Key Notes
- Justin Sun predicts traditional banks will gradually fade as younger customers move toward blockchain-based financial services.
- Major lenders are already testing tokenized deposits and round-the-clock payments while retaining their role in the financial system.
- TRON plans tokenized stocks in the fourth quarter of 2026, alongside Sun’s forecast for wider use of crypto by AI agents.
TRON founder Justin Sun predicts that traditional banks will gradually disappear as younger customers move financial activity onto blockchain networks, according to BlockBeats’ conference report from TOKEN2049 in Singapore on October 8.
Sun argued that people born after 2000 would be unwilling to spend their time dealing with banks. His comments put the customer relationship at the center of the debate over digital finance: who will handle payments and financial services when users expect them to operate as continuously as the internet?
Alongside that banking forecast, Sun outlined a bigger role for AI agents and tokenized investments. In a separate post on October 8, he said bringing major stocks onchain could give people in Asia more ways to access dollar-based assets.
Bringing major stocks onchain could help drive that growth and give people in Asia more ways to access US dollar based assets.
— Justin Sun (@justinsuntron) October 8, 2026
A Challenge to the Banking Relationship
Sun’s argument is that customers will increasingly choose blockchain-based services over conventional banking. CoinNess reported that he contrasted crypto’s scope for technological improvement with what he described as limited progress in traditional banking systems.
The claim is a prediction from the founder of a competing financial network, rather than evidence that banks are already disappearing. It also leaves open whether customers would abandon banks entirely or simply use different applications to access payments and investments.
That distinction matters commercially. A bank can lose its position as a customer’s main financial interface while continuing to provide deposits, financing or settlement behind another company’s service. Moving transactions onto blockchain infrastructure does not by itself determine which institution ultimately supplies those functions.
There is already competition beyond retail payments. As we previously reported, Ripple has expanded into equity derivatives and financing for institutional clients through Ripple Prime. That illustrates how digital-asset businesses are entering services long associated with Wall Street banks.
Banks Are Building Their Own Blockchain Rails
Major lenders are responding by adopting some of the same technology. On September 10, DBS Group (SGX: D05), OCBC (SGX: O39) and United Overseas Bank (SGX: U11) announced their first live domestic Singapore-dollar transactions using tokenized deposits on Swift’s blockchain-based ledger.
These instruments are regular bank deposits represented digitally. In the transactions described by DBS, Swift’s ledger matched and netted obligations between the participating banks before final settlement through existing systems. The banks remained central to the process.
The experiment therefore points to another possible outcome: blockchain changes banking infrastructure while regulated lenders retain their relationships and financial obligations. The announcement described a foundation for more efficient, round-the-clock services, rather than universal availability of every payment service at any hour.
As we reported, tokenized deposits have also been used in a weekend dollar payment between DBS and Citigroup (NYSE: C). Such transactions challenge the assumption that the move toward continuous digital finance must happen outside the banking system.
AI Agents Could Change Payment Demand
Sun also forecast that AI agents using cryptocurrency would become the industry’s largest application category within five years, according to BlockBeats. That five-year horizon concerned AI adoption; the report did not attach the same deadline to his prediction about banks.
The proposed use case involves software that can pay for services and receive funds without waiting for a person to authorize each routine step. Blockchain networks could provide a continuously available transfer mechanism for those agents, with stablecoins offering a way to transact in dollar-linked units.
Continuous transfers are only one requirement, however. A commercial service still needs to establish who controls an agent’s funds, what spending it can authorize and how errors are handled. Sun’s remarks describe a direction for development, rather than demonstrating that autonomous payments have already displaced conventional banking.
TRON Plans to Expand Into Tokenized Stocks
Sun said TRON processes approximately $20 billion to $30 billion in daily transactions, CoinNess reported. COINOTAG’s account of the discussion also cited more than 400 million network accounts.
Those figures measure different things. Accounts are not a count of distinct people or active banking customers, while transaction value is not revenue. They indicate the scale Sun attributes to the network without establishing how much conventional bank activity it has replaced.
TRON is also targeting tokenized stocks in the fourth quarter of 2026, CriptoNoticias reported. The proposed expansion would take the network further into investment distribution. The report did not identify a precise launch date or a full list of supported shares, and the plan should not be treated as a completed rollout.
The Banking Outcome Remains Open
Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) presents a different forecast. Its June 4 research outlook said crypto transactions were unlikely to replace traditional banking models, while digital infrastructure could reshape payments, foreign exchange, liquidity management and securities services.
The bank argued that firms investing in tokenized infrastructure and trusted access points could defend or expand market share. Sun sees an opening for blockchain networks to take over the customer relationship; banks see an opportunity to deliver existing services through new infrastructure. Which model gains ground will depend on adoption, reliable service and the economics of providing it.
