Alex ZonneveldThe word crypto bundles together four very different things, and most of the confusion around it disappears once you pull them apart.
“Crypto” is a single word covering four different things, each of which already has a familiar equivalent in traditional finance. Bitcoin behaves like a commodity, in the way gold does. Network tokens such as ETH, SOL and XRP behave more like shares in a business, because their value depends on how much their networks are used. Stablecoins are currencies, digital versions of the dollar or the euro. Underneath all three sits the technology itself, meaning blockchains and the smart contracts that run on them. Seen this way, there isn’t really a separate asset class called crypto at all. What there is, is commodities, equity-like assets and currencies running on a new set of rails, which is why we think it’s clearer to call the whole thing onchain finance, and to call each part by what it actually is.
Why the word crypto gets in the way
When someone says they “hold crypto”, they could mean almost anything. They might own Bitcoin as a long-term hedge, hold a speculative token launched last month, keep dollars in a stablecoin to pay a supplier overseas, or use a smart contract to hold a position in a fund. Those four things have almost nothing in common in terms of risk, liquidity or purpose, yet the same word covers all of them, which is a bit like describing gold, Apple shares, US dollars and the SWIFT network as “internet money”.
The word also carries a reputation that belongs mostly to one part of the picture. The speculation, the collapsed exchanges and the meme coins have shaped how many people react to the word, and that reaction then gets applied to stablecoins used for payroll or to the settlement technology that large asset managers are now building on.
Regulators have started to make the same distinction. In March 2026 the SEC set out a token taxonomy that separates digital commodities, digital collectibles and payment stablecoins, which it treats as outside the securities laws, from tokenised securities, which remain fully under its rules. As SEC Chairman Paul Atkins put it at the time, “We’re not the securities and everything commission anymore.” Even the regulator, in other words, has stopped treating crypto as one thing.
1. Bitcoin is a commodity, closer to gold than to a company
Bitcoin doesn’t have a company behind it, a management team or revenue, and its supply is fixed by its code at 21 million coins. People hold it for much the same reasons they hold gold: as a store of value outside the control of any single government or institution, as a hedge against currency debasement, and as an asset whose scarcity can be verified rather than taken on trust.
Like gold, it produces no cash flow, so its price rests entirely on what others are willing to pay for it, and that makes it volatile. It has fallen by more than 70% from a peak on several occasions. Thinking of it as a digital commodity helps set the right expectations: it can make sense as a long-term holding for some people, but it isn’t a business and it doesn’t behave like one.
2. Network tokens behave more like equity in a business
Tokens such as ETH (on Ethereum), SOL (on Solana) and XRP (on the XRP Ledger) are different. Each one is tied to a network that people actually use, whether to run applications, settle payments or issue other assets, and users pay fees to do so. The more a network is used, the more demand there is for its token, and on some networks a share of those fees is effectively returned to token holders or removed from supply.
That makes their economics feel more like equity in a growing business than like a commodity. There’s a product, there are competitors, there’s adoption that can rise or fall, and there’s a real possibility that a network loses ground to a better one, in the same way that a technology company can. The risks are correspondingly higher and more varied than with Bitcoin, and they differ a great deal from one network to the next.
It’s worth being precise here. The equity comparison describes how these tokens behave economically, not what they are legally. US regulators now generally treat major network tokens as digital commodities rather than securities, and holding them doesn’t give you a share in any company. The comparison is useful because it tells you which questions to ask, such as who uses the network, why, and whether that usage is growing.
3. Stablecoins are currencies
A stablecoin is a digital version of an existing currency, usually the US dollar, issued by a company that holds reserves to back each token. USDT and USDC are the largest, and together stablecoins were worth around $310 billion in mid-2026. In the US, the GENIUS Act signed in July 2025 created a federal framework for payment stablecoins, although the detailed rules were still being finalised in the second half of 2026.
Stablecoins aren’t meant to go up in value. They’re meant to stay at one dollar while moving like the internet does: at any hour, across borders, settling in minutes rather than days. That’s why they’ve become the most widely used part of onchain finance for payments, for settling trades and as the cash leg of onchain transactions. The main risks are the quality of the issuer’s reserves and the issuer’s ability to honour redemptions, which is why regulation of those reserves matters so much.
4. The technology is the part that actually changes things
The first three categories are familiar assets in a new form. The fourth is what makes the new form worth having. Blockchains are shared ledgers that nobody can quietly edit, and smart contracts are programs that run on those ledgers and do exactly what they’re written to do. Together they make three things possible that are difficult in traditional finance.
The first is verifiability. Anyone can check what’s held where, without having to ask for a statement or trust an assurance letter, which goes straight to the heart of structural risk. The second is programmability, meaning that rules about who can move assets, how many signatures are needed and when a redemption settles can be written into the asset’s own infrastructure rather than left to a back office. The third is composability, which means that different pieces, such as a stablecoin, a vault and a trading venue, can plug into each other directly, the way apps plug into each other on a phone.
