Conclusion & Outlook

Traditional banking systems are built upon centralized trust and multi-layered intermediaries, resulting in high costs, inefficiency, imbalance, and an overall inability to adapt to the era of intelligent automation.

Over the past decade, the rapid evolution of blockchain technology has prompted a fundamental question: if the banks of the past had never existed, how would we rebuild them for the future using today’s most advanced blockchain technologies?

StakeStone 2.0—our Crypto-native Neo Bank—was designed as a systematic answer to that question, reimagining the foundations of banking for the decentralized, machine-integrated economy of tomorrow.

I. Addressing High Costs: From “Human Trust” to “Code Trust”

The high operating costs of traditional banks stem from their dependence on manual processes, compliance overhead, IT infrastructure, physical branches, and multi-layered settlement structures.StakeStone 2.0 replaces these inefficiencies with Account Abstraction (EIP-7702), Gasless transactions, and Social Login, enabling self-custodied accounts with automated trust through smart contracts and zero-friction onboarding.

• Account-as-the-Bank: Users hold their own onchain accounts—funds no longer require third-party custody.

• Gasless Transactions: Fees are abstracted away, creating a Web2-level user experience.

• Smart Account Logic: Multi-signature, spending limits, automated yield management, and risk controls are all executed by code instead of manual approval.

For the first time, the cost of trust in banking transforms from human to computational, turning users from recipients of service into autonomous financial actors.

II. Addressing Inefficiency: From “Batch Settlement” to “Real-time Settlement”

Traditional banks rely on multi-tiered clearing processes and manual reconciliation for interbank and cross-border transactions, making T+N settlements the norm. These legacy systems depend on end-of-day batch processing, which introduces latency and operational friction.

StakeStone 2.0 replaces this with a layered settlement architecture that defines differentiated settlement logic based on asset type and transaction scenario. In this model, each transaction achieves settlement instantaneously, and each settlement equals final confirmation, achieving true real-time settlement.

As a result, cross-border payments, peer-to-peer transfers, and machine-to-machine micropayments can now be executed with near-zero latency, redefining financial efficiency for the onchain era.

III. Addressing Inequality of Opportunity: From “Closed Access” to “Open Inclusion”

Traditional banks divide the world into those who are served and those who are excluded, constrained by account requirements, regional barriers, and capital thresholds. StakeStone 2.0, through our onchain Yield Layer, enables anyone to participate in the global yield network with minimal entry barriers. Because the marginal cost of providing global financial services through code is near zero, the Crypto-native Neo Bank model makes universal financial inclusion possible for the first time. Regardless of geography or economic condition, every individual and institution can now participate equally within the same yield ecosystem, accessing opportunities once limited to a privileged few.

IV. Addressing Data Silos and AI Incompatibility: From “Human Decision” to “Intelligent Collaboration”

Traditional banking architectures are closed, fragmented, and lack real-time processing or open interfaces, making them ill-equipped to support emerging financial scenarios such as AI-driven autonomous decision-making and machine-to-machine (M2M) settlement.Legacy operational logic still assumes that “customers occasionally perform transactions” rather than “intelligent agents continuously interact and transact,” leaving them fundamentally misaligned with the machine economy.StakeStone bridges this gap through the integration of AP2 (Agents-to-Payments Protocol) and x402, building an AI & Machine Payment Layer that enables every AI, IoT device, or algorithm to possess an independent identity and programmable payment capability.

• AP2 defines payment intent: AI agents automatically generate Payment Intents based on task objectives and resource requirements.

• x402 provides authorization and secure settlement: Built on the HTTP 402 status code, x402 offers a standardized payment authorization and validation channel. It receives and verifies Payment Requests from AP2, then executes onchain settlements or calls Custody APIs for fund transfers through designated facilitators.

• Gasless + Compliance Module: Relay services sponsor transaction fees, enabling fully automated and auditable agent transactions with integrated regulatory traceability.

AP2 manages payment intent and authorization logic, while x402 oversees verification and settlement. Together, they embed autonomous intelligence into StakeStone accounts, enabling them to make independent decisions and execute transactions, where AI and human accounts collaborate seamlessly within the same financial stack, fully aligning with the machine economy.

V. Addressing Regulatory Complexity and Opacity: From “Manual Reporting” to “Compliance-as-Code”

StakeStone 2.0’s Compliance & Security Layer embeds regulatory logic directly into the protocol layer through its ZK-KYC/AML module and Programmable Regulatory API Layer, ensuring that compliance and innovation coexist without conflict.

• Zero-Knowledge Compliance: Identity legitimacy is verified without exposing private information.

• Embedded Regulatory APIs: Compliance rules are executed directly as code, automatically intercepting non-compliant transactions.

• Cross-Jurisdiction Recognition: Encrypted credentials and transaction records are portable across networks, enabling multi-national regulatory interoperability.

Compliance is no longer an external burden but a native attribute of the system itself.StakeStone makes “Regulation as Protocol, Compliance as Execution” an onchain reality.

Toward the Bank of the Future: A Public Network for Global Value Flow

What StakeStone is building is not a traditional financial intermediary dependent on manual processes and centralized systems, but a new kind of Crypto-native Neo Bank — a financial infrastructure rooted in blockchain-based trust, powered by intelligent accounts, and defined by machine-to-machine interoperability.When human and machine accounts share the same economic stack, and when yield, settlement, clearing, and governance all take place on a single open ledger, the bank is no longer merely a human-centered service institution — it evolves into a public network for global value flow.

StakeStone’s Vision

To make finance as open as the Internet,And let value flow as freely as information.This, is StakeStone’s answer to the future of banking.