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Q1. As financial services become increasingly programmable and global, what do you think the “bank” of the future will actually look like, and how different will it be from the institutions we know today?
A: The bank of the future will likely be less defined by the institution itself and more by the financial capabilities it provides. Users will not necessarily care whether a particular function comes from a bank, fintech, stablecoin infrastructure, or an onchain platform. They will care about whether they can access, move, hold, and use value reliably.
The biggest change will be underneath the user experience. Financial infrastructure will become more programmable, more connected across markets, and increasingly capable of moving value in real time. The strongest financial products will absorb that complexityso users can make payments, transfer value, access liquidity, or manage different forms of digital money without thinking about the network or settlement layer being used. That is where I see the next generation of banking developing.
Q2. If you believe the future of finance will be built around onchain infrastructure, what is the one part of traditional banking you think is most likely to disappear or become fundamentally different first?
A: I think the first major change will be the way value moves between institutions, markets, and users. Traditional banking has been built around separate systems, intermediaries, operating hours, and processes that were designed for an earlier financial environment.
Onchain infrastructure changes that by making value movement more direct and programmable. The opportunity is not only faster transactions. It is the ability to connect parts of the financial system that have historically operated separately. Traditional banking will not disappear, but the underlying movement of value can become more direct, more interoperable, and less dependent on legacy settlement paths.
Q3. We are seeing banks, fintechs, stablecoin issuers and payment networks increasingly move into the same territory. Do you think the biggest financial players of the next decade will still look like banks, or will entirely new types of financial institutions emerge?
A: The biggest financial players of the next decade will not all look like banks. Some banks will remain important, but only where they continue to provide useful financial functions and adapt to a more programmable payment environment. At the same time, new types of financial institutions will emerge around digital value, stablecoin settlement, custody, user experience, compliance, and infrastructure.
The reason is that financial services are becoming layered. The company that owns the customer relationship may not be the same company that issues the asset, provides fiat access, handles custody, or supports settlement. Banks, stablecoin issuers, custodians, fintechs, payment platforms, and infrastructure providers can all operate through regulated structures and take responsibility for different parts of the stack. The winners will be the companies that connect these layers into products that feel simple for users and reliable for the market.
Q4. One of the biggest promises of blockchain is giving users more control over their assets. But consumers also value convenience and protection. How do you think the industry can give people genuine ownership without making them responsible for all the complexity that comes with it?
A: The industry needs to stop treating ownership and protection as opposites. Genuine ownership should mean that users have clearer control over their assets, more transparency over how value moves, and less dependence on closed systems. But that does not mean every user should manage private keys, networks, recovery, liquidity, and settlement decisions on their own.
The right model is protected ownership. Users should be able to choose what they want to do with their value, while the product handles the operational complexity and builds in safeguards around recovery, risk controls, verification, and transaction clarity. If blockchain gives users more control but removes every layer of support, it will not reach normal financial behavior. The next stage is giving people ownership they can actually use, not ownership that only works for technical users.
Q5. Visa and other major financial networks are increasingly exploring onchain payments. At what point do you think the distinction between “traditional finance” and “crypto finance” simply stops being useful?
A: I think that distinction will become less useful as the infrastructure becomes more integrated. We are already seeing traditional payment networks and financial institutions engage with onchain technology because they see practical value in faster settlement, digital assets, and new forms of payment infrastructure.
At some point, users will not think about whether a payment is traditional or crypto-based. They will simply expect the payment to work.
The transition becomes meaningful when blockchain becomes part of the infrastructure rather than the product story. If a business can receive funds, settle transactions, manage liquidity, and reconcile payments without needing to understand the underlying blockchain, then the distinction becomes largely technical.
Q6. Stablecoins are getting most of the attention today, but tokenized deposits, tokenized real-world assets and other forms of digital money are developing at the same time. If you were designing the financial system from scratch today, what would the ideal mix of these technologies look like?
A: If I were designing the system from scratch, I would not build it around one form of digital money. I would design it as an interoperable system where different forms of value serve different functions.
Tokenized deposits can be useful where bank money, institutional relationships, and account-based structures are still needed. Stablecoins can serve as portable settlement assets across platforms, markets, and onchain environments. Tokenized real-world assets can bring ownership, collateral, and value representation into programmable systems. The ideal mix is about making these layers work together so that value can move, settle, and be used more efficiently.
Q7. A lot of blockchain adoption has focused on making transactions faster and cheaper. What do you think is the next major problem blockchain can solve in finance that the industry is currently overlooking?
A: The overlooked problem is financial coordination between systems that do not naturally talk to each other. Faster and cheaper transactions are useful, but a payment does not become complete simply because value has moved. The recipient still needs to access it, the business needs to reconcile it, and the product needs to connect that movement to a broader financial workflow.
Blockchain can help create a common environment for value movement, settlement, verification, and reconciliation across different platforms and markets. That is a more important opportunity than speed alone. The next stage is not only making transactions faster. It is making financial systems work together with less operational fragmentation.
Q8. WeFi is building infrastructure in a market where the technology, regulation and consumer behavior are all changing simultaneously. As CEO, how do you decide which trends are genuinely worth building around and which are simply hype?
A: The starting point is always the problem rather than the technology. We ask what financial action the user or business is trying to complete, where the existing process becomes difficult, and whether the technology actually improves that experience.
A blockchain feature can sound innovative, but if it creates more steps, more complexity, or more operational risk for the user, it has not necessarily created value.
The second consideration is whether the solution can operate within a real financial environment. Regulation, partners, liquidity, security, and operational requirements all matter. A product cannot be considered successful simply because it works technically.
For me and WeFi, the distinction between trend becomes worth building around only when it solves a structural problem and can survive the realities of financial infrastructure.
Q9. If we revisit this interview five years from now, what is the one prediction about banking, or stablecoins that you would most want to be able to say, “I told you so” about?
A: My prediction is that the biggest stablecoin adoption story will not look like a crypto story. It will look like ordinary financial products using onchain value movement without users needing to know which rail is underneath.
People often imagine adoption as a moment when everyone starts talking about a new technology. In financial services, adoption usually looks different. The product becomes more useful, the money moves more efficiently, and the infrastructure stops being the user’s problem. If we revisit this in five years, I think the strongest signal will be stablecoins and onchain value becoming part of normal financial activity without becoming the product story.
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