Welcome to our institutional newsletter, Crypto Long & Short. This week:
- OKX’s Haider Rafique Shares In-Depth Study on Generational Perspectives of Crypto Investing
- The headlines institutions should pay attention to by Francisco Rodrigues
- Sky defies 2026 economic downturn in the chart of the week
-Alexandra Lévis
Expert Views
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 postponed its review of the market structure legislation, in part because of banks’ stance on stable coin yield.
But that may not matter, because banks are facing a much bigger crisis: They are completely missing out on younger consumers, based on the fundamental principle of trust.
Given the behaviors we observed on the OKX app across the world, we decided to conduct a study to understand generational perspectives in our evolving industry.
The key insights paint a clear picture: Gen Z and millennial consumers trust crypto nearly 5 times more than their baby boomer counterparts. Additionally, one in five Gen Z and millennial consumers report having low trust in traditional financial institutions, while nearly three-quarters (74%) of baby boomers maintain high levels of trust in the old system.
The “why” behind it all goes much deeper than viral trends and memecoins. It’s a generation raised on open source code and real-time dashboards that now expects the same transparency from TradFi.
And now, as the world moves in chains and everything becomes symbolic, it is clear that young people see the digital economy as their sotck exchange.
TradFi is not theirs. It belongs to their parents and grandparents.
A generation shaped by institutional failure
A recent report from FINRA and the CFA Institute suggests that a significant share of Gen Z investors now rely heavily on crypto over other assets — a behavioral signal that younger Americans are willing to look outside of traditional channels when they don’t believe they’re getting transparency or competitive returns. According to the study, almost 20% of Gen Z investors only hold cryptocurrencies.
For banks, this should be a wake-up call: trust is no longer something institutions can declare but something they must demonstrate.
Baby boomers built their financial lives at a time when institutions were the safest option available. Regulation meant protection, and trust was something that was first expanded and then questioned.
Generation Z experienced the opposite. They came of age in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, entered adulthood with high student debt, and now face a housing market missing millions of units alongside continued inflation.
They also experienced years of student loan hard hits, changes in repayment rules and weakening borrower protections. These reversals reinforced a simple lesson: institutional promises can change overnight. When trust is repeatedly tested, skepticism becomes rational.
Banks aren’t losing Gen Z to crypto; they lose their confidence.
Promise check
This skepticism is reshaping what influences the confidence of younger generations. For baby boomers, security means regulatory oversight and the perceived stability of existing institutions.
Conversely, Generation Z consistently places platform security above regulation as the primary driver of trust. For Gen Z, security is more personal and technical with direct ownership of assets, the ability to verify the operation of systems, and the freedom to move value without intermediaries.
This is why both Gen Z and millennials are 4x more optimistic about crypto in 2026 compared to baby boomers. They can see on-chain transactions, self-custody, audit protocols, and understand the rules without waiting for a quarterly statement or update from a regulator.
Transparency is at the heart of this change. Baby 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, as well as open-by-default systems.
Traditional banks have always struggled in this area. Their value proposition was built at a time when limited transparency was often considered a hallmark. And today, when a generation is accustomed to real-time dashboards and proof of reserves, the idea of waiting for a monthly statement seems absurd. Transparency has become a fundamental requirement for credibility.
The future of finance
Banks should ask themselves: why do young customers trust transparency more than tradition? Young Americans want the stability of regulated finance combined with transparency and control over digital assets, and they want products that reflect the way they already interact with technology and money. The institutions that understand this shift and build accordingly will define the future of finance. Those who don’t will continue to watch while young Americans will look elsewhere.
Headlines of the week
Francisco Rodrigues
Markets stumbled last week and the miners’ capitulation intensified. This led to the biggest drop in Bitcoin mining difficulty since 2021, as corporate accumulation of cryptocurrencies and other assets continued and Russia moved closer to formalizing cryptocurrency-backed loans.
Chart of the week
Sky defies 2026 economic downturn
Sky has decoupled itself from the 2026 market downturn, outperforming BTC, CD5 and the CD20 index by 45%, 50% and 57% year-to-date, respectively. This resilience is underpinned by a consistent business model: January revenues jumped 1.5x from last year to $19 million, fueling $10.4 million in year-to-date redemptions ($8.5 million in January; $1.9 million last week) and driving a flight to quality that pushed the market cap of USDS (Sky’s stablecoin) from $5.8 billion to $6.5 billion.
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Note: The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of CoinDesk, Inc., CoinDesk Indices or its owners and affiliates.
