The AWS of the Financial World: Why It Became the Biggest Winner in the Era of AI and Stablecoins

Author: Yokiiiya Stablehunter

The most important thing Stripe has done is turn money into a piece of callable code.

Years ago, when I was working on overseas products, my payment solution was Stripe. In Silicon Valley at the time, it was almost a “default option”—any company building tech products, SaaS, or developer tools ultimately processed payments through Stripe. It felt to me less like a payment tool and more like an API company that is extremely developer-friendly: clear documentation, low integration costs, and all complex financial processes abstracted into just a few lines of code.

You hardly need to understand the underlying banking system, global acquiring, or settlement processes to start accepting payments for a company. But I didn’t realize back then that behind this “default option” was a company rewriting the global money flow.

Looking back now, the significance of this is huge—Stripe has never just been about “better payment experiences,” but about turning financial systems into part of the internet.

Last year, as I delved into Web3 and started exploring stablecoin fund flows and global on/off ramps, I repeatedly saw Stripe’s name. But this time, it wasn’t in comparison with payment products; it was in the news of acquisitions in the crypto space. It acquired several companies across different segments—quietly but with a clear path.

That moment made me realize: Stripe may have never left the race for “next-generation financial infrastructure.” Since then, I’ve been wanting to write an article about Stripe.

In the entire tech industry, Stripe is a very special entity. A company valued at hundreds of billions, founded fifteen years ago, having gone through a full internet cycle, yet never gone public. If it was just for liquidity, it could have gone public long ago. But it hasn’t. That means one thing—it’s waiting for a bigger moment in time.

Stripe’s problem has never been “can it go public,” but “what form should it take when it does.” Is it a payment company? A financial services firm? Or the foundational financial infrastructure of the internet? Through understanding Stripe, I gradually realized: over the past 15 years, the main themes in the payments industry have been twofold—reducing fees and increasing conversion rates.

But while everyone else was optimizing “how to get paid,” Stripe was doing something else—turning money into a piece of code that can be called. That’s why, when AI begins creating companies, completing transactions, and earning revenue on its own, most payment companies face system incompatibility issues, while Stripe faces an exploding demand.

Many people see Stripe as just a payment company. Like early on, many thought AWS was just “selling servers.” But from a different perspective:

• AWS isn’t just cloud computing; it’s the computing infrastructure of the internet age.
• Stripe isn’t just payments; it’s building the operating system for financial operations on the internet.

In this wave of paradigm shift brought by AI and stablecoins, these “infrastructure companies” are showing true compound growth over time. When stablecoins become the new settlement layer, and AI becomes the new business entity, the financial system is undergoing a fundamental rewrite. The question is no longer “whose payments are cheaper,” but “who can be the default Money API for the new economy.”

From this perspective, all of Stripe’s seemingly restrained choices over the past 15 years—avoiding exchanges, consumer wallets, or chasing crypto bull narratives—point to one outcome: it is becoming the default financial backbone for the AI + stablecoin era. When AI becomes a new business entity, and stablecoins become the new settlement layer, all of Stripe’s paths over the last decade and a half are converging toward the same answer.

1. From Payments API to Financial OS: Stripe’s Three Transitions

If we continue to understand Stripe as just a “payment company,” we won’t grasp its seemingly “restrained” choices over the past 15 years. From day one, Stripe’s core problem wasn’t “how to get paid,” but “how to enable an internet company to move funds globally without understanding the financial system.” The difference between these two determines the different paths it has taken.

First Stage: Payments API — Native Internet Payments

Stripe initially appeared to just do one thing better: provide an online payment interface easier to integrate than traditional acquiring banks. But what it truly changed wasn’t the payment experience itself, but the way payments are integrated. Before Stripe, setting up acquiring meant:

• Opening a bank account
• Offline signing
• Long technical onboarding

Stripe turned all that into: a few lines of code, a few minutes, making payments an internet-native capability for the first time. That’s why it became the “default option” for Silicon Valley tech companies—it’s not just a better tool, but the standard component of financial infrastructure for developers.

