➡ This week, Trump publicly challenged the banks, which could lead to a significant shift in wealth. This confrontation is about who controls money and the banking monopoly that has existed since 1913. Trump’s goal is to make the US the crypto capital of the world, starting with the Genius Act, which provides a regulatory framework for stablecoins. However, the banks are resisting this change, leading to a public dispute that could have major financial implications.
➡ Banks make a lot of money by lending out the money we deposit at a higher interest rate than they give us. This system, called fractional reserve banking, could be threatened by stablecoins, a type of cryptocurrency, which could offer higher returns. If people start moving their money into stablecoins, banks could lose their deposits and struggle to cover withdrawals. This could lead to a banking crisis. The article also discusses how the banking system has changed twice in the past century and suggests we may be on the brink of a third change due to the rise of cryptocurrencies.
➡ In 2017, Larry Fink called Bitcoin a tool for money laundering, but by 2024, his company, BlackRock, was making millions from a Bitcoin ETF. Despite initial resistance, banks are now investing heavily in Bitcoin and other digital assets, especially as new laws like the Genius Act and the upcoming Clarity Act provide a legal framework for these assets. This shift is creating a lot of wealth, just like past financial restructurings did. The key is to understand these changes and act on them before everyone else does.

While the whole world is watching Iran right now, something happened this week that most people completely missed. Trump publicly went to war with the banks. And I don’t mean metaphorically, I mean he called them out by name. And the reason why this matters to you is simple. The outcome of this fight will determine which side of the biggest wealth transfer of our lifetime you end up on. So in this video, I’m going to break down exactly what’s happening, why the banks were terrified, and what you need to do about it. So let’s go.

All right, let’s just get going in this. Like right now, everybody is locked in on the war over in Iran. And they should. It’s important, right? I get that. War, maybe World War III, you know, Israel, Iran, China, oil supply, geopolitical risk, all of that, right? There’s of course plenty of politics to fight over with that. And of course, that stuff, it all matters, okay? But while all the eyes are pointed over there, something happened this week in Washington, that’s part of a much bigger, much bigger developing story. Something I’ve been talking about since probably the beginning of the year.

I think it’s actually more consequential for your financial life than anything that’s happening in the Middle East right now. Now, what happened is Trump went to war, but this time with the banks. And I’m not talking about like a policy disagreement. I’m not talking about a strongly worded letter. He literally posted publicly about this on his true social account. And he basically drew a red line and he named the banks directly. And he said, you know, what they’re doing is unacceptable. And the banks, well, they fired back almost immediately. Now, most people are going to see this as, I don’t know, some political noise, right? A fight in Washington over some crypto stablecoin bill and think that’s boring and probably skip past this video, but that’s a mistake.

I wouldn’t be making this video for you if that’s really all there was, because I know that you can read the news on your own, but I’m here to help you understand what it means. I want you to think in second or third or fourth order effects. I want you to understand the historical parallels of what this means, because what’s actually underneath this fight, right? The reason that the banks are spending tens of millions of dollars to stop this legislation. It’s way bigger. It goes way deeper than crypto. This is about who controls money.

This is about your ability to transact. This is about the monopoly the banks have held since 1913. That’s for the first time being genuinely threatened. And here’s why that should matter to you. And I personally, every single time the money system has restructured, at least in American history, this is, this will be now the third time that we’ve seen this, the people who understood what was happening, they got wealthy, and the people who didn’t, well, they got left behind. All right, so let’s talk about what’s actually going on here. And it really starts with a warning that was written, I don’t know, 200 years ago.

What am I talking about? I’m talking about Thomas Jefferson. He was the third president of the United States. He was one of, of course, one of the original founding fathers. And he warned us all the way back in 1802. He said, quote, the banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered, end quote.

All right, so look, obviously, these guys were super smart, right? They could think in these second and third and fourth order effects, right? They understood the real dangers of having a banking system long before those dangers were even apparent or visible at the time. Now, Jefferson didn’t say that banks were greedy, right? Which they are. He didn’t say that they charge too many fees, which they do. He said they were more dangerous than armies. He said they would systematically strip citizens of their property. And he said it would happen so gradually that most people wouldn’t even see it coming.

Now, was he being dramatic? Or was he describing the precise mechanism of how this works? What’s important to understand is that Jefferson, he wrote this before the Federal Reserve even existed, right? He wrote it before Nixon closed the gold window. He wrote it before there was any major restructuring of the American money system, but he knew it because he was watching the early formation of banking power, right? He was alarmed enough to write it down as a warning for future generations. Now, unfortunately for us today, that warning, it wasn’t taken seriously. So here we are 200 years later and the system that he was afraid of, the system he feared, it’s the exact system that we have.

