The old banking model treats custody as the core service: institutions hold assets, maintain ledgers, and decide how money moves. That logic is being challenged by blockchain-based finance, where ownership, settlement, and verification can happen on shared networks instead of inside closed banking systems. Tangem Pay CEO Marcos Nunes put that shift bluntly in an interview published by CCN on April 20, 2026, saying, “I don’t believe in custody anymore.” His argument is not that banks disappear, but that their role changes when users can hold and move value themselves.
Why the custody model is under pressure
Traditional banking grew around a simple premise: most people could not safely store, transfer, or verify value on their own. Banks solved that problem by becoming trusted intermediaries. They kept deposits, updated balances on internal databases, processed payments, and handled compliance. In that framework, custody was not just one service among many. It was the foundation.
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Blockchain changes that architecture. Public networks such as Bitcoin and Ethereum allow users to hold assets directly through cryptographic keys and transfer them without relying on a bank’s internal ledger. That does not remove every intermediary, but it does reduce the need for one institution to control the full chain of ownership and movement.
That is the core of Nunes’s argument in the CCN interview. He said the role of banks should shift away from holding customer assets and toward providing access, usability, and financial services around those assets. In other words, the value moves from custody to coordination. That is a meaningful distinction. If users can self-custody, then the institution that wins is not necessarily the one that stores funds. It is the one that makes money easier to use.
This is not just theory. Tangem’s own product direction reflects it. Tangem has long been known for hardware wallet products built around self-custody. Its newer messaging around Tangem Pay pushes the idea further by trying to connect self-custodial ownership with everyday payments. Tangem’s blog describes Tangem Pay as a non-custodial payment account embedded inside the Tangem Wallet app, while product updates emphasize making crypto feel as easy to use as a modern banking app. That framing matters because it shows where the market is heading: not away from convenience, but away from custodial dependence.
What blockchain changes inside banking
Blockchain does not eliminate the functions people associate with banks. It reorganizes them.
Custody is the clearest example. In a blockchain environment, the user can hold the private keys, while the institution provides interfaces, identity checks, card rails, fraud monitoring, tax reporting, lending, or foreign exchange. Settlement can also change. Instead of waiting for batch processing across multiple correspondent institutions, value can move on-chain with transparent confirmation and auditable records.
That has implications for payments, savings, and cross-border transfers. A bank account today often bundles several services together: custody, payments, compliance, and access to the broader financial system. Blockchain can separate those layers. A user may keep assets in self-custody, use a wallet provider for security and interface design, rely on a regulated partner for card issuance, and interact with merchants through existing payment rails. The bank-like function remains, but the bank’s monopoly over the stack weakens.
This is why the debate is bigger than crypto branding. It is about whether financial institutions continue to own the ledger or become service providers on top of open ledgers. Nunes’s comments fit squarely into that transition. He is effectively arguing that the future bank is less a vault and more a gateway.
From asset holder to access provider
One of the most notable lines highlighted in the CCN interview is Nunes’s view that the bank role of today is about providing people with the access they need in order to do what they need at their own time. That is a subtle but important reframing. Access includes onboarding, compliance, spending tools, recovery options, and user support. It does not require the institution to own the customer’s assets in the traditional sense.
🧠Here's why banks really do need blockchain…@useTria co-founder @parthbl explains exactly what blockchain technology brings to the banking sector in a recent discussion with @dealflowpodcast's @RealMissAI ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/hLoBzrmNz6
— BSCN (@BSCNews) April 13, 2026
Seen this way, blockchain is not simply disintermediating banks. It is unbundling them. Some functions remain highly valuable. Others become less defensible.
Why self-custody is gaining appeal
The appeal of self-custody is not hard to understand. The crypto industry has spent years learning the cost of centralized failure. Exchange collapses, frozen withdrawals, and counterparty blowups pushed many users toward the principle often summarized as “not your keys, not your crypto.” Tangem’s product strategy clearly leans into that sentiment, and outside coverage has repeatedly linked the rise of self-custody tools to demand for alternatives after major centralized platform failures.
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But self-custody has always had a usability problem. Managing seed phrases, understanding networks, and avoiding irreversible mistakes remain barriers for mainstream users. That is where companies like Tangem are trying to compete. The pitch is not pure decentralization for experts. It is consumer-grade self-custody.
That distinction is crucial for banking. If self-custody stays too complex, banks keep their advantage. If self-custody becomes simple enough for everyday spending, then custody stops being the default business model. The winning products will be the ones that reduce friction without reintroducing the same concentration of control that blockchain was supposed to solve.
The limits of the anti-custody thesis
Still, the claim that custody no longer works is stronger as a direction than as an absolute fact. Many users do want intermediaries. Institutions, corporations, and funds often need regulated custodians for governance, reporting, insurance, and operational controls. Consumers also value recovery options and fraud protections, especially when dealing with life savings.
There is another issue: self-custody products do not operate in a vacuum. Payments require partnerships, compliance layers, and in many cases third-party infrastructure. Tangem-related community discussions on Reddit show that users still worry about service dependencies, geographic restrictions, and third-party integrations. Those concerns do not invalidate the self-custody model, but they do show that removing custody does not remove operational risk.
That is why the strongest version of Nunes’s argument is not that all custody disappears. It is that custody becomes optional rather than foundational. For some users and use cases, that is a major shift. For others, especially institutions, custody may remain essential.
What this means for banks in the US
For US banks, the message is straightforward. Competing in a blockchain-based financial system may require a different value proposition. Holding deposits and controlling payment rails will not be enough if customers can store tokenized value independently and move it across interoperable networks. Banks may need to focus more on compliance, identity, credit, treasury services, and trusted interfaces between fiat systems and digital assets.
That does not mean legacy institutions are obsolete. It means their moat changes. The institutions that adapt could become powerful service layers for tokenized finance. The ones that cling to custody as the central product may find that blockchain steadily erodes the exclusivity of that role.
Nunes’s quote lands because it captures a broader industry shift in one sentence. Blockchain is not just creating new assets. It is changing what financial institutions are for. If users can own value directly, then the future of banking is less about possession and more about permissionless access, secure design, and practical utility.
Frequently Asked Questions
What did the Tangem Pay CEO mean by “I don’t believe in custody anymore”?
He was arguing that blockchain allows users to hold assets directly rather than relying on banks or other institutions to store them. In that model, financial providers still matter, but more for access, payments, compliance, and usability than for custody itself.
Does blockchain make banks irrelevant?
No. Blockchain changes the role of banks rather than eliminating them outright. Banks can still provide lending, identity verification, compliance, payment access, treasury services, and customer support. What changes is that they may no longer need to control the underlying assets to deliver those services.
What is self-custody in crypto?
Self-custody means the user controls the private keys that authorize access to digital assets. Instead of relying on an exchange or bank to hold funds, the user holds them directly through a wallet or hardware device.
Why is self-custody becoming more popular?
It has gained traction because many users want to reduce counterparty risk after failures of centralized crypto platforms. Self-custody offers more direct control, though it also places more responsibility on the user for security and recovery.
Can self-custody work for everyday payments?
That is the goal of products like Tangem Pay. The challenge is combining self-custodial ownership with payment convenience, regulatory compliance, and a user experience that feels familiar to mainstream consumers.
Will traditional custody disappear completely?
Probably not. Institutional investors, regulated entities, and some retail users will still prefer custodial solutions for legal, operational, or security reasons. The bigger shift is that custody may become one option among many, rather than the default structure of finance.
