$Circle Internet Corp.(CRCL)$ From where I stand, the potential bear case for Circle is that it has to go out and acquire customers. Stripe, Visa, and Mastercard already have them. They could just apply the new tech to their existing customer base without charging extra.
The main issue, though, is the consortium model. Historically, these kinds of partnerships have rarely worked out smoothly—someone always ends up with the short end of the stick.
It's possible Circle could lose most of the retail and business segments, but the big players might decide to build on Circle's platform to cut out Visa and Mastercard. Think about $Wal-Mart(WMT)$ , $Apple(AAPL)$ , $Meta Platforms, Inc.(META)$ , MSFT. Walmart has sued Visa before and really hates those fees.
It'll be interesting to see how low the fees for merchants get under a Visa-branded solution. I just find it hard to believe Visa would take a major shot at its own core business just to try and take down Circle.
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