🥛 'Crypto isn't ready for AI'

GM. This is Milk Road, the crypto newsletter that’s as exciting as finding out your “dead” altcoin just pulled a Lazarus!

Here’s what we’ve got for you today:

✍️ 'Crypto isn't ready for AI, but it will be needed' - Stripe.
🎙️ The Milk Road Show: Arthur Hayes: Iran War = Fed Money Printing? Is a Massive Crypto Rally Coming?
🍪 Wait, Bitcoin LIKES the uncertainty?

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Prices as of 2:00 p.m. ET. Trade today with Milk Road Swap.

'CRYPTO ISN'T READY FOR AI, BUT IT WILL BE NEEDED' - STRIPE 👀

If you think AI agents are going to use traditional payment systems, you might want to rethink your conviction…

Stripe, the world’s largest traditional payments platform, isn’t even onboard with the idea.

They recently published a comprehensive framework for how AI agents will reshape the entire economy, using blockchain as their rails.

Buried in that framework are two admissions…

One that should terrify every crypto skeptic → another that should terrify every crypto giga bull.

Lemme break this down….

Stripe outlined five levels of agentic commerce, from simple form-filling to fully autonomous purchasing without any human prompt:

Source: @Stripe

(We're currently hovering between levels 1 and 2.)

Stripe's projection:

We'll need blockchains to support further growth (sorry to the crypto skeptics).
Today's blockchains aren't built for this future (apologies to the crypto giga bulls).

In Stripe’s view, we need to see chains supporting 1M to 1B transactions per second to progress.

That’s a STEEP hill to climb from where we are today:

Bitcoin processes fewer than 10 transactions per second (TPS).
Ethereum’s L2 ecosystem’s max recorded TPS is 39.2k.
Solana’s max rec orded TPS is 107.6k.

Source: @Stripe

(Note: this is on a log scale - if it wasn’t, you’d barely be able to see the Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana bars.)

Any sort of congestion here, regardless of the chain, will have damaging effects on the user experience.

And according to Stripe, it’s already happening.

A memecoin frenzy on a major chain delayed one Bridge user's payout by 12 hours and spiked transaction costs 35x.

(And this is happening BEFORE agents handle most internet transactions? Yikes!)

Here’s why we think all of this is worth getting excited about just the same…

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'CRYPTO ISN'T READY FOR AI, BUT IT WILL BE NEEDED' - STRIPE (P2) 👀

The world's dominant traditional payments company is betting its infrastructure on stablecoins and crypto rails.

They believe the opportunity is so massive that they’re forcing themselves to see the current limitations as 'engineering challenges' rather than 'deal breakers'.

Which makes sense given where we are right now - but think back just two years ago…

The narrative back then was that regulators would crush crypto payments into oblivion.

Now Stripe is:

Source: @Stripe

And if all of the above isn’t making you bullish on the future of crypto, try this on for size:

Stripe likened this moment to the mid-90s when HTTP, HTML, URLs, and DNS were being hashed out - back when there was an AltaVista for every Google…

We're in that window again!

Protocols are being written, standards are being set, and the infrastructure that will handle trillions in autonomous transactions is being decided right now.

The race to build blockchains that can handle agent-scale throughput is on.

Whoever solves for 1M-1B TPS with cost predictability and reliability won’t just win crypto payments, they’ll likely be positioned to become the settlement layer for a large chunk of the agentic economy.

That’s HUGE!

(Both in opportunity and undertaking.)