3. Problem Statement
Global Finance Is Fundamentally Broken
The modern financial system is characterized by extreme fragmentation, lack of privacy, fiat↔crypto silos, and no intelligent automation.
Fragmentation
The Core Problem: Users and businesses must juggle 5–15 different financial service providers just to manage basic operations.
Example Scenarios
Global retail user
Bank + crypto exchange + on/off-ramp + wallet + payment processor + card issuer
Web3 founder
Bank + crypto exchange + stable settlement + merchant processor + treasury tool + card issuer
SMB doing cross-border
Bank + crypto exchange + on/off-ramp + wire service + FX provider + card issuer
Each system has:
Different KYC/AML requirements
Different UX and APIs
Different rules and limits
Different compliance regimes
Different settlement times (instant to 5+ days)
Different fees (0.5–5% per transaction)
Impact:
Time waste: Hours per week managing multiple logins, verifications, transfers
Cost: Redundant KYC fees, FX spreads, processing fees
Risk: Balances held across many custodians and keys
Friction: Cross-border transactions take 2–5 days and cost 2–5%
Lack of Privacy
The Core Problem: Financial surveillance is baked into both traditional and crypto finance.
Traditional finance:
Banks collect excessive personal and transactional data
Data stored in centralized “honeypots”
Users have no meaningful control over third-party data sharing
Data is monetized without user compensation
Crypto finance:
On-ramps and crypto cards recreate the same surveillance patterns
Blockchains are public; transactions are fully visible
Exchanges are custodial and data-heavy
Users lack control over metadata usage
Impact:
Privacy risk: Targeted theft, discrimination, surveillance
Data risk: Breaches and leaks
Control risk: No say in how data is used
Identity risk: Loss of financial sovereignty
Fiat ↔ Crypto Silos
The Core Problem: Fiat and crypto remain siloed despite complementary strengths. [file:59]
Traditional finance
Regulatory trust, stable value, legal rails
Slow, border-bound, no on-chain composability
Crypto/DeFi
Fast, borderless, composable, censorship-resistant
Volatile, complex UX, regulatory risk
Current friction:
On-ramps and off-ramps are slow (1–3 days) and expensive (2–5%)
Merchant settlement is complex and risky
DeFi yields cannot be directly spent in fiat
Cross-border flows require multiple intermediaries
No Financial Operating System
Every other major industry has an operating system (iOS, Android, Windows, AWS). Finance does not.
Current state:
Finance is reactive, fragmented, dumb, and unsafe.
A true OS would enable:
Unified interface for all financial activity
Integrated data in a single ledger
Autonomous agents that act within user-defined rules
Network effects via third-party builders
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