Bybit, one of the world’s biggest crypto exchanges by trading volume, plans to launch retail banking services on its platform starting in February, the company said Thursday.
Bybit unveiled the product, “My Bank powered by Bybit,” during a live online keynote on Thursday.
Bybit CEO Ben Zhou said the service will offer users a personal IBAN (international bank account number), allowing them to send and receive funds across banks in multiple currencies, with US dollar transfers supported at launch. — Cointelegraph report
Bybit went from being hacked for $1.4 billion to onboarding TradFi by bringing tokenized trading of traditional assets and now it's about to launch retail bank accounts.
This is good for people who are outside crypto and looking to get started, it can truly simplify the process and reduce the chances of losing money, either through scams or for simply not knowing what you're doing.
Notwithstanding, for people already inside, it's important to understand what developments like this mean.
There's one reason for DeFi to converge with TradFi
Onboarding liquidity.
Nothing else should matter but the truth is, it's going to be hard to convince people to abandon convenience for the chaos called "self custody" and truly decentralized finance.
The average person isn't capable of handling that level of digital risks.
Every development like this should reminds us that centralized companies such as cryptocurrency exchanges like this, and traditional finance companies such as the banks and asset managers, will always want to lean into the "convenience" advertising.
This means that they will actively sell convenience to people.
They will merge traditional finance with decentralized finance, only that the DeFi in the picture will only be the crypto assets, when it comes down to management and control, these assets will be within the custody of the centralized companies.
Overtime, what this leads to is an industry that ends up just as controlled as the one it was built to break away from.
The way I see it, we have two options.
One is to hope to God that illiteracy rates goes down and the average person is capable of understanding why it's important to move away from centralized finance and can individually manage this transition.
Clearly, anyone can see how that might be a difficult dream for the angels make come true.
So, the second option is to ensure that decentralized finance is an even bigger convenience.
You can't fight convenience with words, "oh this will certainly give you hell, but at least the government can't take your money," — that will almost certainly never work. I dare to say that one thing people hate more than the government is stress, as funny as it might sound.
As such, while developments like this helps promote crypto to the masses, it risks giving these centralized companies control over the industry and developers who are serious about making DeFi happen, need to understand that sovereign tech and solutions need to improve