SMB Boom, New Rails
LD Eakman@ldeakman
−0.4%
since Oct 1
The idea
I think AI removes so much back-office friction that starting a small business gets radically easier, and all that new activity needs to get paid from day one. So this owns the platforms onboarding those merchants and moving money between them, alongside a second bet that payments themselves get rewired onto permissionless rails, stablecoins, and a settlement layer for machine-driven transactions. I deliberately skip the legacy card networks since the take is that their toll booth gets rebuilt, spread the exposure across many names rather than one, and keep some cash on the side.
What it owns
- When a new business opens, these platforms are how it takes its first payment, so rapid SMB formation flows straight through them. · XYZ, ShopifyIt hosts new online businesses from day one and captures payments on every sale through Shopify Payments, so rapid merchant formation shows up in its new store growth., ToastIt handles payments and operations for restaurants, which are among the most back-office-heavy small businesses, so location count growth reflects whether AI is making it easier to open and run one., MercadoLibreIt is the merchant onboarding and payments platform for Latin America, capturing the global SMB boom as AI lowers the cost of starting a business., StoneCoIt signs up and processes payments for Brazilian small businesses, so rapid SMB formation in the region drives its client growth and payment volume.29%
- If agent transactions settle on open blockchain rails, the stablecoin issuers, exchanges, and settlement layer collect the new toll. · CoinbaseIt sits at the core of permissionless infrastructure as the on-ramp for stablecoins and is building the backbone for agents to transact on-chain., Circle Internet GroupIt issues USDC, the stablecoin most likely to be the money agents actually move on permissionless rails., iShares Ethereum TrustIt holds Ethereum, the settlement layer where most stablecoin activity clears today and where permissionless agent transactions would run., Galaxy DigitalIt builds and finances the institutional plumbing that connects traditional money to permissionless rails as fintech firms migrate onto blockchain.27%
- New businesses still pay suppliers, contractors, and bills, and these firms clip a fee on that behind-the-scenes flow. · Bill HoldingsIt moves money between small businesses behind the scenes, paying vendors and collecting invoices, so every new SMB created is a potential customer., CorpayIt runs the rails for business spending, cards, cross-border payments, and vendor payouts, so more small businesses mean more volume through its pipes., PayoneerIt gets small businesses paid across borders, capturing the fact that new SMBs born from AI tools are international from day one.12%
- Established fintechs wiring stablecoins into everyday checkout carry the new rails to mainstream users. · PayPalIt is the bridge from legacy checkout to stablecoins, having issued its own dollar token and pushed it into real payments at mainstream scale., RobinhoodIt is rebuilding parts of the finance stack on blockchain with tokenized assets and on-chain products, the reconfiguration the take describes at mainstream scale.10%
- Someone has to let software agents hold cards and pay per request, and these companies are building exactly that infrastructure layer. · CloudflareIt is building the infrastructure where agents would pay for things on the web, including agentic checkout and pay-per-request models for machine-to-machine transactions., MarqetaIt issues programmable cards, the tool an AI agent would need to spend within rules, so agent-scale transactions require its card issuance and control.10%
- Cash13%