Stablecoins aren’t a side conversation anymore — they’re knocking on the front door of the payments ecosystem.

In this episode of the Payments Experts Podcast, we sit down with Adam T. Hark, managing member of Wellesley Hills Financial (https://www.wellesleyhillsfinancial.com/), for a wide-ranging, candid discussion on how stablecoins, tokenized deposits, and wallet-based payments could fundamentally reshape merchant acceptance, interchange economics, and the role of card networks.

We explore a provocative question most of the industry is quietly wrestling with: Are companies like Coinbase and Circle actually payments companies — and if so, what happens next? From Walmart-scale economics and closed-loop possibilities to the realities of consumer incentives, education gaps, and merchant readiness, this conversation cuts past headlines and into operational truth.

Adam breaks down where stablecoins realistically fit today (ACH, debit, and cash replacement), where they don’t (credit and rewards), and why JPMorgan’s tokenized deposit strategy may be the most underestimated development in modern payments. We also examine who bears responsibility for educating merchants, how ISOs and processors may be bypassed entirely in some models, and why free-market dynamics — not regulation alone — will determine winners and losers.

This episode is not about hype. It’s about what changes first, what breaks second, and what payments professionals need to understand now to stay relevant as rails, wallets, and value transfer evolve in real time.

If you work anywhere near payments strategy, merchant services, fintech infrastructure, or financial services M&A, this is a conversation you’ll want to hear.

**Matters discussed are all opinions and do not constitute legal advice. All events or likeness to real people and events is a coincidence.**

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A payments podcast of Global Legal Law Firm