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Crypto's New Path: Building the Next Generation of Permissionless Banks

Core Viewpoint
Summary: The breakthrough for new encrypted banks may first appear in high-frequency, high-turnover value-added and lending scenarios, and then gradually extend to payment and storage.
BlockBeats
2026-02-24 15:40:03
Collection
The breakthrough for new encrypted banks may first appear in high-frequency, high-turnover value-added and lending scenarios, and then gradually extend to payment and storage.

Editor’s Note: Ten years ago, fintech neobanks improved the banking experience through mobile applications, but did not change the underlying system of capital flow. Today, cryptographic technology is attempting to reach deeper transformations, reconstructing "how money flows."

This article explores the development path and competitive landscape of crypto neobanks from four dimensions: "store, spend, grow, borrow": from self-custody wallets and stablecoin payments to on-chain trading, lending, and yield mechanisms. The author, Jay Yu (a member of the Pantera Capital research and investment team), suggests that, guided by the speed of capital circulation, the breakthrough for crypto neobanks may first appear in high-frequency, high-turnover value-added and lending scenarios, gradually extending to payments and storage.

Before issues of privacy, compliance, real-world connections, and credit systems are fully resolved, crypto neobanks remain in an early exploratory stage. However, it is certain that they are not just new financial applications, but are attempting to build a completely new track for capital operation.

Here is the original text:

Introduction

No matter which banking or fintech application you open today—whether it’s Bank of America, Revolut, Chase, or SoFi—you will feel a sense of familiarity as you scroll down the interface: Accounts, Pay & Transfer, Earn Yield. These interfaces are almost interchangeable.

This high degree of design similarity reveals the underlying commonality in banking logic: banks are essentially the interface for our four core relationships with "money":

  • Store: a place to hold and preserve assets
  • Spend: a mechanism for daily expenses and transfers
  • Grow: a set of tools for passive or active wealth management
  • Borrow: a channel for acquiring external funds and leveraging

Over the past decade, the proliferation of mobile technology has driven the rise of neobank applications like SoFi, Revolut, and Wise. They have made financial services more inclusive and redefined what it means to "go to the bank"—replacing physical branches with intuitive, always-online digital interfaces.

Today, as cryptographic technology enters its second decade, a new paradigm is emerging. From self-custody wallets and stablecoins to on-chain credit and yield mechanisms, the permissionless and programmable nature of blockchain enables banking-like experiences to be global, instantaneous, and composable.

If mobile internet gave birth to neobanks, then the crypto technology currently incubating is a permissionless neobank: a unified, interoperable interface centered on self-custody, allowing users to store, pay, grow, and borrow funds within the on-chain economy.

The History of Fintech Neobanks

Similar to the crypto industry, the rise of neobanks also occurred after the 2008 financial crisis. Unlike traditional banks that replicate physical branch layouts, neobanks function more like technology platforms, providing banking services to users through mobile interfaces.

Most neobanks collaborate with traditional banks in the backend, with the latter providing deposit insurance and compliance infrastructure, while neobanks manage the frontend user relationships. With rapid account opening processes, transparent fee structures, and designs centered on digital experiences, many neobanks have gradually become the preferred entry point for users to save, spend, and manage wealth.

Looking back at the growth paths of these neobank startups valued at billions, one commonality emerges: they capture user relationships through unique digital product forms, whether it’s refinancing services, early payroll, transparent foreign exchange rates, or other differentiated features, initiating a user-centric transaction volume flywheel, and gradually expanding their product matrix to monetize existing users.

In simple terms, the victory of fintech neobanks lies in their mastery of the "gateway to money": by reshaping the mediums through which users save, spend, manage finances, and borrow, they firmly occupy the interface layer of capital interaction.

Today, the crypto industry is at a similar juncture as neobanks were 5-10 years ago. Over the past decade, crypto has birthed a series of its own "wedge products":

  • Censorship-resistant asset storage through self-custody wallets
  • Low-barrier digital dollars via stablecoins
  • Permissionless credit markets represented by protocols like Aave
  • A 24/7 global capital market that can even convert internet memes into wealth carriers

Just as mobile internet infrastructure opened the neobank era, programmable blockchain is providing a permissionless financial infrastructure.

The logical next step is to combine these permissionless backend capabilities with user-friendly neobank-style frontends. The first generation of neobanks moved the banking frontend from physical branches to mobile interfaces while retaining the traditional banking system as the backend; today’s crypto neobanks, on the other hand, preserve the convenient mobile experience while beginning to change the underlying paths of capital flow: from traditional banking tracks to stablecoins and public blockchains.