All right. But now that you understand what Trump is actually fighting for, but of course, if you’re not up to speed on the specifics, you need a little bit of context on what’s been happening in Washington over the last year, right? Because yeah, this didn’t just start this week, right? This has been going on at least since the beginning of the year. It’s started really when Trump came back into office. Now, one of the stated priorities was making the US the crypto capital of the world. Now, he actually started delivering on that, right? So earlier this year, we saw Congress pass what’s called the Genius Act.

And that was a really big deal. It was the first federal regulatory framework for stablecoins that was ever passed in the United States. It was the first time there were clear rules around what a stablecoin is, how they should work. And more importantly, who can issue one? Now, if you’re wondering why stablecoins even matter, hang on, I’m gonna get to that in a second, because that’s really at the heart of this entire fight. Now, the Genius Act was just the first step, right? This is, it was the first piece, but the next piece of legislation is what’s called the Clarity Act, right? And this is where it gets even bigger.

Because the Clarity Act passed already through the House. It’s now sitting in the Senate Banking Committee. And if it’s passed, it creates clear regulatory framework for the entire digital asset market, which I know it sounds boring, I get that. But buried inside this bill is one specific provision. It’s Section 404. All right. Now, Section 404 is what the mainstream press are completely missing. Maybe they’re completely ignoring. But it’s the reason the banks are spending tens of millions of dollars to make sure this bill never sees the Senate vote. Now, President Trump wants these bills to go through, right? He wants the US to lead in everything.

He wants the US to lead in technology, and in every area of technology, including banking. But the banks, they’re quietly lobbying behind the scenes to kill this administrative bill. The Clarity Act, they don’t want it. Trump certainly has his hands full right now with everything that’s going on in the world, like right now. But he’s still watching all this happen. And apparently, he’s had enough, right? So he went this week onto True Social. And he posted something that, well, most of what he does, we’ve never seen from any sitting president.

And certainly what he said here has never been said by any president, at least publicly. And he called out the banks directly. He said the Genius Act is being threatened and undermined by the banks. And that’s unacceptable. He said that Americans should be earning more money on their money. He said that the banks are hitting record profits while trying to undermine the crypto agenda. And he said the banks should not be holding the Clarity Act hostage. And he named them he called them out right on his public platform as president of the United States.

Now, a lot of people did they read that anything? Oh, yeah, whatever. Trump’s just doing whatever Trump’s doing, right political posturing. But the context matters here. Trump came into office wanting to make America the crypto capital of the world. He sees AI, he sees crypto as the next frontier of American economic leadership. And so he doesn’t want to hold guard right the technology adverse banks hold the American people hostage over it. Now, the most powerful person on earth has publicly picked a fight with the bank, right? He’s chosen his side. Now to understand why the banks are on the other side, why are they willing to go to war with the president over a stablecoin bill? Well, you need to understand exactly what it is that they’re protecting.

Now, this is the part where Jefferson like his warning, it starts to make sense. Right now, there’s approximately 6.6 trillion dollars sitting in customer deposits at US banks, 6.6 trillion. That’s your savings. That’s your checking account. That’s your emergency fund. And it’s all parked at the bank. And what do they pay you for the privilege of holding your money? They pay you about 0.1%. Maybe if you’re lucky 10 basis points. Meanwhile, at a minimum, the banks are making 200 billion a year on that same money, risk free, they take your deposits and then they lend it back out at six or seven or 8% on mortgages, on car loans, on credit cards, and then they pocket the whole difference.

And then you are nothing. Now, Jefferson called it out, right? He said the banks are depreciating your wealth slowly, quietly, every single year. Now, your bank tells you that, you know, your money’s available anytime, right? It’s liquid. It’s on demand. Anytime you can come withdraw it, come, come withdraw it tomorrow if you want. But the reality is different, right? The second you deposit that money, the bank loans it out. Not for a week, not for a month, sometimes 15 years, 20 or sometimes 30 years, right? That’s your neighbor’s mortgage.

That’s a commercial real estate loan. That’s a seven year car loan. Your money has been deployed. It’s not stored there at the bank. This is called fractional reserve banking. And it works as long as everyone doesn’t ask for their money back at the same time. So here’s the problem, right? The Clarity Act creates this problem for them where Americans suddenly have a legal safe alternative that could pay them yield. That’s the piece. Banks don’t want to pay you anything. But if I can put my money into stablecoins and earn a yield, say 3.6%, instead of the 0.1%, well, then what are we going to do? We’re going to start moving our money into stablecoins.