Second Stage: Financial Infrastructure — API-based Financial Backend for Companies

If Stripe had stayed at Payments API, it would still be a very successful payment company today. But starting with Atlas, Connect, Issuing, and Treasury, it entered the second stage. It’s no longer just helping companies accept payments; it’s building: the financial backbone for companies. With Stripe, a company can: register an entity, open accounts, issue cards, manage funds, and handle global revenue sharing. In other words: companies no longer need to “own” a financial system—they can just call one. This step is fundamentally similar to what AWS did: AWS made servers disappear; Stripe makes financial backends disappear, turning financial capabilities into modular, composable units.

Third Stage: Programmable Economy — The Money Layer for AI and Stablecoins

As we enter this stage, Stripe’s trajectory reveals its ultimate goal. With AI becoming a business entity, and stablecoins emerging as a new settlement layer, a new economic form is taking shape:

• AI creating products
• AI receiving payments
• AI splitting revenue
• AI managing cash flows autonomously

All of this presupposes that the financial system must be programmable. And that’s exactly what Stripe has been doing for 15 years. That’s why, while most payment companies are still discussing “supporting crypto payments,” Stripe’s moves are:

• Acquiring wallet infrastructure
• Connecting on/off ramps
• Supporting stablecoin settlement

It’s never about “can we accept crypto,” but “who will be the default money operating system when money itself becomes an internet-native asset.” From Payments API, to Financial Infrastructure, to Programmable Economy, Stripe’s evolution isn’t just a product upgrade but a three-stage positioning leap.

Looking at it today, one thing becomes clear: Stripe’s competitors have never been traditional payment companies. At different stages, its real benchmarks are:

• First stage: traditional acquiring banks
• Second stage: banking systems
• Third stage: the operating system of internet economy

And it’s in this third stage that the arrival of AI and stablecoins begins to generate true time-compounded growth for Stripe’s entire 15-year path.

2. Valued at Hundreds of Billions but Still Not Public—What Is Stripe Waiting For?

Over the past decade-plus, Stripe has gone through nearly every timing window suitable for an IPO. It has stable revenue streams, massive transaction volume, high market share, and plenty of capital market attention. If going public was just for liquidity, it could have done so long ago. But it hasn’t. So the real question isn’t “why isn’t Stripe public yet?” but “what is it waiting for?”

For most companies, going public is a financing event, a milestone. But for infrastructure companies, it’s more like a “confirmation of form.” How you enter the capital markets shapes how the market perceives you. Had Stripe gone public five years ago, it would have been seen as a stable-growth payment company, valued based on transaction volume, fees, and profit margins. That would have been a very successful IPO, but also one that “locks” it into a certain model.

Because Stripe’s ultimate goal has never been payments. Its true benchmark isn’t PayPal or Adyen, but AWS. Infrastructure valuation isn’t based on current business structure but on one core question: how much future economic activity will run on this system?

That’s why Stripe has spent the past few years doing many “seemingly non-revenue-boosting” things: Atlas, Connect, Issuing, Treasury. These aren’t the most glamorous parts of a payment company’s financials, but they accomplish something more important: transforming Stripe from a payment company into the underlying layer of economic activity.

Longer-term, it’s clear Stripe has been doing one consistent thing: waiting for a moment—when the internet’s business form undergoes a structural change, and the financial system must be rewritten. In Web2, that moment never fully arrived. Companies still organize funds manually, banking and settlement are still T+N, and Stripe’s role has been to prepare all interfaces in advance.

The emergence of AI and stablecoins makes this moment finally real. When AI becomes a business entity, it needs to automatically receive payments, split revenue, and manage cash flows. When stablecoins become the new settlement layer, funds become native online assets, settlement becomes real-time, and global money flows can be called via APIs. These two developments together mean:

The financial system must operate like the internet. From this perspective, Stripe’s long-term decision not to go public isn’t conservative; it’s an extremely radical choice. It’s betting on one thing: before the new economic structure fully emerges, to pre-build the operating system. When that structure appears, it will no longer be just a “stable-growth payment company,” but the default financial infrastructure of the new economy. It’s not a transformation; it’s waiting for its moment.