In other words, if neobanks rebuilt the banking frontend on top of mobile internet, then cryptographic technology is providing an opportunity: to rebuild the banking backend on a permissionless track.

The Landscape of Crypto Neobanks

The landscape of crypto neobanks

Today, more and more projects are gradually converging under the vision of "crypto neobanks." We have already seen that, on the permissionless crypto track, the foundational capabilities surrounding the four financial relationships of storing, spending, growing, and borrowing are gradually taking shape:

  • Self-custody asset storage through hardware wallets like Ledger
  • Daily payments via Etherfi cards or Bitget QR codes
  • Trading on platforms like Hyperliquid for asset appreciation
  • On-chain lending through protocols like Morpho

At the same time, there are numerous supporting participants underpinning the foundational infrastructure, including: Wallet-as-a-Service, stablecoin settlement systems, compliance licensing services, localized deposit and withdrawal channel partners, and cross-protocol orchestration routers.

Moreover, in some cases, crypto exchanges themselves, such as Binance and Coinbase, are also moving closer to fintech neobanks, attempting to further capture the core relationship between users and their assets.

For example, Binance Pay has provided payment support for over 20 million merchants globally; while Coinbase allows users to automatically earn up to 4% rewards simply by holding USDC on the platform.

In such a complex and multi-layered crypto neobank ecosystem, it is necessary to systematically outline this landscape: how are different crypto platforms competing to become users' "primary financial relationship interface"? Which aspects of saving, spending, managing wealth, and borrowing are they targeting?

Saving Money with Crypto

To truly achieve self-custody of crypto assets and interact with the blockchain, users must first possess some form of crypto wallet. Broadly speaking, the crypto wallet ecosystem can be divided along two dimensions: one is the axis of security ↔ usability, and the other is the axis of consumer-grade applications ↔ enterprise-grade infrastructure.

In different quadrants, differentiated winners with strong distribution capabilities have emerged:

  • Ledger represents secure, consumer-facing hardware wallets;
  • Fireblocks and Anchorage provide secure enterprise-grade wallet infrastructure;
  • MetaMask, Phantom, and Privy are consumer-facing wallets focused on enhancing usability and user experience;

Turnkey and Coinbase Prime occupy more of the "high accessibility + enterprise-grade" infrastructure position.

Using wallet applications as a beachhead to build neobanks has a core advantage: the wallet frontend—like MetaMask and Phantom—often controls the entry layer for users to interact with crypto assets. The so-called "fat wallet thesis" posits that the wallet layer captures the vast majority of consumer-facing distribution capabilities and order flow, while the cost of switching wallets for end users is extremely high.

Indeed, approximately 35% of Solana's trading volume is completed through the Phantom wallet. This moat, composed of excellent mobile experiences and user stickiness, is quite substantial.

Additionally, since consumers (especially retail investors) often prioritize convenience over price, wallets like Phantom and MetaMask can charge a fee of up to 0.85%; in contrast, exchange protocols like Uniswap may only charge around 0.3% for a single token swap.

On the other hand, building a complete, profitable neobank solely on a single wallet platform proves to be unexpectedly challenging. The reason is that to achieve scalable profitability, users must not only "store" tokens but also frequently use those tokens within the wallet.

Phantom, MetaMask, and Ledger may have established brand recognition, but if users merely treat their crypto wallets as "cash shoeboxes under the bed," they will struggle to monetize. In other words, wallets must transform into active trading and payment platforms to convert distribution advantages into revenue.

MetaMask and Phantom are clearly advancing in this direction.

For instance, MetaMask recently launched the MetaMask Card, attempting to monetize value-added services based on its existing base of crypto-native users, becoming the default solution for "spending with cryptocurrency." Phantom has also followed suit by launching Phantom Cash, further entering the "growing money" space—by integrating Hyperliquid's builder codes to offer perpetual contract trading features within the app.

As Blockworks stated: "While Drift or Jupiter may be the local favorites of Solana, real capital has flowed to Hyperliquid."

This offers a universally applicable lesson for the entire wallet track: you must not only control the wallet itself but also manage the scale of funds flowing in and out through behaviors like "spending, growing, and borrowing."

Spending Money with Crypto

The second type of competitor among crypto neobanks is those platforms that enable users to make payments with cryptocurrency.

Similar to "saving money with crypto," we can also categorize applications for "spending money with crypto" along two dimensions: one from on-chain transfers to off-chain consumption (e.g., buying a cup of coffee); the other from retail consumer applications to enterprise-grade infrastructure.

