arc: usdc as gas, circle just shipped arc studio agent tooling, and lending holds most of its $348m tvl. bear: permissioned validators, and daily txs fell 84% after launch.
near: intents volume doubled to $4.18b in 30 days, and confidential intents now handle payments. bear: reward programs likely pumped deposits and swaps.
solana: fast, cheap, deep stablecoin liquidity, private usdc payments live on solflare. bear: agents pay in stables, so sol captures little of it.
stellar: mastercard-owned bvnk plugged it into stablecoin payments across 130+ countries. bear: strong enterprise rails, thin agent-native tooling.
cardano: newly added to the official x402 kit for agent payments. bear: typescript only so far, and the ecosystem is thin.
biggest threat to all five is card rails. meta's muse already shops through stripe link.