Blockchain’s Fannie Mae Moment, Bitcoin Treasury Shakeout & AI Agents That Pay

Watch on YouTube ↗ | August 24, 2026 at 18:00 | 33:48 | CoinDesk

Speakers

Michael Tannenbaum — CEO, Figure Technology Solutions

Lance Vitanza — Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst, TD Cowen

Sid Coelho-Prabhu — Head of Coinbase Business

Summary

This CoinDesk Public Keys episode covers three market themes from the New York Stock Exchange. Figure Technology Solutions CEO Michael Tannenbaum argues that blockchain-based mortgage rails create Fannie Mae-like standardization, lower costs, and rule-of-150 growth. TD Cowen's Lance Vitanza says the 2026 digital asset treasury shakeout clarifies winners such as Strategy and Strive, which grow Bitcoin per share while managing balance sheets. Coinbase Business head Sid Coelho-Prabhu explains why AI agents are already paying with stablecoins, especially USDC, and why Coinbase's infrastructure could benefit.

Figure reports record results: 95% adjusted net revenue growth, 55% adjusted EBITDA margin, and 132% consumer loan marketplace growth.
Michael Tannenbaum describes Figure as a faster and cheaper Fannie Mae using blockchain tokenization with about 500 origination partners.
Lance Vitanza says all five covered digital asset treasury companies—Strategy, Strive, Nakamoto, Smarter Web Company, and Sharplink—are showing winner characteristics.
Strategy common stock is framed as roughly 1.5x Bitcoin volatility exposure; Strive grew per-share Bitcoin about 33% year-to-date.
Vitanza views Bitcoin as digital gold and Ethereum, Solana, and Canton as digital picks and shovels for decentralized finance.
Sid Coelho-Prabhu says AI agents are already transacting, with 99% of agentic payment activity occurring in USDC over the past year.
Coinbase is building x402 and accounting/KYC infrastructure to support agentic commerce at scale.

Ideas

Michael Tannenbaum CEO, Figure Technology Solutions 1:03

Blockchain mortgage marketplace drives rule-of-150 growth.

Figure is a blockchain-based, capital-light mortgage marketplace with about 500 origination partners. It closes mortgages in about 5 days for roughly $1,000 versus industry averages of 45 days and $12,000, cuts third-party loan diligence costs by 80%, and uses on-chain asset tracking to prevent loan double-pledging fraud. The result is roughly 100% topline growth and 50% bottom-line growth, which management calls a Rule of 150 business, and management says investors should focus on this rare growth-plus-margin combination and Figure's market leadership in real-world asset origination.

Lance Vitanza Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst, TD Cowen 15:21

Survivors grow digital assets per share prudently.

After the 2026 digital asset treasury shakeout, the viable model is companies that can increase digital assets per share in good times and bad while prudently managing balance sheet and liquidity. Lance Vitanza argues all five companies he covers—Strategy, Strive, Nakamoto, Smarter Web Company, and Sharplink—are now demonstrating themselves as winners. Companies that depend entirely on a premium to NAV, have suspect liquidity, overleveraged balance sheets, or cannot articulate why investors should own them versus a spot ETF are being shaken out.

Lance Vitanza Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst, TD Cowen 21:06

Bitcoin is a digital store of value.

Lance Vitanza describes Bitcoin as digital gold. He says its primary use case is as a digital store of value, and that other potential use cases such as commerce are not necessary preconditions for Bitcoin to become very valuable over time. This structural store-of-value view underpins his digital asset treasury analysis and supports a positive long-term Bitcoin bias.

Lance Vitanza Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst, TD Cowen 21:40

Ethereum serves as DeFi picks and shovels.

Ethereum is viewed as one of many blockchains serving as digital picks and shovels, with its real-world application being facilitation of decentralized finance. Vitanza places Ethereum in that category and says Solana and Canton also belong there, though he is not yet explicit about which specific chains he favors versus does not favor in future reports.

Sid Coelho-Prabhu Head of Coinbase Business 24:16

Coinbase leads AI agent payments infrastructure.

Coinbase is positioned at the center of AI agent payments. The company already powers both the agent side and the business side of agentic commerce, and it is building the foundational infrastructure needed to make autonomous payments day-to-day: payment collection, compliance, KYC, sales tax, accounting and reconciliation tooling, and the open-source x402 protocol. Sid Coelho-Prabhu frames this as an early but much larger wave, with Coinbase as a direct beneficiary.

Sid Coelho-Prabhu Head of Coinbase Business 26:27

USDC dominates AI agent stablecoin payments.

Stablecoins are becoming the currency of agentic commerce because they are fast, cheap, and support microtransactions. USDC specifically is consolidating agentic payment activity: 99% of that activity over the last year occurred in USDC, and USDC hit an all-time high of about $20 billion on Coinbase products. Liquidity effects, trust, and brand reputation are driving consolidation toward USDC, and businesses also prefer stablecoins over card rails for lower fees, fewer chargebacks, global reach, faster settlement, and yield-like rewards.

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