Interestingly, many "neobank" projects that have gained market attention in recent months—such as Kast, Tria, Tempo, and Stable—have almost all targeted the niche of "paying with cryptocurrency." Particularly, market interest has concentrated on two major directions:

Retail consumer applications integrating stablecoin cards, such as Avici, Tria, Redotpay, and EtherFi;

Enterprise-focused "stablecoin public chains" or "stablecoin infrastructure," such as Stable, Plasma, and Tempo.

Retail Side: Making Crypto Applications More Bank-like

The first type of "payment applications" aimed at retail users essentially brings the user experience of crypto applications closer to traditional banks or fintech neobanks: familiar interface labels like "Home, Banking, Card, Invest" are all present.

With the maturation of crypto card issuers like Rain and Reap, as well as the expanded support for stablecoins by Visa and Mastercard, crypto cards themselves have gradually become commoditized. The real differentiation lies not in "issuing a card," but in whether one can continuously drive and retain transaction volume—whether through innovative cashback mechanisms, localized marketing capabilities, or by bringing non-crypto-native users onto the platform.

This trajectory closely resembles the rise of fintech neobanks: success has never been just about "issuing cards" or "creating apps," but about mastering a specific user group—from students (SoFi) to low-income families (Chime) to international travelers (Wise and Revolut)—and building trust, loyalty, and scalable transaction volume on that foundation.

If the path is correct, these "payment-first" crypto neobanks could become a significant entry point for driving the large-scale adoption of blockchain infrastructure.

Furthermore, crypto neobanks may also guide users toward a new generation of payment systems that transcend traditional bank card tracks.

Bank card-based consumption may just be a transitional phase—it still relies on the clearing networks of Visa and Mastercard and inherits their centralized constraints. New signals have emerged: for example, Bitget Wallet has launched QR code-based stablecoin payment pilots in Indonesia, Brazil, and Vietnam. This points to a potential future: a crypto-native settlement system that could completely bypass traditional card issuers.

Enterprise Side: Stablecoin Infrastructure and "Stablecoin Chains"

The second type of recently emerging "neobank" applications are stablecoin infrastructure projects designed for enterprises, including Stable, Plasma, Tempo, and Arc, often referred to as "stablecoin chains."

The rise of these projects is significantly driven by the increasing demand from institutional players—traditional banks, fintech companies like Stripe, and existing payment networks—for more efficient capital tracks.

These "stablecoin chains" often share similar characteristics:

  • Using stablecoins as gas tokens to avoid fee instability caused by price fluctuations of custom gas tokens
  • Streamlined consensus mechanisms to accelerate high-frequency, large-value payments from A to B
  • Enhanced transfer privacy through trusted execution environments (TEE)
  • Customized data fields to adapt to international payment standards like ISO 20022

However, mere technological improvements do not guarantee adoption.

For payment-oriented public chains, the real moat lies in merchants. The key question is how many merchants and enterprises are willing to migrate their business to a specific chain.

For example, Tempo attempts to leverage Stripe's vast merchant base and payment network to drive transaction volume and adoption, bringing a new group of merchants into the crypto track. Other chains, like Plasma and Stable, aim to become "first-class citizens" of Tether USDT, reinforcing the role of stablecoins in inter-institutional circulation.

In this field, the most enlightening case is Tron. It handles approximately 25-30% of global stablecoin transaction volume.

Tron's rise is largely attributed to its advantages in emerging markets—such as Nigeria, Argentina, Brazil, and Southeast Asia. With low fees, fast confirmations, and global coverage, Tron has become a common settlement layer for merchant payments, cross-border remittances, and dollar-denominated savings accounts.

For all emerging payment-oriented public chains, Tron is a formidable existing competitor. To challenge it, one must achieve tenfold improvements on a foundation that is already "cheap, fast, and global"—which often means focusing on merchant expansion and network scale rather than marginal technical optimizations.

Growing Money with Crypto

The third relationship that "crypto neobanks" establish with users is helping them achieve capital appreciation (grow money). This is one of the most innovation-dense segments in the crypto space, giving rise to various financial primitives from zero to one—ranging from staking vaults and perpetual contract trading to token issuance platforms and prediction markets. Similar to the previous sections, we can also categorize "capital appreciation" applications along two dimensions: from passive income to active trading, and from frontend interfaces to backend liquidity.

