Stablecoins Won't Fix Banking If Banks Control Them

About This Episode

In Episode 21 of Solana Smoke, Maxime lights a Convicto and sits down with Andrew from Altude to dig into one of the most important questions in crypto right now: what happens when the entities stablecoins were meant to disrupt start issuing them?

We cover: - Why bank-controlled stablecoins recreate the same chokepoints they claim to solve - The difference between a stablecoin that lives on open rails vs. one that lives on a bank's permissioned ledger - What "fixing banking" actually requires — and why it's a political problem as much as a technical one - Where Altude is building and why they chose Solana - The regulatory capture risk: how incumbents are shaping stablecoin legislation in their favour - What a genuinely open stablecoin stack looks like in 2026

Topics Covered