Fintech’s Coming Stampede: Why Every Firm Will Have Their Own Blockchain (And a Headache)

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What to know:

  • According to Sam McIngvale of OP Labs, the feverish success of Coinbase’s layer-2 network, Base, has caused a flurry in the poultry yard—every firm suddenly wants its own shiny blockchain.
  • Layer 2s: Not just a place to hang your hat, but a means to lure customers and scrape some revenue from the floorboards.
  • Why let your crypto sit idle, sleeping like Ivan Ivanovich after too much soup, when it can be out lending and borrowing in the grand market waltz?

A chill wind—perhaps optimism, perhaps hubris—blows through the fintech streets: OP Labs, those tireless builders atop Ethereum’s never-finished foundation, assure us it is only a question of time before each and every cryptocurrency exchange and fintech upstart will have its own blockchain. In five years, your grocer may have one too (blockchain tomatoes, anyone?).

“It’s simple logic,” says Sam McIngvale, whose hair may or may not have turned grey watching Base’s wild success. Base, Coinbase’s layer-2 marvel, appeared in 2023 and promptly attracted developers like breadcrumbs lure city pigeons. The biggest revelation is this: coupling Base with Coinbase’s bitcoin-backed loans lets once-dormant crypto assets (resting in the cold, like Dostoevsky’s savings) finally get to work earning their daily bread.

Base, by the way, stands proudly atop Optimism’s OP Stack, software built with the noble but not infallible dream of making blockchains faster and cheap enough that even Ivan from the provinces can afford a transaction. Now Base is, by many measures, the czar of layer-2s—a total value locked to make a banker blush.

“I expect every exchange, every fintech—a veritable choir of digital accountants—will soon run their own blockchain,” McIngvale intones. “There will be buttons! So many buttons! Press one, and your bitcoin flies to Base like a bird to warmer climates, where you can borrow USDC and spend with gleeful abandon. Magic, or madness? Sometimes I do not know.”

As for Optimism—its very name a wink to the universe—its rollups presume all is well unless told otherwise, a mechanism not entirely unlike Russian optimism at the start of winter. These rollups ferry transactions off-chain, sparing Ethereum’s main layer from stress—a bit like handing your paperwork to a distant cousin. Meanwhile, zero-knowledge proofs lurk in the wings, waving cryptographic certificates and whispering, “Trust me, I did the math.”

McIngvale, custodian of coins and, perhaps, lost afternoons at Coinbase, notes that holding crypto is not the idle pastime it seems: “There’s a cost. Not like those carefree equity shares off somewhere earning their keep. Crypto sits, cold and naive, while the fees gnaw at its bones. But change is coming; even if it takes its sweet time like spring in Moscow.”

Crypto exchanges everywhere sense a disturbance in the force—a whiff of Base envy. Now Kraken struts out with Ink (also built with a dose of Optimism), and the likes of Bybit, Bitget, OKX, and even Robinhood peer hungrily at their own blockchains. Soon, perhaps, there will be chains enough to trip over in the hallway.

Optimism’s vision borders on the operatic—blockchains linked together in a “Superchain,” so one may flit among them as a worthy browser jumps from website to website, seeking meaning, or more likely, memes. “Early crypto adopters,” McIngvale recalls with the air of a man who has seen things, “tolerated UX calamities—the twelve-second waits, the $50 fees. It was the mid-90s internet all over again, just with more cryptography and fewer AOL CDs.”

And so, the future looms: blockchains for all, headaches only for the unlucky, and for the rest of us, a front-row seat at the greatest comedy this side of St. Petersburg. 🪙💸🤦

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2025-06-18 12:53