Traditional banks will not dominate the crypto market. Stijn Vander Straeten, CEO of Deutsche Börse subsidiary Crypto Finance, revealed why crypto-native platforms are moving faster on innovation.
The assessment is notable given Vander Straeten leads a firm owned by one of the world’s largest traditional exchange operators. His company is FINMA-regulated in Switzerland and was among the first to secure MiCA licensing in Europe.
Banks Lag, Crypto Leads
In an interview with BeInCrypto at MERGE São Paulo, Vander Straeten explained that large financial institutions must wait for regulators before entering new spaces. That structural delay means DeFi adoption by banks could take another 5 to 10 years.
Meanwhile, crypto-native platforms are already pressuring traditional finance from the opposite direction. They offer weekend stock trading and instant settlement. Younger investors, he argued, do not accept waiting two days for a stock trade to settle.
“I think the newer generation does not understand why if they sell a stock today they have to wait 2 days until it’s settled. They want to reinvest instantly at their fingertip,” Vander Straeten stated.
That pressure is forcing banks to modernize, but the gap will persist. Large institutions will never risk operating without clear regulatory frameworks.
Still, the regulatory picture is shifting fast. The SEC and CFTC jointly classified 16 crypto assets as digital commodities on March 17.
Vander Straeten acknowledged that banks earn trust precisely because they play by the rules. Professional investors demand governance that crypto-native platforms often lack.
“Challenger platforms will always be quicker when it comes to innovation,” he told BeInCrypto. “But large institutions will never move into a space if the rules are not clear.”
