Welcome to our institutional newsletter, Crypto Long & Short. This week:
- Haider Rafique of OKX shares a firm study on the generational perspectives of crypto investing
- Top headlines institutions should be aware of by Francisco Rodrigues
- Sky defies downturn in 2026 in the Chart of the Week
-Alexandra Levis
Expert insight
Gen Z Trusts Code Over Bank Promises
By Haider Rafique, global managing partner, OKX
It’s no secret that the banking industry is worried about crypto disruption.
After months of intense lobbying, the Senate Banking Committee delayed its markup of market structure legislation, in part because of banks’ stance on the stablecoin dividend.
But that may not matter, because the banks have a much bigger crisis on their hands: They are completely missing out on younger consumers based on the basic principle of trust.
Given the behavior we’ve observed on the OKX app around the world, we decided to conduct a survey to understand generational perspectives in our evolving industry.
The key insights paint a clear picture: Gen Z and millennial consumers have nearly 5x more trust in crypto compared to their boomer counterparts. Additionally, one in five Gen Z and millennial consumers say they have low trust in traditional financial institutions, while nearly three-quarters (74%) of baby boomers maintain high levels of trust in the legacy system.
The “why” behind all of this is much deeper than viral trends and memecoins. This is a generation raised on open source code and real-time dashboards that now expects the same transparency from TradFi.
And now, with the world moving on the chain and everything being tokenized, it’s clear that young people see the digital economy as their the stock market.
TradFi is not theirs. It belongs to their parents and grandparents.
A generation shaped by institutional failure
A recent report by FINRA and the CFA Institute suggests that a sizable share of Gen Z investors are now leaning heavily into crypto over other assets—a behavioral signal that younger Americans are willing to look outside traditional channels when they don’t believe they’re getting transparency or competitive returns. According to the survey, almost 20% of Gen Z investors only keep crypto.
For banks, this should be a wake-up call that trust is no longer something institutions can declare, but something they must demonstrate.
Boomers built their financial lives in an era where institutions were the safest option. Regulation meant protection, and trust was something extended first and questioned later.
Gen Z has lived through the opposite. They came of age in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, entered adulthood with high student debt, and now face a housing market short of millions of units along with persistent inflation.
They’ve also lived through years of political crackdowns on student loans, changing repayment rules and weakened borrower protections. These turns reinforced a simple lesson that institutional promises can change overnight. When trust is repeatedly tested, skepticism becomes rational.
Banks Not Losing Gen Z to Crypto; they lose them to trust.
Control over promises
That skepticism is reshaping what affects trust in younger generations. For boomers, security means regulatory oversight and the perceived stability of legacy institutions.
Conversely, Gen Z consistently ranks platform security over regulation as the top driver of trust. For Gen Z, security is more personal and technical with direct ownership of assets, the ability to verify how systems work, and the freedom to move value without intermediaries.
It is therefore both Gen Z and millennials are 4x more bullish on crypto by 2026 compared to boomers. They can see on-chain transactions, self-custody, audit logs and understand the rules without waiting for a quarterly report or a regulator’s update.
Transparency is central to this shift. Boomers tend to equate trust with regulatory approval, but Gen Z equates trust with visibility. They want to understand how decisions are made, how risks are managed and how incentives are aligned. They want clarity on fees, returns and conflicts of interest and systems that are open by default.
Traditional banks have historically struggled here. Their value proposition was built in an era where limited transparency was often treated as a feature. And now that a generation is used to real-time dashboards and proof of reserves, the idea of waiting for a monthly statement feels absurd. Transparency has become a fundamental requirement for credibility.
The future of financing
Banks should ask themselves: Why do younger customers trust transparency more than tradition? Younger Americans want the stability of regulated finance paired with the transparency and control of digital assets, and they want products that reflect how they already interact with technology and money. The institutions that understand this shift and build for it will define the future of finance. Those who don’t will continue to watch while younger Americans look elsewhere.
This week’s headlines
Francisco Rodrigues
Markets stumbled last week and the miners’ capitulation intensified. That led to the steepest drop for Bitcoin’s mining woes since 2021, as corporate accumulation of cryptocurrencies and other assets continued and Russia moved closer to formalizing crypto-backed lending.
Chart of the week
Sky defies downturn in 2026
Sky has disengaged from the 2026 market decline and has outperformed BTC, CD5 and CD20 index by 45%, 50% and 57% YTD respectively. This resilience is underpinned by a consistent business model: January revenue rose 1.5x YoY to $19 million, fueling $10.4 million in YTD buybacks ($8.5 million in January; $1.9 million last week) and driving a flight to quality that pushed USDS (Sky’s stablecoin) market cap from $5.8 billion to $6.5 billion.
Listen. Read. Clock. Engage.
Note: The views expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of CoinDesk, Inc., CoinDesk Indices, or its owners and affiliates.
