A year and a half ago, the co-founder of Steakhouse Financial, Adrian Cacinero, had a daughter. He is convinced that she will most likely never open a traditional bank account. Instead, she will keep her money in a digital wallet with stablecoins and tokenized assets. This thought is already shaping the strategy of the company, which manages over four billion dollars in blockchain deposits.
Experts from Binance, Standard Chartered, and other firms see the same trend. Young users in developing markets already prefer apps where payments, savings, and investments happen in one place. Visa is recording billions of dollars in stablecoin turnover in small retail transactions. Standard Chartered predicts their circulation will grow sevenfold to two trillion dollars by 2028.
This is not about the complete disappearance of banks. Banks remain infrastructure providers, regulated deposits, and wholesale settlements. Stablecoins are taking over retail payments and transfers, and tokenized bank deposits are handling large institutional flows. The line between traditional and crypto platforms is blurring: banks are launching crypto services, and crypto companies are offering debit cards and accounts.
For digital natives, the internet is not a novelty but a given. They expect money to move instantly, around the clock, and without intermediaries. Stablecoin transfers already take minutes, not days. At the same time, regulators and security remain key issues: complete self-custody of assets carries the risk of loss without the possibility of recovery.
The convergence is moving towards a super-app model. The user sees cash, tokenized deposits from different banks, stablecoins, and funds in one interface. Banks are not disappearing, but their role is changing: from being the sole repository of money, they are becoming one element of a broader financial ecosystem.
A simple money transfer may become the point where the difference becomes obvious to millions. For those who grew up with a phone in their hands, the choice between a traditional account and a digital wallet no longer seems like a choice in favor of the old way.