A classic example of a "capital appreciation" application evolving into a fully functional neobank comes from centralized crypto exchanges (CEX), such as Binance or Coinbase. Initially, exchanges offered a simple and effective value proposition—"This is where you grow your wealth by trading crypto assets." As trading volumes continued to rise, exchanges gradually became core places not only for appreciation but also for storing and managing assets.

Both Coinbase and Binance have launched their own blockchains, wallets, institutional-grade products, and crypto cards, monetizing value-added services for their core user groups through new products and network effects. For instance, the adoption rate of Binance Pay continues to rise, with more and more merchants using it to accept crypto payments for everyday goods.

The same path has also been validated in DeFi projects. For example, EtherFi started as a liquid staking protocol for Ethereum, providing passive income for users who re-stake ETH to EigenLayer. Subsequently, EtherFi launched a DeFi strategy vault called "Liquid," allocating user funds within the DeFi ecosystem to pursue higher yields under controlled risks. The project then expanded to EtherFi Cash—a groundbreaking credit card product that allows users to directly spend their EtherFi balance in the real world.

This expansion path closely resembles that of fintech neobanks: establishing a foothold through unique product entry (passive staking and yield), forming the "best solution" in a niche area to gain scale, and then horizontally expanding the product matrix to monetize existing users (like the EtherFi card).

To date, the crypto space has birthed multiple innovations supporting users' "capital appreciation": for instance, perpetual contract platforms like Hyperliquid have grown to become some of the most profitable crypto companies; prediction markets like Polymarket are also gradually entering mainstream visibility. It is highly likely that the next step for these platforms is also to monetize through new product forms—encouraging users to save more, spend more, and leverage network scale effects.

Starting from "capital appreciation platforms," especially active trading platforms, has a significant advantage: high trading frequency and large transaction volumes. For example, Hyperliquid has processed $30 trillion in trading volume over the past 18 months. Compared to "saving platforms" and "payment platforms," "capital appreciation platforms" possess stronger user flywheels and stickiness, meaning they control a larger "captured user pool" that can be converted and monetized in subsequent expansions.

However, at the same time, these platforms are also highly dependent on market cycles and are often labeled as "financial casinos." This reputation may limit their reach to truly global mass user groups—after all, people's psychological expectations of "banks" and "casinos" are ultimately quite different.

Borrowing Money with Crypto

Just as in traditional economic systems, borrowing capacity is a crucial engine driving growth in the on-chain economy. For crypto neobanks, lending is also one of the most critical and sustainable sources of revenue. In traditional financial systems, lending is a highly regulated activity that requires multiple checks such as KYC, credit scoring, and borrowing history; in the crypto world, lending systems exist in both permissioned and permissionless modes, corresponding to different collateral capital requirements.

The current mainstream model in the crypto space is a permissionless, on-chain lending system that requires over-collateralization. DeFi giants like Aave, Morpho, and Sky (formerly MakerDAO) embody the core spirit of crypto's "code is law": since blockchains cannot inherently access users' FICO credit scores or social reputation information, they can only ensure solvency through over-collateralization, sacrificing capital efficiency in exchange for broader accessibility and protection against default risks.

Among these, Morpho is seen as the next-generation evolution of this model. It introduces a more modular, permissionless system design and employs more refined risk pricing mechanisms, enhancing capital efficiency while maintaining security.

On the other end of the spectrum is permissioned lending. As more institutional capital allocators begin to enter DeFi through market-making and other means, this model is gradually gaining adoption. Protocols like Maple Finance, Goldfinch, and Clearpool primarily target institutional users, essentially building "traditional credit counters" on-chain. They enable institutional borrowers to obtain non-over-collateralized loans through strict KYC and off-chain legal agreements.

The moat of these protocols comes not only from liquidity (such as permissionless lending pools) but also from their compliance frameworks and B2B business development capabilities. Additionally, there are some projects in the permissioned lending space—such as Figure Markets, Nexo, and Coinbase's lending products—that primarily target retail borrowers, adopting a compliance-first approach. They require borrowers to complete KYC and over-collateralize assets, and in some cases, are "packaged" as upper-layer products on protocols like Morpho, as seen with Coinbase Lending. In these scenarios, the core appeal often lies in faster settlement speeds and greater availability of funds compared to traditional bank loans.

However, the true "holy grail" in the crypto lending space is non-over-collateralized credit for consumers—this is precisely the breakthrough that fintech products like SoFi and Chime excel at, allowing them to cover the "unbanked population." To date, the crypto industry has yet to achieve substantial breakthroughs in this area, failing to replicate the "consumer credit flywheel" established by fintech neobanks.

