Author: Alex Xu

The AI narrative continues to ferment, while the recent performance of related stocks has been mixed, with some experiencing summer-like highs and others facing winter-like lows.

The former is represented by Circle, the issuer of the largest compliant stablecoin, USDC, while the latter is represented by Tencent.

Circle has risen for many reasons, such as its previous drop from 300 to 49, creating a significant enough correction to accumulate rebound momentum. Additionally, USDC's scale has recently seen a surge, reaching new highs again.

However, the biggest driving force may still be the overwhelming success of openclaw, which has shocked people with the wave of Agents, this tangible impact has ignited interest in a stablecoin considered very suitable for settling Agent transactions, and Circle is currently the only pure blood stablecoin among publicly listed companies globally.

The reasons for Tencent's decline are thought-provoking. Previously criticized for being sluggish in the AI era, its shares have been on a continuous downtrend from a high of 680. Following a recent performance report declaring “reduced buybacks, increased AI investments,” it saw further declines instead of increases. Market concerns over its AI investments have shifted from "insufficient" to "excessive."

So, who has more certainty in the AI era, Tencent or Circle?

Charlie Munger once said that investors should not tackle difficult problems; his exact words were:

“One of our secrets is not trying to understand too much... I keep categorizing things as 'too hard.' Occasionally, an easy decision comes along, and I make it. That’s my system: most things fall into ‘too hard,’ and only a few obvious simple decisions are immediately dealt with.”

So, who is the simple question on our investment desk, Tencent or Circle?

Let’s start with Tencent.

Currently, the Yuanbao AI within WeChat actually serves as an experimental form of WeChat's own future Agent:

It can already accomplish the highest frequency tasks that most ordinary people use AI for, namely: inquiries and Q&A.

However, presently Yuanbao can only interact with content-type information within WeChat, such as text and image information, video account content, public WeChat accounts, etc. At this stage, it cannot directly interact with mini-programs.

But the native Agent of WeChat's own form is actually not difficult to predict: through natural language dialogue, we can directly let WeChat's Agent call mini-programs to execute various tasks, including ordering takeout, booking hotels, summarizing videos and recordings, reminding schedules, and reporting work.

Mini-programs themselves represent a huge application ecosystem, with most common apps having mini-program versions: Didi Chuxing, Meituan, Pinduoduo, McDonald's, Huoala, WPS, and even Alibaba’s Xianyu and Ele.me.

More importantly: WeChat Agent has strong system-level permissions regarding mini-programs, akin to (even stronger than) Apple's relationship with the iOS ecosystem. The development of mini-programs must adhere to WeChat's specifications. WeChat's Agent will not be directly banned by major apps like Doubao mobile assistant, kept outside the walled garden; rather, it will interact systemically with various mini-programs, and all mini-program apps will likely embrace WeChat's official Agent to provide better services for users.

Compared to the buzz that hasn’t died down yet, but has tortured most early adopters, causing many ordinary people to give up, WeChat Agent, aimed at 1.4 billion users, will surely offer better usability and practicality. This will lead to a truly “nationwide Agent promotion,” which may not be as geeky or cool, but is a product usable by 90% of the public.

The introduction of such an Agent product form is highly certain at some point in the future; however, as long as it hasn’t occurred and everyone hasn’t seen it, with Tencent's stock still declining, the market is stingy in its valuation.

But for value investors, we need to take advantage of the market’s behavior.

We should invest in highly probable, even inevitable events that haven’t happened yet.

In the face of the highly uncertain AI era, is Tencent’s operational certainty really that low? I think it’s fairly decent.

Is buying/holding Tencent at this moment a simple or difficult question?

I believe it is much simpler than the market sentiment reflects.

Now, let's talk about Circle:

In some respects, when viewed over a longer period, the certainty becomes quite ambiguous.

Will Circle's future business scale grow to hundreds of billions, or even trillions?

Optimistic bullish voices believe it’s possible. Their logic is:

1. AI is the future, future Agents will be the primary users of the internet, dominating massive network transaction scales.

2. AI transactions will require stablecoins based on blockchain settlement.

3. USDC is currently the largest compliant stablecoin, and the demand for AI settlements will drive the growth of USDC's scale directly.

4. Stablecoins have strong network effects, and scaling will self-reinforce.

5. USDC's scale will synchronize with AI's transaction scale, growing to trillions or even more.

On the surface, this chain of reasoning appears seamless, but several key links actually carry significant uncertainty:

1. Will future Agents be the primary users of the internet and dominate enormous network transaction volumes?

Looking at this high certainty long-term view, we shall see.

2. Will AI transactions require stablecoins?

Not necessarily; the first point is visible to everyone, existing payment infrastructure service providers and internet and AI giants that hold users are also pushing their own standards, many of which are not blockchain-based, such as Google’s UCP protocol aimed at agentic commerce.

3. Is USDC the largest compliant stablecoin?

It is currently, but Tether also possesses considerable heft and is attempting to transition towards compliance, with decent political resources. Additionally, there are many other eager competitors, like trafi financial groups and payment providers such as PayPal.

4. Do stablecoins have strong network effects?

In the face of ruthless Agents, differences among stablecoins will be minimized; as long as they can all be used for payments, Agents will choose the ones with minimum friction and cost. Whether it's USD1, USDT, USDC, or a stablecoin issued by a bank, it doesn’t matter. Do you think USDC currently has more merchant-side resources? Payment pathway providers like Visa and Stripe have networks and channels far larger than Circle, which can help other stablecoins integrate. As long as the settlement is easy and friction is low, merchants are indifferent to which stablecoin they receive. The network effect of stablecoins might not be that strong in an era dominated by Agents in payments.

5. Will USDC's scale synchronously grow with AI transaction scale to trillions?

When hypotheses 2-4 each carry high uncertainty, combining them to derive conclusion 5 leads the uncertainty to become blurred.

In the face of the highly uncertain AI era, does Circle have such high operational certainty? I think it’s fair.

Is buying/holding Circle at this moment a simple or difficult question?

I believe it is far more difficult than what the market sentiment reflects.

This is just one opinion, for reference only.

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