Blockchain: The Bank-Busting Tech You Didn’t Know You Needed

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Blockchain: The Bank-Busting Tech You Didn’t Know You Needed

Asheesh Birla, a board member at Ripple – yes, that Ripple, the blockchain company that’s turning the world of finance on its head – has recently had an epiphany. According to him, blockchain is “unbundling” banks. It’s like if your local bank were a TV show, and blockchain was the network exec that decided it needed a spin-off.

Now, let’s all take a moment and try to visualize what he means. It’s like the internet did to newspapers. Remember when newspapers used to be those bulky, paper-filled things? They were the go-to source for everything, from news to coupons for discounted pizza. But then, the internet showed up and said, “Hold my WiFi,” and split newspapers into a thousand tiny pieces. Classifieds became Craigslist. Recipes became Pinterest. Job listings got themselves LinkedIn. Opinions? Oh, they just got themselves a nice little home over at Substack and Medium.

And now, according to Birla, banking’s getting the same treatment. Banks, like those old-fashioned newspapers, are getting sliced and diced by blockchain. Say goodbye to the old, chunky banking system, and hello to a thousand techy, decentralised pieces!

And as if that wasn’t enough, Birla is in good company with his beliefs. Bloomberg’s Matt Levine – who’s been known to make complicated financial topics sound like a stand-up comedy set – also agrees. He thinks stablecoins are the emerging stars of what he calls “narrow banking.” Sounds riveting, right? Narrow banking, like trying to fit a giraffe into a phone booth – fun concept, but not entirely sure how it works.

But hey, no one’s crying over it, because in the world of blockchain, things are going swimmingly. The market cap of Ripple USD (RLUSD) has now surpassed a whopping $300 million. Yes, you read that correctly. $300 million. I bet that could buy a lot of pizza coupons, or at least some highly exclusive blockchain-fueled recipe blogs.

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2025-05-14 11:52