The Fee Is Gone. So Is the Safety Net.

You finally keep the 2.9%. You also keep every dispute, because on an irreversible rail there is no one left to charge back. Interchange was a bundle: payment, chargebacks, fraud cover, reversibility. Agentic stablecoin rails unbundle it. What the merchant keeps, what it loses, and the one control that replaces the rest.

September 1, 2026 · 8 pages · 11 min read

This paper unpacks:

• What interchange actually bundled: payment, chargebacks, fraud cover, and reversibility
• What an agentic stablecoin rail keeps and what it strips away
• Where the merchant now carries risk that the card network used to absorb
• The one transaction-time control that replaces the rest of the bundle