Will Crypto Unbundle The Banks?
The plumbing of modern banking is a monument to complexity. Over decades, layer upon layer of software has been piled onto the humble deposit account. Keeping it all running has become a multi-billion-dollar industry. Now blockchain technology threatens to unravel the bundle.
America’s new GENIUS Act allows decentralized applications (dApps) to hold stablecoins on behalf of users. In practice, that means retail customers could soon park their cash directly on-chain and spend it within an expanding ecosystem of services. If every dApp can act like a bank, what becomes of the high-street lender, weighed down by creaking systems, high fees and inflexible packages?
DeFi versus the Deposit Machine
Banking has long thrived on bundling. Open an account and you get a full menu: deposits, loans, cards, custody, payments, wealth management, and more. Customers rarely need everything on the plate, but the price is set as though they did. Service delivery, moreover, proceeds on the bank’s timetable, not the client’s.
Crypto strips away the frills. It provides what every customer actually values, safekeeping money and moving it around, with the added bonus of programmability. Digital cash can be tailored into payroll streams, micro-loans or subscription services at the speed of software updates.
Such freedoms, once fringe, now have Washington’s blessing. By granting stablecoins legal standing, lawmakers have turned crypto from a …
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