More Crypto Firms Want to Be Banks
Plus, IPO shares are coming on-chain
Olivia Capozzalo & Camila Russo
March 05, 2026
gm, Defiers!
Today’s big story:
- In the span of a week, three crypto-linked companies moved closer to the heart of the U.S. financial system.
In other news:
- Backpack launches on-chain IPOs
- RedStone oracles deploy on Stellar
- Western Union launches Solana stablecoin
- Feature: How Gold, Bitcoin, and Oil Have Performed Since Trump Took Office
- Crypto Payments: What Holds a Web3 Business Together | Mercuryo [SPONSORED]
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📈 Markets in the Past 24 Hours
| TICKER | VALUE | 24H | |
|---|---|---|---|
 | Bitcoin | $71,232 | -3.02 % |
 | Ethereum | $2,087.93 | -3.82 % |
 | BNB | $650.67 | -1.67 % |
 | XRP | $1.41 | -2.95 % |
 | Solana | $89.2 | -4.42 % |
Today’s Big Story
Crypto and TradFi Are Merging — But Will DeFi Become the Rails?
In the span of a week, three crypto-linked companies moved closer to the heart of the U.S. financial system.
Kraken secured a Federal Reserve master account. Revolut applied for a U.S. bank charter. And crypto infrastructure firm zerohash filed for a national trust bank charter.
Individually, each announcement is significant. Together, they signal something even bigger: crypto companies are no longer trying to sit outside the financial system. They are pushing directly into its core.
And according to TD Cowen, this wave is just getting started. The investment bank told The Block that more crypto firms are likely to pursue both Federal Reserve master accounts and banking licenses in the coming years. The logic is simple. If crypto is going to operate at scale in the U.S., it needs stable access to the dollar system.
Each company is pursuing a different path into that system.
Kraken’s move is arguably the most consequential. Its Wyoming-chartered bank, Kraken Financial, received a Federal Reserve master account — albeit a limited purpose one — allowing it to hold reserves directly at the Fed and access payment rails without going through a traditional bank intermediary.
In practical terms, this means Kraken can move dollars through the financial system without relying on a commercial bank partner.
No Debanking Risk
For crypto firms, that removes one of the biggest structural risks they have faced: debanking. Over the past several years, exchanges and crypto companies have repeatedly seen their banking relationships disappear overnight, sometimes after quiet regulatory pressure. Then, the collapses of Silvergate and Signature Bank in 2023 only reinforced how fragile those rails were, even when they were able to use them.
Direct access to the Fed changes that equation. It makes Kraken far less dependent on the goodwill of traditional banks.
Revolut’s approach is different. The London-based fintech, which already offers crypto trading to millions of users globally, has applied for a full U.S. bank charter. If approved, Revolut would effectively become a regulated American bank able to offer deposit accounts, lending, and payments alongside its crypto services.
In other words, instead of a crypto firm gaining banking access, this is a fintech bank fully integrating crypto into its product stack.
Zerohash represents yet another model. The company powers crypto infrastructure for firms like Stripe, Interactive Brokers, and fintech apps that want to offer digital asset trading without building their own backend. Its application for a national trust bank charter would allow it to expand regulated custody and settlement services for digital assets.
The goal is not to become a consumer bank, but to become core infrastructure for financial institutions entering crypto.
What all three moves share is an effort to eliminate the fragile boundary between crypto and the traditional financial system.
The Line Is Blurring
For years, that boundary defined the industry. Crypto companies relied on banks to access fiat rails, while banks largely stayed away from crypto exposure. Each side treated the other as an external system.
That separation is eroding quickly.
Crypto firms are becoming banks, fintech banks are embedding crypto, and infrastructure providers are building regulated bridges between the two worlds.
The result is a slow but steady convergence.
For a long time, one of crypto’s most ambitious predictions was that decentralized finance would eventually merge with the broader financial system. Not as a separate ecosystem, but as the rails underneath it. That transition is already well underway.
The line between crypto and traditional finance is being crossed from both directions. And if the trend continues, the industry’s favorite prediction might soon come true. DeFi will simply be Fi.
With love,
Cami, founder of The Defiant
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🎬WATCH
Did L2 Fragment Ethereum? — With Yuval Rooz, CEO of Digital Asset, Co-Founder of Canton
In this episode of The Defiant Podcast, Cami sits down with Yuval Rooz, CEO of Digital Asset and co-founder of Canton, who says permissioned blockchains and not zk are the key to onchain privacy. He also believes L2s have overall hurt Ethereum as they have made it more centralized.
Watch the full interview:
Top News in the Past 24 Hours
Backpack Teams Up with Superstate to Offer On-Chain IPO Access
Centralized exchange (CEX) and wallet app Backpack announced that it will offer early access to initial public offerings on-chain in partnership with Superstate.
Why it matters: The move expands on an existing partnership with Superstate and looks to democratize access to IPOs before shares are traded on the open market.
RedStone Oracle Infra Goes Live on Stellar to Boost DeFi on the Network
Blockchain oracle provider RedStone has officially launched its price feed infrastructure on the Stellar blockchain, saying it will allow DeFi on the network to grow.
Why it matters: Stellar is the fifth-largest blockchain network in terms of RWA value on-chain, with $1.3 billion in distributed asset value.
Trump Supports Crypto Industry in Stablecoin Yield Battle
In a social media post, President Trump criticized the banking industry, accusing it of undermining his crypto agenda, and called for progress on the Clarity Act.
Why it matters: The broader crypto market structure bill passed in the House last year, but has stalled in the Senate as negotiations over different drafts continue.
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