3. Stripe’s Crypto Strategy: Building the Global Settlement Layer

While many payment companies are still debating “whether to support crypto payments,” Stripe’s moves in crypto are really about fighting for one thing: the ultimate settlement authority over global funds. It’s not building an exchange, issuing assets, or trying to be a traffic gateway. It’s choosing a more Stripe-like path: integrating stablecoins into its own settlement network. Looking at its acquisitions in crypto over the past few years as a whole, it’s clear this isn’t just business expansion but a component complementing a settlement layer.

Bridge: The Stablecoin Settlement Network. Stripe’s most critical crypto move was acquiring Bridge for about $1.1 billion, its largest acquisition ever. Bridge doesn’t provide trading capabilities but offers:

• Stablecoin issuance and orchestration
• Cross-border fund routing
• Reserve and custody management

In other words, it controls how stablecoins flow globally and ultimately settle. If we compare this to traditional finance, it’s closer to a combination of a settlement network + SWIFT. This means that as merchants continue to accept payments via Stripe, the underlying funds can be settled globally in real-time using stablecoins—without changing the front-end experience. Merchants still see USD credited, but the way funds move behind the scenes has been rewritten.

Privy: On-chain Account System. Settlement layers need not only a fund network but also an account system. Stripe’s acquisition of Privy addresses this: enabling users to have on-chain accounts without understanding Web3. Login via email to generate wallets, in-app custody, seamless key management. This means that in the future, a user or even an AI creating an account within an app will have a fund account capable of directly participating in stablecoin settlement. It’s exactly what Stripe did in Web2—abstracting away complex financial account systems.

Fiat On-Ramp: Connecting to the Real World. Stripe already has the world’s strongest fiat fund capabilities:

• Global acquiring network
• Treasury
• Issuing
• Banking integrations

When combined with the stablecoin settlement network, it accomplishes what traditional crypto firms find hardest: connecting on-chain settlement to the real banking system. Stablecoins can now directly serve as settlement assets for merchants, not just on-chain assets.

Compliance Layer: The Prerequisite for Settlement Rights. In traditional finance, settlement authority isn’t just about technology; it’s embedded in regulation. Bridge is applying for a US OCC national trust bank license, and Stripe already has comprehensive:

• KYC / KYB
• AML
• Merchant compliance systems

This means that when stablecoins enter Stripe’s fund network, they aren’t just “crypto assets” but are accepted as regulated settlement assets. The essence of settlement rights is compliance.

Why doesn’t Stripe build an exchange? Because exchanges handle asset trading, while Stripe’s goal is to facilitate fund flows in economic activity. Exchanges are traffic gateways; settlement layers are the true financial infrastructure.

This aligns perfectly with its past 15-year path: never focusing on traffic, always on the underlying. After establishing the settlement layer, what happens? When on-chain account systems (Privy), stablecoin settlement networks (Bridge), fiat on-ramps (Stripe), and compliance layers are combined, a new structure emerges: a globally supported, native stablecoin settlement system. This allows companies to settle globally in real-time, AI to automate receipts and splits, funds to be called via APIs—all running on Stripe’s interface.

4. Why AI Will Amplify Stripe’s Infrastructure Advantages

If stablecoins rewrite the settlement layer, AI changes the service object of the financial system. In traditional finance, products defaulted to serving human companies: registering, opening bank accounts, signing agreements, manual reconciliation. AI introduces a new type of business entity—it can create products, generate income, pay costs, participate in profit sharing—all automatically.

This means AI doesn’t need a “better payment tool,” but a programmable financial system that can be called directly by code.