And we’re going to move all our money into stablecoins. And when we move all of our money over there, well, the banks don’t have it. They can’t just give it back. There is no money to hand back, right? It’s all sitting in 30 year mortgages. It’s in a mortgage in your friend’s place in Phoenix, Arizona. If deposits leave at scale, well, the banks can’t do anything about it, right? They can’t liquidate those loans overnight to cover the withdrawals. That’s what’s called a bank rent. It’s existential, right? They’re either forced to compete, I guess, by paying us the real yield.

They could just do that, but that destroys their profit margin. Or they watch their deposits walk out the door, right? But neither of those options work for them. That’s why they’re going to war. That’s why they’re going to war over this. Not because they’re going to make less profit, but because the math on enough exits doesn’t end with a smaller business, it ends their business. Now, Jefferson saw this fragility, right? 200 years ago, he didn’t just have a word for it yet. He didn’t understand the mechanism, but he knew that.

Okay, so now that you understand what the banks are protecting, let’s just take a look at the historical context for why this moment is so big and so significant, because the money system, it’s only been restructured twice in the last hundred years. This is the third time. Now, both times previously, the people who understood what was happening built generational wealth. The people who didn’t though, they got left behind. First time that we saw all this happen, the restructure was in 1913. That’s when the bankers pressured Congress into creating the Federal Reserve.

And for the first time in American history, a central bank controlled the money supply. This was private banks. Private banks got the keys to the kingdom, right? They could now create money out of thin air. They could now set the price of money, set the rates. They could decide who gets access to capital. And the average American, they had no idea, right? They didn’t know what happened. And honestly, most people still don’t. If you care about that, I’d recommend reading the book called The Creature from Jekyll Island. And if you want me to go deeper on that, maybe make a video on it, you could drop a comment down below.

Maybe I’ll make a video on that. But the second time that we saw this restructure was in 1971. Then President Richard Nixon, he closed the gold window, right up until that point, every single dollar in your pocket or your bank was backed by actual gold. But of course, Nixon ended that overnight, right? So from that point on, money could be printed without any limit. Now, of course, of course, the banks love that, right? Like when you can create unlimited money, well, the people who sit closest to the money supply, the printer, they win, right? That’s called the cantillon effect.

But everybody else, the savers, the wage earners and anybody that holds cash, well, they lose purchasing power every single year. Now, both times the money system changed, there was a window, a small window to get on the right side of it. Maybe a short window. And most people missed it, but both times. And now here we are 2026. I believe we’re watching the third restructuring. All right. Now, this is not because of one tweet or, you know, one post on true social. It’s not because of just one bill, but because for the first time since 1913, the infrastructure of money itself is being cracked open to competition, right? The banks have had this monopoly for over 100 years.

And this very week, the walls all started coming down and actually on two fronts, right? So the first Trump joined the fight, right? We talked about that. But the second one that happened this week, I think it’s even a bigger story. And I haven’t really heard anybody talking about this. And that is that Kraken just became the first crypto company in history to get direct access to the Federal Reserve’s payment system. Now, if you don’t know, Kraken is one of the largest crypto exchanges in the world. And they were just granted what’s called a Fed master account.

Basically what that means is that now Kraken can move money directly through the Federal Reserve’s payment infrastructure. They don’t need a bank intermediary. They don’t need a bank. Until this week, only banks had. That means the monopoly on transactions, thing that Jefferson warned us about, the thing banks have protected for over 100 years, just got its first real crack in it. And the bank, crack in it, crack in, no pun intended. The banks immediately have been losing their mind over this, right? We saw the Bank Policy Institute, which represents JP Morgan, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, they said they were deeply concerned, quote, unquote, deeply concerned.

The independent community banker said it posed, quote, risks to the banking system, in quote, notice what they didn’t say. They didn’t say it poses risk to consumers. They didn’t say it’s poses risk for the economy. They said the risk, the banking system, right? Which is them basically telling you that the system that they’re in, the system they have the monopoly on, that’s what they’re worried about. Not you and I, not our savings, not the economy, right? We actually have a real world example of what happens when you open payment infrastructure to non-banks.

This isn’t anything new, just new in the United States. Over in Europe, they’ve had it open. We can see the Bank of England did this in 2017. Today, there’s over 300 non-bank institutions that operate you in the UK payment system. And the payments over there, they got cheaper, they got faster, they got more competitive across the board, which is what happens when you have competition, which is of course, great for consumers. It’s terrible for banks collecting fat fees on every single transaction. Now, the legislation is one front of this war, the infrastructure is being built simultaneously, and the banks can’t lobby their way out of what already exists.

