In his new book, "How Countries Go Broke" Ray Dalio states the core function of banks is to "match lenders and borrowers, earning a spread".
I will add:
"That function is being completely replaced by Bitcoin and DeFi."
Banks are obsolete. 🧵
For centuries, banks served as trust brokers. They held your money, lent it out, and skimmed the spread. That worked in a world of paper, middlemen, and closed systems.
But today, trust is programmable.
Collateral is digital.
Settlement is instant.
The bank is just code. 2/N
We saw this play out first with exchanges.
Back in 2018, I told Miko Matsumura that DEXs would replace centralized exchanges.
It took a few years, but now it’s obvious: Uniswap, Raydium, Jupiter — they’ve already won.
3/N
No CEO required
The same revolution is happening in lending.
Aave and Compound showed the way:
Depositors earn yield
Borrowers post collateral
Smart contracts enforce rules
No credit scores. No loan officers. No human risk committees. Just logic and liquidity. 4/N
But the real endgame isn’t DeFi on Ethereum.
It’s Bitcoin as base capital.
No inflation. No counterparty risk.
Just the hardest money ever invented, finally made usable as collateral.
When DeFi runs on Bitcoin, the banking system is truly done. 5/N
Enter Libre — a Bitcoin-native lending protocol.
You deposit BTC into a smart contract vault.
You instantly receive USDT against it.
You stay in full control, and your Bitcoin remains verifiably unmoved.
No bank. No custodian. No waiting. 6/N
Libre gives you what banks can’t:
Transparent vaults
Non-custodial security
Global access in seconds
Borrow stablecoins, spend freely, repay when ready — and reclaim your BTC.
It’s self-sovereign credit, powered by code. 7/N
This model is global by default.
Libre, Aave, and others are building a new financial system where all you need is:
Bitcoin
A wallet
A browser
No borders. No bailouts. No discrimination.
Just capital flowing freely — by design. 8/N
Dalio defined the bank’s role: match lenders and borrowers, earn a spread.
That used to require buildings, suits, and trust.
Now it only requires code.
Bitcoin is the capital.
DeFi is the marketplace.
And the old system?
Already irrelevant. 9/9
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