Lux Thiagarajah, Chief Commercial Officer at Openpayd and a former veteran of JPMorgan Chase and HSBC, contends that decentralized technology is not destined to displace legacy banking systems. Instead, he describes it as an "evolutionary layer" that is driving a "re-platforming" of financial institutions. According to him, regulated entities will remain essential because governments will not outsource prudential oversight to permissionless systems.
From Revolution to Infrastructure
For years, the promise of blockchain in finance was draped in revolution language—crypto-invoicing would upend global supply chains. Yet as of early 2026, the reality of institutional adoption is far more pragmatic. The real action is not in front-end billing but in the plumbing. With the full implementation of the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation and the 2025 enactment of the U.S. GENIUS Act, stablecoins have officially graduated from experimental wallet-based tokens to regulated account-based production tools.
“The strongest institutional buy-in remains in the on- and off-ramp space,” Thiagarajah explained. “These rails are the critical bridge between traditional fiat systems and blockchain networks.” While the industry once dreamed of programmable NFT invoices, institutions are now focused on settlement velocity. By embedding stablecoins into backend operations, companies slash settlement times from days to seconds. However, the “last mile”—converting digital value back into fiat—remains the most sought-after capability.
The Re-Platforming of Giants
When asked if decentralized tech is destined to replace legacy systems, Thiagarajah was clear: “This is an evolutionary layer, not a replacement.” He points to the behavior of the world’s largest financial institutions—from JPMorgan’s Kinexys to Blackrock’s BUIDL fund—as proof of a re-platforming rather than displacement. “This is not decentralization displacing banks,” he noted. “It is banks integrating decentralized technology into their existing models. KYC, AML and prudential oversight are not optional, and governments will not outsource those responsibilities to fully permissionless systems.”
A new challenge has emerged: regulatory divergence. While the EU’s MiCA framework emphasizes strict, state-directed supervisory control, the U.S. GENIUS Act focuses on federal legal protections and the separation of banking and commerce. This raises a critical question for global treasurers: will businesses be forced to maintain separate, isolated on-chain stacks for every jurisdiction? Thiagarajah believes the answer lies in architecture. “The underlying technology is not fragmented,” he argued. “Blockchains, wallets and smart contract logic remain aligned. If infrastructure is built around a single core ledger, with compliance logic applied at the asset layer rather than the chain layer, we can avoid creating multiple isolated environments.” The real risk, he warns, is not the rules themselves but a lack of interoperability. If liquidity in the Eurozone is locked in MiCA-compliant tokens while U.S. liquidity sits in GENIUS-compliant tokens, cross-border money movement costs could remain high despite technological leaps.
The End of the ‘Batch-Based’ Era
The 10-year outlook suggests that while banks as regulated entities will remain, the “legacy constructs” that define them—batch-based settlement and multi-day processes—will vanish. As CCO of Openpayd, Thiagarajah positions the firm as the architect of this bridge phase. By providing universal infrastructure that connects domestic fiat rails with blockchain networks, Openpayd enables institutions to scale digital asset strategies without waiting for a total global overhaul of business accounting.
Thiagarajah also shared his thoughts on MiCA’s strict transaction caps on U.S. dollar-denominated stablecoins within the European Economic Area. Though designed to protect the euro, such requirements risk creating friction: businesses may have to take “the long way round” to settle transactions, while forced conversions of euro-backed tokens into dollars for international goods and services could increase foreign exchange costs. Unless there is a massive structural shift in the dollar’s role as the global reserve currency, the market will remain fundamentally dollar-denominated for the foreseeable future.
Thiagarajah rejects the notion that regulation inherently stifles growth. Instead, he posits that regulatory transparency is the missing ingredient that finally justifies Tier 1 institutional flows. For banks and funds, “unclear” is synonymous with “uninvestable.” Therefore, laws like MiCA and the GENIUS Act provide the formal permission these institutions need to move from pilots to massive liquidity deployment.