Now that you sort of understand the stakes, right? You have everything you’ve watched happen in crypto over the last seven or eight years. Now, the banks, they’ve been here before, right? Every single time cryptos threaten their monopoly, they’ve run the exact same playbook. Step one, scare the public, right? Get all the CEOs on TV, call it a fraud, call it rat poison, call it a pyramid scheme, like whatever, right? Like, make retail investors feel stupid for owning it, make them feel scared, right? And in 2017, Jamie Diamond called Bitcoin a fraud, Warren Buffett called it rat poison squared, Howard Marks called it a pyramid scheme, right? Step two, lobby Washington, right? Try to kill the legislation.

Back in 2017, banks spent over $65 million lobbying to block a federal proposal that would have let crypto firms compete with traditional banks. And of course, the bill never made it to the vote. Bitcoin crashed from 20,000 all the way down to 3,000. Okay, step number three, buy the dip. While retail scared out of their positions, and the price comes down, then the institutions quietly start to accumulate. All right. After that happens, step four, repackage and sell it. Who do they sell back to, to you? Put it in a shiny ETF wrapper, right? Charge a fee, call it a financial product.

That’s the playbook, right? And they’ve run it at least twice. And we can see it right here. Like, look, Larry Fink, he’s the CEO of BlackRock, the largest asset manager in the world, over $10 trillion in assets. And he called Bitcoin an index of money laundering back in 2017. But in January of 2024, BlackRock launched a spot Bitcoin ETF. By late 2025, they were making 20 million a month in fees from that product alone. In two years, it became their most profitable ETF ever. Larry Fink, the same man, right? The same asset Bitcoin, but a complete reversal.

It happened the moment he figured out how to monetize it, so scare you out of it. They buy the dip, they repackage it and sell it to you. Now, look, he probably knew the whole time. They just wanted to make sure they were the ones selling it to you. And now last year, we can see the bank lobbying hit $87 million, a 12% jump, the highest level since 2008, when they’re fighting off the post crisis regulation. Now that number tells you how threatened they feel right now. They’re running the same playbook, the same playbook we see all the time, the same fear, the same lobbying, the same manufactured uncertainty.

But the difference this time is that the President of the United States is actively working against them. Alright, so that’s the news. That’s the context. That’s the history. That’s the underlying mechanism. That’s the why behind this banking war that you see happening right now. But let’s talk about what happens next, what happens from here. And more importantly, what should you and I be doing about this? How do we think about this? Now, we have a very recent roadmap for this. Last year, Congress passed the Genius Act. Alright, this was the first federal stablecoin framework that went through.

Now, what we saw is as the bill started advancing through Congress, Bitcoin ran from 74,000 to as high as 126,000. And that’s not like a coincidence. When regulatory uncertainty clears, capital that’s been sitting on the sideline, it starts coming in. It’s been waiting for clarity. And so it comes in fast. And when the capital moves into Bitcoin, then it moves the price up. The clarity act, that’s the next step, right? It’s way bigger than the Genius Act, because the clarity act doesn’t just regulate stablecoins. It creates framework for the entire digital asset market.

It legitimizes the entire ecosystem. And section 404, the stablecoin yield provision, that starts pulling capital out of the banking system and into the crypto infrastructure. Alright, so we have a documented recent example of exactly what happens when crypto regulation advances. And we can see the setup, it’s all forming right now. And look, I’m not going to tell you exactly when this passes, or you know, what Bitcoin is going to do, because obviously, I don’t know that nobody knows that. We could see more volatility before the breakout. I’m guessing that’s probably what we’ll see, right? That’s the nature of this asset.

But here’s what we do know. The 1913 restructuring created generational wealth for the people who understood it. The 1971 restructuring, it did the same thing. Both times, there was a window. And both times, most people missed it, right? And we’re in that window right now. The banks are fighting this because they have to. Trump is pushing this because he has to. The infrastructure is being built because the market wants it. The market demands it. Now, when those three forces are moving in the same direction, at the same time, that’s not coincidence.

That’s momentum. So the question that I would spend time on the question we’re spending some thought on, isn’t whether this happens. It’s whether you understand it well enough to act before everybody else catches on. Right. And that’s exactly what I’ve been building inside the wealth OS we build around that, not just owning Bitcoin, but understanding how to structure your assets so that when moments like this play out, you’re already on the right side of the transfer. The war is underway. Jefferson warned us what’s coming, right? Now you know what’s actually at stake.

Now, if you want to go even deeper on the mechanics of the banks, the duration mismatch, what this really means for the financial system long term, then you might want to watch this video right here and I’ll see you over there. [tr:trw].

See more of Mark Moss on their Public Channel and the MPN Mark Moss channel.