1. AI Business Models Are Naturally Built on Stripe

Today, nearly all leading AI products commercialize via API calls, usage-based charges, and subscriptions. Stripe already provides the infrastructure for this:

• Subscription lifecycle management
• Usage-based billing
• Global tax and compliance
• Enterprise payment capabilities

That’s why, from OpenAI to Anthropic, from Midjourney to Perplexity, many AI companies’ revenue systems run on Stripe. It’s not just a partnership; it’s a structural match: AI’s business models inherently need Stripe.

2. Usage-Based Billing Is the Financial Operating System of the AI Economy

The biggest difference between AI and traditional SaaS is: SaaS charges per seat, AI charges per compute—tokens, requests, inference costs—dynamic billing. Stripe has heavily invested in usage-based billing capabilities over the past few years, including real-time metering, tiered pricing, automatic plan upgrades, revenue recognition—making it not just a payment tool but an income operations system for AI companies. In this structure, the financial system is participating in product pricing models for the first time.

3. Atlas + Treasury + Issuing: Giving AI “Company Capabilities”

When an AI agent begins acting independently in business, it needs more than just payment acceptance; it needs a legal entity, a fund account, and payment capabilities. These modules already exist within Stripe: Atlas for company registration, Treasury for funds, Issuing for payments. This means, from a financial infrastructure perspective, AI is finally equipped with the full foundation to become a “company.”

4. AI Agents Need Fund Access Rights

In agent economy, the key isn’t just receiving money but spending automatically—buying compute, calling APIs, executing supply chain payments, profit sharing—all programmable money. Stripe is currently the only financial system that API-izes accounts, billing, payments, and fund management, making it the easiest layer for AI to call upon.

In the Web2 era, Stripe served internet companies. In the AI era, its target will shift to:

Programs capable of autonomous business actions. When the business entity shifts from human companies to AI, the competition in the financial system isn’t about lower fees but about becoming the default Money API. All the efforts Stripe made over the past 15 years are now generating compound growth in this new structure.

5. Stripe Is Becoming the Money Layer for the AI + Stablecoin Era

Stripe’s product form is a Financial OS. It abstracts payments, accounts, fund management, and settlement into APIs, allowing internet companies to call the financial system as easily as cloud services. But in the new economy built by AI and stablecoins, what matters isn’t just “what product it is,” but which layer it occupies. Just as AWS isn’t just a cloud provider but the Compute Layer of the internet, Stripe’s position is the Money Layer. This means: as business actions become automated and funds become internet-native, the financial system is finally becoming a directly callable foundational capability.

Looking back at Stripe’s 15-year journey, it has made almost all “short-term unprofitable” choices: it didn’t become a traffic gateway, didn’t issue assets, didn’t build a trading platform. It always focused on the deeper layer: modularizing financial capabilities, API-izing fund flows, connecting settlement systems to the internet. In Web2, this simply made it easier for internet companies to get paid. In the AI + stablecoin structure, it enables business actions to automatically move funds.

Every technological paradigm shift redefines infrastructure layering: the OS in the PC era, cloud computing in the internet era, app stores in the mobile era. The AI era’s first emergence is a business entity that is natively programmable. When the business entity is no longer a human company but an autonomous program, it only needs two default capabilities: Compute, Money. The former is defined by cloud computing; the latter’s default interface is being occupied by Stripe.

In this structure, most companies will still have user bases, traffic, or asset issuance capabilities. But only a few will control the definition of how funds flow. That’s why Stripe’s competitors are never just payment companies. In settlement, it faces the banking system; in revenue systems, it faces app stores and cloud billing; in future on-chain finance, it faces new financial networks. It’s a competition over who becomes the default Money API.

In Web2, Stripe served internet companies. In the AI era, it will serve programs that can generate revenue and spend funds independently. When fund flows become as fundamental as compute resources, users won’t perceive stablecoins, and enterprises won’t need to understand on-chain settlement. Just like today no one cares about HTTP, money will run automatically in the background. And the default interface for that layer will be: Stripe.

Most future business actions will be automated, with every fund movement calling the same interface.

Money will run on Stripe.