The fundamental reason lies in the lack of a robust, witch-hunt-resistant identity system in the crypto world, as well as insufficient real-world constraints on default behavior. The only exception is "flash loans"—a form of instantaneous, uncollateralized lending entirely born from blockchain mechanisms, but they primarily serve arbitrage bots and complex DeFi strategies rather than everyday consumers.

For the next generation of crypto neobanks, the key to competition may lie in advancing into the "middle ground" of this landscape: retaining the speed and transparency of permissionless DeFi while introducing the capital efficiency of traditional lending. The ultimate winners are likely to be platforms that can solve the decentralized identity problem or commoditize it, thereby unlocking consumer credit and allowing crypto to truly reconstruct the financial mechanism of "credit cards." Until then, crypto neobanks may still primarily rely on over-collateralized lending as a core means to support DeFi yields.

Making Money Flow Faster

Fundamentally, the core value proposition of crypto neobanks lies in making money flow faster—just as fintech neobanks like SoFi and Chime achieved over the past decade through mobile applications. The blockchain track essentially "flattens" the distance between any two accounts: a single transfer can complete value transfer without needing to navigate through international banks, the SWIFT system, and countless complex, outdated intermediary systems.

Although the four financial relationships of "saving, spending, growing, and borrowing" utilize this "flattening effect" brought by blockchain in different ways, corresponding to different trade-offs and monetization models, I believe they can ultimately be understood as a pyramid structure defined by the velocity of money.

At the top of the pyramid is capital appreciation (growing money), which has the highest capital turnover speed (e.g., Hyperliquid's trading fees); next is borrowing (monetized through interest); further down is payment (monetized through fees and foreign exchange spreads); and at the bottom is storage (primarily monetized through deposit and withdrawal fees and B2B integrations).

From this perspective, the easiest path to building a crypto neobank may be to start from the capital appreciation and borrowing layers—because these levels have the highest capital flow rates and user engagement. Protocols that first capture "value in motion" often can subsequently extend downward along the pyramid, gradually converting existing users into full-stack financial users.

Opportunities for Neobanks

So, what might be the next steps for crypto neobanks? Where are the opportunities to build the next generation of permissionless neobanks?

I believe there are still several (interrelated) directions worth further exploration:

1) Equivalence of privacy and compliance

2) Composability with the real world

3) Full utilization of "permissionlessness"

4) Localization vs. globalization

5) Non-over-collateralized lending and consumer credit

1. Equivalence of Privacy and Compliance

Stablecoins and the crypto track have clear advantages over traditional financial systems in terms of speed and usability. However, to truly compete head-on with fintech neobanks and existing banking systems, crypto neobanks must achieve functional equivalence on two key dimensions: privacy and compliance.

Although privacy is not universally seen as a necessity in retail consumer scenarios, and stablecoins have achieved large-scale adoption without strong privacy guarantees, as more enterprise-level applications—such as payroll, supply chain financing, and cross-border clearing—migrate on-chain, privacy becomes crucial. This is because the public visibility of B2B transfers may leak business secrets and sensitive information. I believe this is one of the key reasons why many newly launched stablecoin chains emphasize privacy capabilities in their roadmaps.

Conversely, crypto neobanks also need to consider how to achieve equivalence with their predecessors on compliance. This includes gradually building a global regulatory moat and licensing system, and demonstrating to consumers and merchants that crypto solutions are not inferior to traditional finance in terms of compliance—perhaps leveraging new technological paths like zero-knowledge proofs. Only by simultaneously addressing the two major issues of enterprise-level privacy and compliance credibility can crypto neobanks truly achieve scalable expansion that surpasses their fintech predecessors.

2. Composability with the Real World

"Composability" is often viewed as a core advantage of the crypto track—relying on unified standards, frameworks, and smart contracts. However, in reality, this composability is often limited to the internal crypto world: between DeFi primitives, yield protocols, and (mainly EVM) blockchains.

The real challenge of composability lies in how to bridge blockchain standards with legacy standards in the real world: such as international banking systems like SWIFT, merchant POS systems, and standards like ISO 20022, as well as local payment networks like ACH and Pix. With the proliferation of crypto cards and the increasing use of stablecoins in cross-border payments, positive progress has already been made in this direction.

Moreover, most current crypto card products primarily serve crypto-native users, essentially functioning as cash-out tools for "crypto whales." However, the real challenge facing crypto neobanks is to break through the crypto-native population and introduce entirely new user groups through real-world composability and truly innovative financial primitives. Platforms that solve the composability problem will significantly lead in deposit and withdrawal experiences, thereby more efficiently accommodating user scale.

