Ebook Overview: “The New Intersection of Cash – The place TradFi and DeFi Converge”

Writer: Scarlett Sieber (with Ian Fong, Tina Loncaric, Dhanum Nursigadoo, Virginia Pereira Alvarez, Kinga Swiderska)

Revealed by: Routledge (an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa enterprise), New York and London, Could 2026   

“Intersection” or “Inflection Level”? That is the query I saved asking myself as I learn this very well timed and considerate guide on the present interaction between conventional banking and monetary providers (TradFi) and decentralized, disintermediated peer-to-peer (P2P) networks constructed on open-source, permissionless, cryptographically-enhanced and blockchain-enabled networks (DeFi).

First, this isn’t an in depth historical past of blockchain know-how, Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies or digital belongings. In actual fact, “Bitcoin” barely will get a point out within the 200 pages right here. The main focus may be very a lot on steady cash, and the foundational function they play in bringing TradFi on-chain, and the way banks, regulators and repair suppliers are connecting their legacy plumbing to the broader blockchain infrastructure. This implies that steady cash are actually only one sub-set of this new monetary universe (to increase the Venn Diagram metaphor), albeit an important a part of the eco-system.

Second, that is neither a technical guide nor an instructional treatise – which implies it ought to enchantment to a large viewers, particularly these crypto-sceptic readers who would possibly suppose that blockchain and digital belongings don’t have anything to do with their lives.

Third, the “Inflection Level” on the coronary heart of this guide isn’t just the banking sector’s engagement with fiat-backed steady cash (which has solely taken 8-10 years, for the reason that launch of USDT and USDC…); it is usually the fast charge of recent laws (particularly within the USA and EU) that has introduced some long-needed regulatory readability to the broad spectrum of DeFi actions. The chapter on these regulatory developments is important studying for anybody eager to navigate the principles of engagement on this new “TradFi meets DeFi” actuality, and is refreshingly free from legalese. The guide additionally helpfully units out the probably subsequent phases in DeFi’s evolution and absorption into the mainstream, and identifies the important thing alternatives for TradFi incumbents and DeFi upstarts alike – in core banking, e-commerce and cross-border funds. There may be some dialogue of actual world asset tokenisation (RWAs) and safety token choices (STOs), however given the guide’s genesis is this system of worldwide conferences and occasions hosted by Cash 20/20 (like Routledge, additionally an Informa enterprise), it’s comprehensible that the creator’s precept theme is “cash and funds”.

From Early Beginnings

One matter I completely concur with the creator is the important use case of DeFi – P2P monetary transactions. My very own first publicity to Bitcoin was at a 2013 pitch evening in Melbourne’s silicon alley: Asher Tan, co-founder of Coinjar, used the instance of a vacationer in Japan needing to get some money out over a protracted weekend. As anybody who has been to Japan will know, it’s nonetheless largely a money society, however as a foreigner, not many ATM’s settle for abroad financial institution playing cards. Crypto’s 24/7, “all the time on”, near-instantaneous P2P settlement and low transaction charges make for a really compelling use case in that context. 

The place I are likely to differ from the creator is her broad thesis that “crypto” is merely a speculative asset, topic to scams, uncovered to technical vulnerabilities, and displaying a scarcity of accountability. I want to provide a extra constructive viewpoint, drawing on a decade of working with Courageous New Coin, and our sibling firm, Techemy Capital. 

General, the guide seems to completely ignore utility tokens. Largely, I think, as a result of the creator equates utility tokens with Preliminary Coin Choices (ICOs), and as such, places them within the bucket marked “scams”. It’s true that many ICOs failed, and lots of people misplaced some huge cash. However let’s contemplate why ICOs had been a important a part of crypto’s growth. 

From ICOs to NFTs

ICOs had been an vital proof of idea in decentralized monetary providers. Fairly aside from being less expensive than an IPO (since ICOs didn’t deliver the identical degree of compliance prices), ICOs had been in all probability the primary instance of a brand new asset class that was “retail first”. In different phrases, any purchaser with a digital pockets and a few Bitcoin or Ethereum might take part. They might commit as little as $10, didn’t should have a brokerage account, and so they had direct custody, management and possession of the tokens – whereas, many IPOs have a lot bigger minimal subscriptions, are topic to brokerage and different middleman charges, and often have vital underwriting prices which solely funding banks and main fund managers can facilitate. In an ICO, any unsold tokens merely remained unminted, or had been locked pending some future occasion, or had been listed on exchanges as secondary markets. 

I’m not saying that the ICO mannequin was excellent, and I don’t deny that some ICOs ought to by no means have gone forward. At Techemy Capital, between 2017 and 2019, we labored on round 30 completely different ICO tasks (and turned down approaches to work with many dozens extra). Our first job as consultants was to ask every ICO mission group, looking for our assist, the next questions: 1) Why does your mission must be on the blockchain? 2) Why do you want your individual native chain? 3) Why do you want your individual native token?

The overwhelming majority of those ICOs had been utility tokens – i.e., the tokens acted as software program licenses or SaaS-type subscriptions. As such the tokens had been the price of entry to entry and use the providers offered by the community or protocol. I can consider three ICOs specifically that we labored with, that had been extraordinarily prescient, and all of that are excellent use instances for blockchain and utility tokens:

Chainlink solves the issue that on-chain good contracts nonetheless want entry to off-chain knowledge to be able to operate. For instance, if an on-chain derivatives contract depends upon the value of gold, it wants real-time, on-chain knowledge from off-chain commodities markets. Chainlink introduced the idea of on-chain knowledge “oracles” into wider software. Now, after all (and that is talked about within the guide), Chainlink has developed into a big piece of “DeFi meets TradFi” infrastructure, with providers equivalent to CCIP (Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol – the “TCP/IP of the blockchain world”). The LINK token is a part of the price of entry to make use of Chainlink providers, and acts slightly like a SaaS transaction payment.

