a lot of people argue that stablecoins will eventually replace the Visa and Mastercard duopoly because they’re faster, cheaper, and can settle globally almost instantly. but that argument misunderstands what card networks actually do. moving money is only one part of commerce. the reason Visa and Mastercard work so well for everyday payments is because they’ve built an entire system around protecting consumers and merchants when something goes wrong. if a package never arrives, a card gets stolen, a merchant is fraudulent, a customer wants a refund, or a transaction needs to be disputed, there are rules and infrastructure for all of it: > chargebacks > refunds and returns > fraud protection > dispute resolution > buyer protection > merchant protection stablecoins are incredible payment rails, especially for B2B payments and moving money globally. but for everyday commerce, they’re still missing most of this consumer protection infrastructure. once you send a stablecoin payment, the transaction is generally final. if stablecoins are ever going to truly compete with card networks, making settlement faster and cheaper isn’t enough. someone needs to build the protection and dispute layer on top that consumers and merchants already expect from cards. stablecoin settlement underneath, and a Visa like consumer protection layer on top.