Recently, a matter has attracted quite a bit of attention in the industry—the Google-launched UCP protocol. On the surface, it seems like just a standardization of shopping processes, but upon closer inspection, this thing might be quietly rewriting the rules of the payment ecosystem.

Speaking of UCP, it can be simply understood as the "universal socket" for the AI shopping era. Through this unified standard, AI assistants can seamlessly complete the entire process of discovery, price comparison, ordering, and payment across different merchants. For consumers, the shopping experience becomes as intuitive as chatting. It sounds unremarkable, but looking deeper, the issues become apparent.

**Why is this so important to the crypto world?**

The core logic is this—UCP has done something no one dared to do before: **completely decouple the payment and shopping processes**. What was the previous model? You had to use the payment system tied to the platform where you shopped; there was no choice. Merchants bind payment methods, and users are also bound accordingly. But UCP changes this, making payment a pluggable, replaceable module.

What does this mean? Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and stablecoins, as a payment method, have, for the first time, gained an "official identity" within the framework of mainstream commercial protocols. This is not just technical compatibility but also a recognition of business logic.

**Short-term vs. long-term, two different stories**

We need to look at this separately. In the short term, the first integrations of UCP are with traditional payment giants like Google Pay and PayPal. Direct integration of crypto payments will require more time; currently, the market's optimism is mostly hype. Honestly, this wave of enthusiasm has quite a bit of emotional component.

But what about the long term? The story becomes different. Imagine future scenarios—many transactions are no longer performed by humans but are automatically executed by AI agents. Shopping, transferring funds, settling accounts—all operated by machines behind the scenes. In this new economic model, what kind of payment tools will AI systems need?

The answer is clear: low fees, instant settlement, cross-border compatibility, and decentralized payment methods. These are precisely the core advantages of Bitcoin (especially when combined with the Lightning Network) and stablecoins. McKinsey's data is quite interesting—they predict that by 2030, AI technology could capture $3-5 trillion of the retail market. How big is this cake? Compared to the total global retail market size, this is almost an epic shift.

If crypto payments can carve out a share in this, the potential is truly limitless.

**What do institutions think about this?**

From the data perspective, market participants have given quite optimistic outlooks. Regarding Bitcoin, analysts generally believe that considering ongoing institutional adoption and macroeconomic changes, by 2026, Bitcoin's price could break through the $102,000 to $150,000 range.

And stablecoins? Predictions are even more exaggerated. The industry generally expects that by 2026, the total market cap of stablecoins could reach $1 trillion. The annual transaction volume? That number is even more staggering—potentially up to $50 trillion. In other words, stablecoins are rapidly evolving from a niche asset into a candidate for global payment infrastructure.

**Is UCP a trigger or a blueprint?**

Claiming that UCP will immediately ignite a bull market is an overstatement. But viewing it as a ticket for cryptocurrencies to enter the future "machine economy" era is probably not far off. Once AI becomes the main participant and consumer in commerce, the decision-making power will no longer rest on human preferences but on what payment methods best align with machine logic—highest efficiency, lowest cost, fastest settlement.

Will Bitcoin be that answer? What about stablecoins? It’s too early to tell now, but those who have laid out early should be able to laugh last.