The Crypto Revolution Remains Half-Built

Opinion by: Timothy Chen, global head of strategy, Mantle 

While crypto adoption accelerates across Southeast Asia and Latin America, a deeper structural problem persists: Payments remain slow, error-prone and exclusionary. The premise of financial sovereignty through blockchain remains tantalizingly incomplete. 

Millions hold digital assets, yet they cannot seamlessly integrate them into daily life. This paradoxical disconnect — digital wealth without practical utility — represents a critical infrastructural gap where emerging markets suffer…