The same technology can carry assets that have nothing to do with crypto at all. Tokenised US Treasury funds, including BlackRock’s BUIDL and Franklin Templeton’s onchain fund, held more than $15 billion by mid-2026, and managers such as Hamilton Lane, KKR and Apollo now offer tokenised feeder funds into private markets. These are traditional assets using onchain rails, which is the clearest sign that the rails and the speculation are separate things.
Where the combination becomes powerful
Each of the four parts is useful on its own, but the real change comes from combining them. A capital owner can hold dollars as a stablecoin, allocate them into a vault they sign for, let an independent manager trade on a venue without ever being able to move the assets out, check the custody themselves on a public ledger at any moment, and have the redemption settle back to their own vault on a known date. Every step of that uses one of the four parts, and together they deliver something that has historically needed a custodian, an administrator, a transfer agent and a good deal of paperwork.
Seen through the three things that decide whether money is managed well, the effect is easy to describe. Structural risk falls, because custody and permissions can be verified rather than trusted. Liquidity becomes more predictable, because settlement can run around the clock and redemption rules can be written into the infrastructure, even though no technology can make an illiquid strategy liquid. And access widens, because the same rails can serve a family office and an individual with much smaller amounts, on terms each of them can see.
So what should we call it?
We think the most useful approach is to stop using a single word for four different things. When we mean Bitcoin, we can say Bitcoin, or a digital commodity. When we mean ETH or SOL, we can talk about network tokens and judge them the way we’d judge a business. When we mean stablecoins, we can say digital dollars. And when we mean the technology, we can talk about blockchains, smart contracts and onchain settlement.
When we need one phrase for all of it, onchain finance works far better than crypto, because it describes where the activity happens rather than implying that it’s a strange new asset class. When finance moved onto the internet, nobody decided that it had become a new kind of money; we simply said that finance had moved online, and the services kept their familiar names. Onchain finance is the same idea: familiar assets, on better rails.
How MakeBanc uses onchain finance
MakeBanc uses the technology layer, rather than any particular token, to give capital owners family-office-style oversight. You can allocate in stablecoins such as USDC to a vault that you sign for, held with an institutional custodian. The independent manager you choose can trade but can never move the assets. You can verify the custody on-chain without asking anyone, require two or three named signers before anything changes, and see the date a redemption settles once you request it.
MakeBanc doesn’t issue tokens, doesn’t advise on or promote any digital asset, and never holds your keys. It uses onchain rails because they make risk, liquidity and access easier to see and control.
Frequently asked questions
What is crypto, really? Crypto is a catch-all word for four different things: Bitcoin, which behaves like a commodity such as gold; network tokens such as ETH and SOL, whose economics resemble equity in a business; stablecoins, which are digital versions of currencies like the dollar; and the underlying technology of blockchains and smart contracts. Together they’re better described as onchain finance.
Is Bitcoin more like gold or like a stock? More like gold. Bitcoin has no company, management or revenue behind it and a fixed supply of 21 million coins, so people mainly hold it as a store of value. Like gold it produces no cash flow, and its price can be very volatile.
Are tokens like Ethereum and Solana the same as shares? Not legally. US regulators now generally treat major network tokens as digital commodities rather than securities, and holding them gives no ownership of a company. Economically, though, they behave more like equity in a business, because their value depends on how much their networks are used.
What is a stablecoin? A stablecoin is a digital version of a currency, usually the US dollar, backed by reserves held by its issuer. It’s designed to hold a steady value while moving and settling at any hour across borders. In the US, payment stablecoins are governed by the GENIUS Act signed in July 2025.
What is onchain finance? Onchain finance means familiar financial assets, such as commodities, equity-like tokens, currencies and tokenised funds, recorded and settled on blockchains, where holdings can be verified and rules can be built into the infrastructure itself.
Sources
- Bloomberg Government, SEC, CFTC move to define which digital assets are securities, 17 March 2026
- Winston & Strawn, SEC Chairman Atkins signals major shift: potential token taxonomy
- CryptoSlate, One year later, GENIUS Act just made stablecoins easier to sell, July 2026
- The Motley Fool, The GENIUS Act: rules are in place, final regulations are not
- Crowdfund Insider, Tokenized US Treasuries hit $10 billion milestone, February 2026
- KuCoin News, Tokenized US T-bills surpass $15B market cap in May 2026
- Citi GPS, Tokenization 2030, June 2026
MakeBanc is a technology platform that connects investors with independent asset managers. MakeBanc does not provide investment advice, custody services or banking services, and does not issue, promote or advise on any digital asset. Digital assets can be highly volatile and you could lose some or all of the value you allocate. Nothing here is an offer or invitation to allocate to any strategy or asset.