Author: Harj Taggar (YC), Jesse Pollak (Base)

Compiled by: Tim, PANews

PANews Editor's Note: The well-known incubator Y Combinator in Silicon Valley, in collaboration with crypto giant Coinbase, has launched the first phase of a crypto startup camp. This article serves as a "call to action," hoping to encourage more entrepreneurs to begin on-chain development. It mainly discusses the current development of the crypto industry, such as how stablecoins and tokenized assets will permeate people's lives, while also indicating the investment areas they are interested in.

We believe the time has come to shift towards on-chain development. Over the past decade, relevant tools have continuously evolved, and with the emergence of low-GAS public chains, the global circulation of stablecoins, user-friendly wallet ecosystems, and a growing user base, the infrastructure is finally in place. We have observed some significant trends creating enormous opportunities for developers worldwide.

It starts with the fact that we are at the beginning of a new era in fintech—Fintech 3.0.

Fintech 1.0 was the initial digitalization phase of the financial industry in the 1990s, driven by companies like PayPal. The key breakthrough during this period was that consumers began to accept online payment methods.

Fintech 2.0 occurred over the past decade, driven by companies like Stripe, Plaid, Brex, and Chime, with the core focus on building application programming interfaces (APIs) on top of the existing financial system. The key breakthrough of this stage was the emergence of banks as service providers, enabling startups to innovate on top of the traditional financial system.

At this moment, we are entering the era of Fintech 3.0. This era will reconstruct the financial system with code, enabling global, real-time payment settlements, where user assets are stored in digital wallets and fully controlled by individuals, making traditional banks no longer the inevitable option for asset custody.

For years, the main obstacle to building Fintech 3.0 has been regulatory uncertainty. With the enactment of the GENIUS Act and the potential upcoming CLARITY Act, the U.S. has established a clear regulatory framework for crypto, allowing entrepreneurs to confidently build meaningful on-chain businesses. This represents the greatest opportunity faced by cryptocurrency startups in years, and Y Combinator and Coinbase are willing to provide funding and support to help you seize this opportunity.

While the following list is by no means exhaustive, we will particularly focus on and look forward to investing in the following key areas.

Stablecoins

Stablecoins are the first major success story of the Fintech 3.0 era.

A stablecoin is an on-chain asset pegged to fiat currency or assets like gold, designed to maintain price stability. As a payment tool, stablecoins have significant advantages over traditional financial transactions, especially in the realm of cross-border payments. Users can transfer stablecoins to any location globally at any time, with costs under 1 cent, settlement times of less than 1 second, and no foreign exchange fees. This is not a theoretical assumption; trillions of dollars in stablecoins have already completed real-time payment settlements.

People have begun to build stablecoin applications with millions of users. YC alumni companies like Kontigo, DolarApp, and Aspora are providing instant, low-cost payment and remittance services to millions of users in Latin America and South Asia. El Dorado, a platform for sending and receiving stablecoins in Latin America supported by Coinbase Ventures, has processed $200 million in transactions for nearly 1 million users in the past year, demonstrating the growing demand for cryptocurrencies as a hedge against currency devaluation in the region.

This is not just an attempt by startups: Coinbase has just launched an open-source commercial payment protocol in collaboration with Shopify, which supports any traditional online business scenario and on-chain stablecoin payment processes, combining all the advantages of crypto payments (lightning-fast settlement speeds, near-zero transaction fees) with the security and scalability of typical e-commerce functionalities (delayed capture, final tax confirmation, and refund capabilities).

Despite facing regulatory resistance, stablecoins have still succeeded, which precisely indicates that the market demand for them is very strong. Following the successful passage of the GENIUS Act in the U.S., the adoption of stablecoins is about to experience explosive growth. This act creates a comprehensive federal regulatory framework for stablecoins similar to the banking system. Since the enactment of the GENIUS Act, the total market capitalization of stablecoins has increased by over $30 billion, with major companies like Amazon and Walmart expressing interest in issuing their own stablecoins.

There are many development directions in the stablecoin space, but we are particularly interested in the following aspects:

• Comprehensive access to stablecoins: Platforms that handle payments, lending, and other financial services can achieve significant efficiency improvements through stablecoins. Enabling seamless transactions between businesses and consumers on the platform will unlock tremendous value.
• Local currency stablecoins: Stablecoins pegged to local currencies can allow people in high-inflation countries to benefit from cryptocurrencies without solely relying on the U.S. dollar. Governments and consumers concerned about dollarization can use such stablecoins as the foundation for local payment, savings, and credit systems.
• Crypto-native enterprises: With the emergence of the Commerce Payments protocol and other tools, merchants, lenders, and consumers will have the opportunity to handle acceptance, credit, and payment operations in a crypto-native manner. Based on the global nature of the platform, this will provide new possibilities for serving customers.

Tokenization and Trading

The infrastructure that supports stablecoins can be used for any asset. This is where Fintech 3.0 becomes truly fascinating. Through tokenization, we will fundamentally change the definition of assets and the scope of their holders.

Tokenization refers to representing real-world assets (such as government bonds, startup equity, artworks, or loans) in the form of digital tokens on the blockchain. Its core value lies in the fact that assets that have traditionally lacked liquidity and have been monopolized by layers of intermediaries can now be held, traded, and used by anyone, anywhere, at any time.

In practice, this could mean:

• Instead of waiting a month to receive a check, you can get your rental income from your property in real-time, every second.
• Rather than going through complex paperwork to exercise your startup stock options, you can have a "real-time equity structure table" that turns your equity into truly owned programmable tokens that can be freely bought and sold on the open market.
• Instead of investing millions into private credit, you can simply purchase tokens representing a portion of a diversified loan portfolio.

This is already quietly happening. Mainstream institutions like JPMorgan are introducing deposit tokens to the blockchain, and startups like Courtyard are tokenizing physical collectibles. We are also witnessing a wave of new on-chain native assets like creator tokens and content tokens being tokenized on platforms like Zora and Pump.fun.

All of this is giving rise to a plethora of new things: companies like Axiom, a YC alumni company, have become some of the fastest-growing YC companies we have ever witnessed.

The core infrastructure is ready. We are looking for founders to develop products that push various assets online.

We are particularly interested in the following areas:

New credit markets: Lending protocols that utilize on-chain identity and credit to provide under-collateralized loans to individuals and businesses overlooked by the traditional financial system.

On-chain capital formation: Tools for startups to raise funds directly from users, managing equity structure tables through programmable tokens, replacing traditional models of spreadsheets and legal services.

New trading frontends: With the surge of assets, new trading and investment opportunities are being created for consumers and businesses.

Applications and Agents

On-chain technology has also opened new frontiers for applications and smart agents that were not possible in the previous internet era. Think of the blockchain as a new type of operating system: a globally shared platform where application development efficiency is an order of magnitude higher than traditional models, with no single company able to monopolize it, and any developer can build products on it without permission. With the characteristic of "money as software," smart agents inherently possess the ability to participate in this new economic form.

We believe this will trigger a massive emergence of new applications. Social, financial, collaborative, gaming—various applications will abound. We have already witnessed this trend on platforms like Base: you can use these applications to accomplish almost anything, from obtaining loans in seconds to earning money while playing games, to supporting your favorite creators while also benefiting yourself.

We believe that these types of applications will also appear in chat as agents. AI agents with digital wallets will be super-empowered to help people participate in and navigate the rapidly growing global economy. They will simplify and enhance user experiences, just as they have done in other commercial fields around the world.

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