Decentralised finance, the ‘end of banks’ – and what comes next

Simon Dingle and Steven Sidley believe a revolution is coming to the world of finance, and it could mean the end of banks – at least as we know them.

Dingle and Sidley join TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod to discuss their newly published book on “decentralised finance”, or DeFi, and unpack why they think the staid world of banking is poised for a radical overhaul – one that will lead to the death of financial institutions that don’t adapt to a new world underpinned by cryptography and blockchains.

In the prologue to the book, called Beyond Bitcoin: Decentralised Finance and the End of Banks, the authors state that “great fortunes will be made and lost” in DeFi’s wake.

Banks, they say, will go through a “painful shudder of reinvention”. They also state that the changes brought about by DeFi will make the trillion-dollar rise of bitcoin look “pedestrian”. It will disrupt and displace companies, and even entire industries, they say.

Dingle and Sidley unpack why they believe DeFi is going to usher in the biggest technology-led disruption in a generation and what it ultimately will means for banks, individuals and even nation states.

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