According to Gizmodo, US Bancorp is testing its own stablecoin on the Stellar blockchain, with senior vice president Mike Villano highlighting Stellar’s suitability for traditional finance as a key advantage. The pilot focuses on faster cross-border payments while incorporating customer verification and transaction reversals. CEO Gunjan Kedia noted stablecoin demand remains muted, but the bank sees potential in the technology. Villano specifically called the ability to freeze assets on Stellar “particularly appealing,” a feature that directly contradicts Bitcoin’s original vision of censorship-resistant money. This comes as multiple traditional players enter the space, including Klarna launching KlarnaUSD on Stripe’s Tempo chain and Revolut offering fee-free stablecoin swaps to its 65 million users.
The Great Banking Takeover
Here’s the thing: crypto was supposed to be about decentralization and financial sovereignty. But what we’re seeing now is basically banks and fintech companies adopting the technology while stripping away everything that made it revolutionary. The ability to freeze assets? That’s the exact opposite of what Satoshi envisioned. And when Circle’s CEO tweets “Circle ♥️ Banks,” it’s pretty clear which direction this whole industry is heading.
Look at the pattern: Klarna, MoneyGram, Revolut, Deel, Citi, JPMorgan – they’re all jumping on stablecoins because it makes their existing services more efficient. But they’re not building decentralized systems. They’re building slightly faster versions of what banks already do, with all the same control mechanisms. So what’s really being disrupted here?
Decentralization Theater
The most glaring contradiction is how dependent so-called “DeFi” has become on these centrally-issued stablecoins. Ethereum and other chains basically run on these bank-friendly tokens now. It makes you wonder – is DeFi mostly decentralized in name only? When the entire financial activity of a blockchain depends on assets that can be frozen by their issuers, how decentralized can it really be?
And the political angle is fascinating too. The Trump administration’s GENIUS Act basically treats stablecoins as a way to extend dollar dominance globally. Meanwhile, the Samourai Wallet developers get prison time for money transmission violations while the Binance CEO gets a pardon. The message seems pretty clear: play nice with the existing financial system, and you’ll be fine. Try to build actual private, peer-to-peer money, and you’re in trouble.
Lost the Plot
Remember when crypto was supposed to be about trustless systems and cutting out intermediaries? Now we’ve got banks getting excited about being able to freeze your assets. The tension between the original cypherpunks and the new bank-friendly builders is becoming impossible to ignore. When Ethereum Foundation researchers jump to projects like Tempo, it’s a pretty strong signal about where the money and attention are flowing.
Basically, crypto has become exactly what it was supposed to replace. It’s turning into efficient banking infrastructure with blockchain branding. And the most ironic part? The technology that was meant to eliminate the need for trust in financial institutions is now being celebrated specifically because it lets those same institutions maintain control. So much for the revolution.