3. Fully Utilizing "Permissionlessness"

Fundamentally, the goal of crypto neobanks is to reshape a more efficient monetary standard: instant settlement, global liquidity, infinite programmability, and free from bottlenecks imposed by any single entity or government.

Today, anyone with a crypto wallet can transact, transfer, or earn yields without intermediaries from fiat currency systems. Crypto neobanks should fully leverage this permissionless nature to accelerate capital flow and build a more efficient financial system.

On the crypto track, global capital flows at internet speed, and its coordination mechanism is no longer administrative orders but incentives and games. The next generation of neobanks will utilize the permissionlessness of blockchain to enable new primitives like perpetual contracts, prediction markets, staking, and token issuance to quickly combine with existing financial tracks.

In economies with high stablecoin penetration, there may even be opportunities to build a permissionless bank card network—a system similar to Visa or Mastercard, but in the opposite direction: no longer converting stablecoins to fiat currency at the consumption end, but defaulting to on-chain settlement; to accommodate traditional payment methods, fiat currency would be "onboarded" as stablecoins.

Furthermore, "permissionlessness" applies not only to human users but may also give rise to an agentic economy. For AI agents, obtaining a crypto wallet is far easier than opening a bank account; with stablecoins, AI agents can autonomously initiate on-chain transactions with user authorization or preset rules. Permissionless neobanks are the foundational base and interaction interface for this "human-agent economy."

4. Localization vs. Globalization

Crypto neobanks also face a strategic choice: depth vs. breadth.

Some may choose a path similar to Nubank, establishing dominance in a single region through deep localization, cultural alignment, and regulatory understanding before expanding outward; others may adopt a global-first strategy, launching permissionless products worldwide and doubling down in regions with the strongest network effects.

Both paths are valid: the former relies on local trust and distribution, while the latter relies on scale and composability. Stablecoins may serve as the "highway" for international payments, but crypto neobanks still need "local exits"—deep integration with regional systems like Pix, UPI, Alipay, and VietQR to achieve true local usability.

In particular, crypto neobanks have a unique opportunity to serve the "unbanked population," providing capital access priced in dollars or crypto in regions with weak financial infrastructure or unstable local currencies. In the future, regional "super apps" and globally composable neobanks may coexist for the long term.

5. Non-over-collateralized Lending and Consumer Credit

Finally, non-over-collateralized lending and consumer credit may be the true "holy grail" for crypto neobanks.

This issue encompasses multiple challenges mentioned earlier: it requires a robust, witch-hunt-resistant identity system; it needs to bridge off-chain credit records with on-chain accounts; it must address the differences in credit models across regions and be compatible with traditional systems. For this reason, non-over-collateralized lending in DeFi is currently primarily concentrated in the institutional private credit space rather than consumer credit—despite the latter being much larger in scale in traditional finance.

Part of the answer may come from innovative mechanism design. Flash loans are a native uncollateralized lending form born from blockchain characteristics. Similarly, smart revolving credit lines built around stablecoins and interest-bearing assets, real-time LTV management, automatic liquidation buffers, and yield auto-repayment may gradually lower collateral requirements.

Once successful, on-chain consumer credit will significantly enhance capital flow rates, providing strong on-chain incentives for the unbanked population and driving overall economic growth, much like credit expansion in the real world.

Conclusion

Just as the rise of fintech neobanks reshaped the banking industry a decade ago, crypto neobanks are also attempting to redefine how we save, spend, grow, and borrow in the digital age. However, unlike fintech neobanks, which primarily innovated the frontend interface, crypto neobanks are trying to update the backend of banking itself—building a global, composable, and censorship-resistant method of value transfer through stablecoins and public blockchains.

Therefore, crypto neobanks are not just an application interface; they may be the gateway to a programmable financial system.

Of course, this journey has only just begun. Building a truly "full-stack crypto neobank" goes far beyond launching a crypto card or a wallet protocol with a UI. It requires a clear target user group, rapid expansion along the product matrix, and establishing advantages in high capital flow areas.

If future crypto neobanks can continue to break through in areas such as privacy and compliance, real-world composability, permissionlessness, local vs. global strategies, and consumer credit, they have the potential to evolve from the marginal entry point of digital assets into the default operating system of the global economy.

Just as the first generation of neobanks changed the "interface" of banking with mobile internet, this generation may rewrite the underlying logic of money itself with cryptographic technology.

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