HTX Ventures, the global investment arm of HTX, has released The Rise of Yield-Bearing Currency: How Crypto Neobanks Are Challenging the Traditional Banking Model. It argues that as stablecoins evolve from “payment instruments” to “yield-bearing dollar accounts,” a new financial form—termed the “Crypto Neobank”—is reshaping global deposit dynamics and challenging the spread-based logic that traditional banks have relied on for centuries.
Two generations of digital banks
Digital banking has moved through two waves. The first, in the 2010s, brought fintech neobanks such as Chime, Nubank, Revolut, and Monzo. They reshaped the user experience, but their settlement layers still relied on ACH and SWIFT—effectively acting as a UX wrapper over the legacy banking core.
The second, led by Coinbase, Cash App, Robinhood, Crypto.com, and HTX, is structurally different. Native custody accounts replace bank-ledger liability records, stablecoin payment networks bypass traditional wire cycles, and integrated yield products pass through underlying real returns directly to users. The paradigm shift is no longer about “how banks are used,” but rather “how money exists, moves, and earns.”
The Crypto Neobank is best understood as a functional form rather than a fixed institutional category. Leading crypto exchanges, through Earn products, stablecoin services, and on-chain wealth management, are actively evolving into key participants in this category.
From settlement tool to yield-bearing asset
As of March, stablecoins exceeded $319 billion in market cap, and U.S. Treasury Secretary Bessent has projected this figure could reach $3.7 trillion by the end of the decade. More notable than the headline growth, however, is the functional shift. Once used primarily as exchange settlement assets and dollar-denominated trading media, stablecoins are increasingly being held rather than just used, becoming a core component of treasury and cash management.
Two forces drive this transition. Compliant issuers allocate reserves to short-term Treasuries and reverse repos, naturally tying the system to the U.S. policy rate. At the same time, platforms package complex underlying allocations into simple “yield accounts,” shifting the user experience from “interacting with DeFi protocols” to “placing dollars into an account that earns yield and remains withdrawable.”
Yield redistribution: From bank margins to user returns
The most consequential shift lies in how yield is distributed. Traditional banks retain the spread between deposit and asset-side returns within their balance sheets. In the stablecoin and on-chain yield system, that spread is increasingly passed directly to end holders, with annual yields commonly reaching up to 8%.
This dynamic plays out clearly in the Earn businesses of leading exchanges. As an active participant in the Crypto Neobank category, HTX offers a representative model of “yield-bearing dollars” within an exchange environment through HTX Earn:
Flexible liquidity: Deposits and withdrawals remain flexible rather than locked into long-term fixed terms.
Hourly compounding: This feature has been implemented, materially improving capital efficiency for long-tail funds compared with monthly or quarterly bank interest accruals.
Comprehensive offerings: Three distinct product lines—simple earn, structured products, and on-chain offerings—span more than 300 tokens, including structured derivatives such as Dual Investment for sophisticated capital.
HTX Ventures characterizes this combination of high-frequency compounding, flexible liquidity, and diversified asset supply as a defining advantage of Crypto Neobanks over traditional savings products.
Three forward scenarios
The report outlines three potential trajectories:
- A complete victory for Crypto Neobanks, with stablecoins dominating global payments and savings.
- A successful counter by traditional banks via tokenized deposits (such as JPMorgan’s JPMD), reducing crypto rails to backend services.
- A hybrid financial stack (most likely) in which non-bank stablecoins and tokenized bank deposits coexist, while commercial banks retain credit creation but link their core ledgers into open on-chain protocols.
Ongoing battles around the GENIUS Act, the CLARITY Act, EU MiCA, and Hong Kong’s stablecoin rules suggest no single side will fully prevail; the more probable endpoint is a multi-layered architecture.
