple central banks globally via the Embbridge project (mBridge), a cross-border CBDC initiative facilitated by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), an international financial institution for central banks. The speaker views mBridge as effectively ECNY code.
• The speaker, expressing a "shameless pro-American" stance, believes the US dollar and America are positive forces and advocates for USD stablecoins to fill the vacuum.
• Strategic Implication: Crypto AI investors must track the geopolitical adoption race of digital currencies. The success of projects like mBridge and the regulatory stance towards USD stablecoins versus CBDCs like the ECNY will have profound implications for market dominance and investment strategies.

The Urgency to Build an Alternative to Ad-Driven AI

• The episode strongly emphasizes the need to create an internet economy where AI agents transact for services using stablecoins, rather than falling back into an ad-based model. This requires a concerted effort to build the necessary infrastructure quickly.
• The speaker from Radius states their mission: "If we can linearly scale the networks that support stable coins and make them effectively free... you can start getting natural markets for data, compute, inference and that's super exciting."
• This vision is Radius's "sole focus," and they are committed to achieving it, even if it means taking significant risks.
• Actionable Insight: Researchers and developers in the Crypto AI space should prioritize creating systems with embedded, privacy-respecting economic models that empower users and agents, rather than simply adapting old advertising paradigms to new AI technologies.

This episode highlights a pivotal moment where scalable stablecoin infrastructure could redefine internet economics, moving beyond ad-driven models. Crypto AI stakeholders must urgently innovate and support solutions that establish a fair, agent-driven digital marketplace, navigating significant geopolitical currency competition to shape a more optimal future.