Tokens and dollars are converging — attacks against token platforms mirror financial fraud, and Stripe has a mandate to protect users moving between tokens and dollars with the same safety and compliance it provides for fiat.
Will observes that the word 'token' inherently evokes money because that is increasingly what it is. Attacks on token-consuming platforms resemble sophisticated financial fraud, and Stripe sees a mandate to provide the same infrastructure — safe movement, storage, and compliance — for tokens as it does for dollars and euros. ✦ AI generated
Will Gaybrick · a16z Podcast · 2026-08-17 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 43:44
“What do you think is sort of the future state of how we all access models and tokens?”
I love the word token. And the reason is that it just sounds like an approximation of money. And increasingly that's just what it is, right? We're seeing, you know, free trial abuse, multi-accounting, and the attacks that we're seeing against users whose platforms are general purpose token consumers — they're very reminiscent of what we see in terms of people trying to steal money from Stripe users. And so there's this blurring that you see between tokens and dollars. We want to help users move money, store money, send money safely, compliantly, and so on. And we now feel this mandate to do the same thing on tokens — to protect our users in the same way. And over time I think this is only going to happen more. A lot of long-running agentic tasks will replace services — I used to pay a human in dollars for that, now I pay fewer humans or a human in tokens, because they're augmented by agents. So we just want to make sure that moving between tokens and dollars is as seamless and as safe as moving between dollars and euros.
verbatim transcript · starts at 43:44
43:25>> Um, and I think, you know, you and I would probably share the belief that the token economy is going to be one of the biggest things we've ever seen. Um, so, you know, what do you think is kind of the state of play for accessing tokens? you know, obviously there's a lot of work that gets done in first party applications today. Um, but you know, what do you think is sort of the future
43:44state of how we all access models and tokens? >> Yeah. >> Well, I love I've always loved the word token. Um, and the reason uh is that it just sounds like an approximation of money. >> Yeah. >> And [laughter] increasing that's just what it is, right? We're seeing, you know, we talked earlier about, you know, free trial abuse, multi-accounting, and the attacks that we're seeing against users who have sort of general
44:09whose platforms are general purpose token consumers. You know, you can do just about anything with tokens on cursor, right? Um, you do just about anything with tokens on on replet. >> Uh, so the attacks against these users are very sophistic sophisticated. you know, they're they're very reminiscent of what we see, >> you know, in terms of people trying to steal money from Stripe users. [snorts] >> And so there's this blurring that you
44:34see between tokens and dollars. >> Yeah. >> And so for us, we think about >> wanting to help users move money, store money, send money safely, compliantly, and so on. >> And the uh we now feel this mandate to do the same thing on tokens, right? to um protect our users in the same way and you know over time I think this is only going to happen more right you know
44:59we talk about >> some of these longunning agentic tasks and a lot of them will replace you know services and you'll just be able to say you know close my books and I used to pay you know a human in tokens for that now I or many humans now I pay fewer humans or a human or sorry in dollars for that now I pay fewer humans or a
45:17human tokens >> in tokens right um because they're augment rented by by agents. So, we just want to make sure that moving between tokens and dollars is as seamless as moving and safe as moving between, you know, dollars and euros. >> We're at the beginning of this journey, but we think it's going to be a big part of the future of Stripe. >> Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, it's uh it's
45:40it's super exciting and and look, personally speaking, I think you guys >> have a real right to play a role there uh because of the relationship that you have with so many so many companies since inception all the way through to enterprise as you said. >> Yeah. And we we use it's funny um we're we're always a little bit careful internally about talking about about rights and so we talk about mandates.