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Beyond humans: Lily Liu says Solana is building the payment rails for the ‘AI machine economy’
At Consensus Miami 2026, Solana Foundation President Lily Liu argued that stablecoin adoption by firms like Western Union validates Solana’s role as financial infrastructure for both human and machine economies.
May 6, 2026, 8:35 a.m. 2 min read
What to know:
- Lily Liu said Western Union adopting Solana for stablecoin payments reflects the network’s speed, low costs and neutrality as financial infrastructure.
- Liu argued blockchain rails are essential for AI agents and “machine-to-machine” commerce because traditional card networks cannot support micropayments economically.
- She said crypto’s next major evolution could be “internet capital markets,” giving companies and even sovereigns broader access to global capital formation.
“It’s not new,” Liu said, referencing Visa’s decision in 2023 to build stablecoin settlement capabilities on Solana following what she described as an “extensive objective review” of blockchain networks.
“Fast and cheap is a no-brainer for payments,” she said, adding that enterprises also need deep liquidity, developers and a broad ecosystem of applications surrounding those payment rails.
Liu described Western Union’s move onto blockchain infrastructure as a particularly meaningful milestone for the crypto industry. “When I first came into this industry in 2014, Western Union was always the white whale crypto,” she said.
