At Consensus Miami: Solflare founder tells Cryptopolitan the idea of crypto wallets replacing banks is “delusional”

Solflare founder Vidor Gencel told Cryptopolitan at Consensus Miami that he does not buy the loud crypto banking story being sold across the industry.

Vidor said wallets can serve a real group of users, especially people who already hold USDC, trade often, or get paid in stablecoins. But he rejected the bigger claim that wallets are about to replace banks for everyone.

“Going and thinking, okay, crypto wallets are now going to replace banks or neobanks is just very delusional,” Vidor told us.

Solflare founder tells Cryptopolitan crypto cashback can hide card fees

Vidor explained to us that cashback can mislead users when the real cost sits inside card fees. He compared crypto cards with large traditional banks such as JPMorgan Chase (JPM), which can charge merchants high fees and return part of that money to customers.

Crypto card firms usually do not have the same power, so the reward can come from somewhere else.

Vidor pointed to foreign exchange fees as the place where users need to pay attention. A person may spend USDC on a euro purchase, see 2% cashback, and miss the fact that the card charges more on currency conversion. “Some cards have that FX fee as high as like 3 or 4%, and then do 2% cashback,” Vidor said.

He named Bybit, which is privately held, while explaining the issue. In his example, a user pays a 3% FX fee and gets 2% cashback, leaving the card provider with the difference. “So they effectively earn 1% in all of their spending,” he said.

Vidor said Solflare wants the card cost to be clear. Issuing is free. Onboarding is free. KYC is free. The user pays a 1% FX fee when spending in non-dollar currencies. That setup is less flashy than a huge cashback number, but the math is easier to understand.

He also said the card is not the full Solflare strategy. The company still likes the neobank idea, but with limits. He said users who make more than two transactions show very strong retention, which tells Solflare that the product works for a narrow but serious crowd.

For people outside crypto, the offer is harder. If someone does not hold USDC, does not trade, and does not already use a wallet, the card may not beat a normal banking product.

Solflare stays Solana-only as stablecoin incentives get serious

Vidor also said Solflare is not planning to leave its Solana-only path. Phantom expanded across other chains, but Vidor said the data does not make that route attractive for Solflare. He said revenue from extra chains has often been “less than 5% of their all-time revenue” for wallets that tried it.

His view is that Solana can handle the main jobs wallets need, including trading, payments, and remittance. He said the Solflare team has been going deeper into Solana since 2020 because the network is cheap, fast, and active.

He accepted that perpetuals are different because Hyperliquid has its own position there, but he still expects Solana to do well.

The card market is now crowded. Binance is private and has a card. Other exchanges have cards. Wallets are building them too. Vidor said the business depends on the market, but crypto cards in Europe are often money-losing products unless the company controls issuing and more of the back end.

He said the best use case is simple. If a user is paid in USDC or trades into USDC, spending from a Solflare card cuts out extra transfers, repeated checks, and another app. That is why card usage can send people back into the wallet again.

The banking dream also came back after meme coin mania left new money in crypto. Vidor said people started talking again about removing banks, then poured money into card and account products. But the rails are still familiar. These apps use banking partners, run AML checks, and ask the same risk questions banks ask because a bank still has to approve the user.

On stablecoins, Vidor said the market is changing because Circle (CRCL) now understands that it has to share incentives. He said USDT is harder to track, while USDC and USDT remain the only truly successful stablecoins at scale.

Vidor then mentioned PayPal (PYPL), saying its stablecoin incentive deals look more like B2B arrangements with DeFi platforms than public retail adoption. But said that it’s “giving good incentives for the other DeFi platforms,” regardless.