A Citrini Research scenario published Sunday sent shockwaves through financial markets Monday, dragging down shares of Mastercard Incorporated (NYSE:MA), Visa Inc. (NYSE:V), American Express Company (NYSE:AXP), and others.
But a CEO building payment infrastructure for AI agents says the the piece got the direction right while misidentifying the primary casualties.
Citrini’s Scenario Rattled Markets
Citrini Research’s over 7,000-word Substack post, titled “The 2028 Global Intelligence Crisis” and explicitly framed as “a scenario, not a prediction,” modeled a speculative future where AI agents autonomously reroute transactions away from card networks toward stablecoin rails, wiping out interchange economics in the process.
By Monday’s open, the S&P 500 turned red and closed down more than 1%. Mastercard, Visa, American Express, and DoorDash Inc. (NYSE:DASH) …