For the first time in ~3 years, it feels like the AI table has been flipped over. Yes, the labs and hyperscalers will have the highest chance of resetting it before everyone else, given their vast capital, frontier model, and compute advantages. But there is now a window for a new ecosystem to emerge. A "rebel alliance," which is what we're calling it at @USV. We are excited by open weight models, distributed compute, human-aligned agents, routing, open source harnesses, the orchestration layer, and a lot more. Basically, anything that gives people and enterprises powerful intelligence while maintaining tight incentive alignment, we're into it.

The missing payments layer in Neobanks Most neobanks have built around cards. But that's not the primary way people pay in many countries - Brazil: Pix processes 80% more transactions than credit + debit cards combined. - India: a whopping 82% of the all digital payments are on UPI - Philippines: 60% of all digital payments use InstaPay, and just 18% use cards US, Europe & others built digital payments around cards long before smartphones, and so thats deeply embedded into everyday life Most emerging markets, however, digitized payments much later.. in a world of smartphones & internet access And so they could build real-time-payment systems (RTPs) like UPI, Pix & InstaPay: Instant payments, available 24/7, and as easy as scanning a QR code to pay. The result? RTPs have become the dominant way people pay day to day. Just look at the merchant acceptance: - India ~5x more merchants accept UPI than cards - Philippines: ~6x more accept InstaPay than cards China: ~3x more accept QR payments than cards Argentina: ~2x more accept Interoperable QR than cards For anyone living in, or traveling to, these countries, RTPs are non-negotiable. I witnessed this first hand in Argentina with @joinpeanut - spending USDC directly via local QR everywhere. It's a game changer. And this is the missing payments layer: the ability to spend on local payment rails, while saving in USD.