Banks extracted hundreds of billions from American savers last year — and the scale of it shows a deep structural issue in America’s financial system. Bitcoin might help.
In 2025, U.S. banks generated roughly $434 billion in net interest income, or about $1,670 per adult, according to research from River.
The mechanism is straightforward: banks take customer deposits, lend or invest those funds at higher rates, and return only a fraction of the yield to depositors. With most savings accounts offering close to zero interest, that spread compounds into one of the most reliable profit engines in the economy.
At the same time, inflation has remained persistently above the Federal Reserve’s stated 2% target for years. In real terms, that means savers are losing purchasing power annually. When your bank pays 0.1% but inflation runs several percentage points higher, the result is not just stagnation — it’s erosion. Quietly, consistently, and at scale.
This dynamic helps explain why alternative systems — particularly Bitcoin — continue to resonate. For many, the issue is no longer just access to financial services, but whether those services are aligned with their long-term interests at all.
Yet the frustration isn’t limited to legacy banking. The fintech sector, once positioned as a corrective force after the 2008 financial crisis, is now facing its own identity crisis, Bitcoin might help.
Tricking users to gamble with their money
Over the past decade, companies like Robinhood, Coinbase, and Cash App lowered barriers to entry, onboarding millions of new users into investing, payments, and digital assets. For the first time, financial tools that were once reserved for the wealthy became widely accessible.
But according to River CEO Alex Leishman, that mission has drifted. What began as democratization has, in many cases, turned into monetization of user behavior. Investment platforms now promote memecoins, leveraged derivatives, and even sports betting-style features. The interface may look like a brokerage account, but the incentives increasingly resemble a casino.
The distinction matters. Data consistently shows that most retail participants lose money in high-frequency trading environments. Futures markets see the vast majority of traders underperform.
Options trading often results in repeated losses for the average user. And in jurisdictions where sports betting has expanded, personal bankruptcy rates have climbed in the years that follow.
This convergence — finance, gaming, and gambling — has been driven by a simple motive: engagement. The more often users trade, bet, or speculate, the more revenue platforms generate.
Push notifications, streaks, instant settlement, and social features all reinforce short-term behavior. Over time, the line between investing and entertainment becomes difficult to distinguish, according to River and Leishman.
Leishman’s critique is not that risk-taking should be eliminated, but that it should be transparent. Casinos don’t present themselves as wealth-building tools. Increasingly, financial apps do.
It’s time for bitcoin
Bitcoin, in contrast, sits outside this framework. Bitcoin does not promise yield, nor does it rely on user engagement to sustain itself. Its value proposition is narrower but more rigid: a fixed supply, a decentralized network, and the ability to self-custody without reliance on intermediaries.
Despite more than a decade of growth, ownership remains relatively low — less than one-fifth of American adults. That suggests two things at once: adoption is still early, and the gap between existing financial systems and viable alternatives remains wide.
The broader question now is directional. The original promise of fintech was to expand access and improve outcomes. In many ways, it succeeded. But access alone is not enough if the underlying products leave users worse off.
Banks continue to extract value through interest rate spreads. Bitcoin doesn’t. Fintech platforms increasingly optimize for activity over outcomes. And users — more informed, but also more exposed — are left navigating a system that often rewards participation more than prudence.
The opportunity, as Leishman frames it, is to realign incentives: build tools (like bitcoin) that prioritize long-term wealth creation over short-term revenue, and offer products that founders would trust their own families to use.