How fintech learned to stop disrupting and start building infrastructure
- The era of fintech versus traditional finance is ending as companies that once promised to replace banks now power their most critical systems.
- From Coinbase enabling J.P. Morgan's blockchain experiments to SoFi routing payments through Bitcoin rails, the real winners are becoming the invisible infrastructure that makes modern banking possible.
The companies that spent the last decade promising to disrupt banks are now building their foundational systems.
Coinbase, once the crypto outsider pitching digital assets as banking’s alternative, is powering J.P. Morgan’s deposit token experiments. SoFi is routing remittances through Bitcoin’s Lightning Network while acting as a regulated bank holding company. Even pure-play digital banks like Chime have shifted focus from pure customer acquisition to deepening existing relationships through credit products and early-pay services.
The shift represents a fundamental recalibration of where value gets created in financial services. The loudest disruption stories of the 2010s have given way to quieter infrastructure plays. Fintechs discovered that being the pipes can be more profitable than owning the customer relationship.
Why infrastructure beats customer acquisition
The economics tell the story. Customer acquisition costs for consumer fintechs can range from hundreds to thousands of dollars per user, with lengthy payback periods and a constant risk of churn. Infrastructure generates revenue on transaction volume with enterprise clients who integrate once and scale over time. J.P. Morgan’s integration with Walmart Marketplace serves thousands of sellers through a single partnership that Coinbase or individual consumer crypto apps would need to match, requiring millions of users.
There’s a regulatory advantage, too. Being the infrastructure that powers regulated institutions means navigating compliance frameworks alongside established players instead of going head-to-head with them. When J.P. Morgan launches JPMD on Coinbase’s Base chain, Coinbase gains regulatory credibility through association, while J.P. Morgan gets blockchain capabilities without building them from scratch.
Winners control the pipes, not the customers
The winners in this infrastructure shift will be invisible to end users but essential to the institutions they serve. The new competitive divide isn’t between fintech and traditional finance; it’s between companies that own customer relationships and those that control the underlying infrastructure that makes those relationships possible.
This doesn’t mean consumer fintech is dead. It means the most successful companies will be those that figure out how to become indispensable to the financial system rather than being alternatives to it. The evolution turns out to be about rebuilding banking’s foundation, not tearing down its walls.