Open Money and user access

Open Money exists to empower individuals, not institutions.

One of the core tenets of Open Money is user control. Without it, the entire effort — the protocols, the cryptographic infrastructure, the decentralized consensus mechanisms — loses its fundamental purpose. Open Money exists to empower individuals, not institutions. Otherwise, what’s the point?

In this framework, access is not just a feature — it is a necessity. Unfettered user access ensures the security of the underlying network, aligns incentives through network effects, and upholds the foundational principles of decentralization. Without it, Open Money ceases to be open at all.

To understand why user control is so critical, we need to go back to the origins of decentralized finance. When Bitcoin emerged 15 years ago, its radical proposition was self-custody — giving individuals direct ownership of their assets without relying on banks, clearinghouses, or payment processors. It was the first real financial system designed to function natively on the internet, eliminating middlemen and enabling peer-to-peer transactions on a global scale.

But as the ecosystem expanded, some of this focus on self-sovereignty was diluted. Hype cycles, speculation, and the drive toward mass adoption led to a growing reliance on centralized exchanges, custodial wallets, and regulatory compromises. The vision of user-controlled finance was, in many ways, put on the back burner.

However, as Open Money matures, entrepreneurs and technologists are rediscovering a critical truth: user control isn’t just ideological posturing. It is a structurally sound, economically viable way to build internet-scale businesses. Decentralized networks, when designed correctly, don’t just create new financial tools—they enable entirely new business models, ones that leverage openness and composability rather than walled gardens and proprietary lock-ins.

This level of user control is made possible by Open Money’s permissionless nature. In traditional finance, participation requires approval — whether from banks, regulators, or platform owners. Open Money, in contrast, allows anyone to connect, transact, and build without gatekeeping. There are no account applications, no identity verification roadblocks, no terms-of-service agreements dictating who can or cannot participate.

Even more critically, Open Money operates on auditable, open-source infrastructure. Unlike black-box financial systems where rules can change overnight, decentralized protocols are transparent by default. Users can verify the rules themselves, audit smart contracts, and even remix code to create new applications. This isn’t just about financial autonomy — it’s about shifting the balance of power from institutions to individuals.

In the emerging Web3 landscape, this paradigm shift has profound implications. Businesses and startups that embrace Open Money’s permissionless ethos aren’t just making a philosophical choice; they’re positioning themselves for long-term resilience.

From a regulatory standpoint, building on open, decentralized rails can actually be a more defensible strategy than relying on traditional, centralized financial intermediaries. By ensuring that no single entity controls the system, Open Money creates a framework that is not only more user-centric but also more legally robust.

Ultimately, Open Money is not just about replacing old financial institutions with new ones. It is about rearchitecting finance itself — making it more transparent, more inclusive, and fundamentally more open. And at the heart of this transformation is user access. Without it, the system reverts to the very structures it was meant to disrupt.

This post is part of the Open Money project, an ongoing series that forms the basis of a longer work. Subscribe to get a weekly update as it unfolds.

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