Salt Lending was one of many first blockchain tasks to simply accept cryptocurrencies as collateral for fiat-denominated loans. Though Salt needed to cope with some early regulatory points, it continues to supply private and enterprise loans backed by Bitcoin. The SALT token was much like a membership payment, giving customers entry to issues like mortgage software providers, lowered origination charges, and “loyalty” reductions on lending phrases, for instance. Nevertheless, it was deemed to be a safety, both due to the potential distribution to token holders a part of the curiosity earned from its lending exercise, or due to expectations from secondary buying and selling. However the SALT token might even have been an instance of a hybrid token – that mixes utility, a possible retailer of worth, and as a car for distributing industrial income. And now that debtors can use Bitcoin as collateral for mortgage downpayments, it’s apparent how forward of TradFi a mission like Salt Lending was.    

Aventus was an on-chain ticketing and occasion administration platform. It enabled occasion organisers, venues, promoters, sporting our bodies and artists to regulate the sale, distribution, re-sale and verification of live performance and sport tickets. It addressed problems with counterfeits, scalping, over-selling, and dynamic pricing – all of which proceed to be main complications for the leisure trade. The utility token was designed to seize each the platform (origination) prices and the transaction (distribution) prices, in addition to serving because the authentication and validation layer on the level of redemption. The token may additionally have appreciated with community adoption, occasion add-ons and different premium packages, and secondary market gross sales – however at coronary heart, it wasn’t a safety token, due to the direct utility it offered. After all, Aventus was launched earlier than the appearance of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), and a live performance ticket is only one instance of an NFT.

NFTs themselves additionally get dismissed on this guide as a rip-off – with the creator singling out Bored Ape Yacht Club because the NFT mission to taint all others. I believe NFTs will but show to be an vital financial instrument for authors, musicians, artists and different creatives, to assist them shield, license and monetise their mental property. Think about if a streaming service like Spotify was on-chain, and each uploaded track was handled like an NFT – to not denote or bestow possession on listeners, however to supply transparency on what number of occasions a track is performed (and by what number of completely different folks), and to cost listeners micro-payments every time they play it. Musicians might additionally restrict the place, how typically and by whom a track may very well be performed. (Now consider how I might tokenise this evaluate as an NFT, and cost AI instruments after they prepare their LLMs on my article, and every time they draw on that content material in response to look queries and AI prompts.)

Though agentic AI will get a point out within the guide, it’s within the context of issues like company treasury and steadiness sheet effectivity: e.g., utilizing AI to search out the very best yield in your steady coin holdings. Elsewhere, there’s a dialogue of AI within the use (or misuse) of id administration, belief, zero-knowledge proofs and verification. However there isn’t a dialogue of issues like wallet-enabled agentic AI, which is the place we’re in all probability heading with issues like portfolio building and rebalancing, for instance.

Pondering again to the ICO period, one of many recurring themes that Techemy Capital incessantly engaged with was the thought of tokenising decentralized computing networks – utilizing distributed CPU and GPU capability to mannequin natural compounds, render advanced graphics for Hollywood movies, or to course of unstructured databases. Relatively like AI platforms charging tokens for every immediate…. and naturally, many Bitcoin miners have pivoted to being knowledge centres to satisfy the demand for cloud computing and AI processing.    

Two different noticeable omissions (and one shocking point out) on this guide: 

Hyperledger – the early DLT/blockchain resolution for the logistics and provide chain trade. Given the significance of commerce finance to the worldwide economic system, and the function that banks play in underwriting the sale, motion and supply of products (letters of credit score, factoring, bill financing, set-off and foreign exchange transactions), I’d have anticipated to see a mission like this come up.

ASX CHESS substitute – no point out of the $250m spent on a failed mission to interchange the Australian Securities Trade’s legacy equities clearing and settlement system (CHESS) with a DLT resolution from Digital Asset Holdings. The failure of this mission was in all probability a key cause why institutional adoption of blockchain and digital asset capabilities in Australia stalled.

R3 Corda – shocked to see this title in print, as I believed this mission was lengthy gone. At one time a consortium of main banks and monetary establishments shaped to discover blockchain and DLT alternatives, I recall talking to at least one Australian financial institution in round 2017 that had not too long ago left the mission as a result of it was going nowhere, and never getting any traction. Looks as if Corda has reinvented itself as an RWA yield vault on Solana.  

Lastly, I typically take into consideration how completely different the International Monetary Disaster (GFC) may need been (or would possibly by no means have occurred) if Residential Mortgage Backed Securities (RMBS) had been on-chain. As an alternative of RMBS buyers having comparatively little transparency on the amount, high quality and efficiency of underlying mortgage portfolios, think about if that they had entry to real-time knowledge in regards to the on-chain mortgages inside every RMBS on problem – together with Mortgage-to-Worth ratios, rates of interest, fee charges, arrears, redemptions and foreclosures. Relatively than having to depend on historic (month-to-month or quarterly) reporting, that was additionally opaque and never simply interrogated, entry to on-chain knowledge may need meant they had been higher knowledgeable, and higher capable of establish purple flags when portfolios went unhealthy.

The New Intersection of Cash – The place TradFi and DeFi Converge is available now.