Hassan Maishera
Financial Exclusion Remains Deeply Concentrated
The scale of unmet financial need remains structural and geographically concentrated. According to World Bank estimates, roughly 1.3 billion adults — representing 21% of the global adult population — remain unbanked. Approximately 73% of these individuals live in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), with more than half concentrated across just eight countries.
Notably, five of those eight countries consistently rank among the top 20 in Chainalysis’s Global Crypto Adoption Index, reinforcing the argument that permissionless digital networks are increasingly serving as an alternative gateway to financial services where traditional infrastructure remains limited.
The underbanked population represents an even larger challenge. Around 4.7 billion adults globally still lack access to credit or loans, while 3.6 billion adults in LMICs remain disconnected from digital payments and card infrastructure. Although approximately 40% of adults in LMICs save formally, nearly 77% — equivalent to about 1.4 billion savers — earn no interest on their deposits.
The findings suggest that financial exclusion is no longer a binary issue. The unmet demand spans savings, payments, credit access, and yield generation, disproportionately affecting populations in jurisdictions where formal financial-sector reforms have progressed slowly.
Mobile Devices Are Reshaping Financial Onboarding
According to Binance’s report, mobile-device penetration is emerging as the critical foundation for low-barrier financial access. Of the world’s unbanked adults, roughly 900 million own a mobile phone, while around 530 million already possess smartphones.
This means that a majority of financially excluded individuals already have the hardware required to access self-custodial wallets and global crypto exchanges directly, bypassing the need for conventional banking infrastructure.
Research conducted by MIT economists in Kenya found that mobile-money services helped lift 2% of households out of extreme poverty through improved access to savings, transfers, and payments.
Two major implications emerge from this trend. First, the onboarding challenge has shifted away from physical distribution and toward user experience and regulatory clarity. Second, permissionless networks eliminate dependence on the geographic reach of any single intermediary.
Stablecoins Are Challenging Traditional Remittance Economics
Binance added that cross-border payments continue to impose disproportionate costs on LMIC remittance corridors. Traditional SWIFT transfers typically cost at least US$20 and can require several days to settle.
That minimum fee effectively translates to a 1% charge only on transfers exceeding US$2,000 — a threshold far above the average remittance size in many developing economies.
By comparison, stablecoin transfers conducted on high-performance blockchain networks can cost as little as US$0.0001 while settling almost instantly.
According to Artemis data, adjusted stablecoin transaction volume surpassed Visa in 2024 and is now approaching US$8 trillion in monthly volume, positioning it to potentially overtake ACH payment volume.
Tokenized Equities Expand Global Market Access
The World Federation of Exchanges estimates that roughly 630 million adults globally hold online brokerage accounts, while access to U.S. equity markets remains significantly more limited — despite U.S. equities accounting for approximately half of total global market capitalization.
Tokenized equities aim to reduce this structural imbalance by enabling fractional ownership and 24/7 trading access. Seven-day rolling trading volume in TradFi perpetuals has expanded 16-fold in 2026, while the overall tokenization market has grown roughly 180% over the past year.
Private-market participation has historically been constrained by accreditation requirements and delayed public listings.
According to Altrata’s 2025 Billionaire Census, 87% of U.S. firms generating over US$100 million in revenue remain privately held, while 68% of the core businesses owned by global billionaires are also private.
Meanwhile, Apollo data shows that the median age of companies at IPO increased from eight years to 14 years across 2024 and 2025, limiting the window in which retail investors can participate in early-stage growth through public markets.
Tokenization is increasingly being viewed as a mechanism to expand access to these previously restricted opportunities. Tokenized private credit and private equity markets now account for approximately US$2.7 billion in on-chain value.
Although still modest relative to the broader private-market ecosystem, the reduction in minimum investment thresholds represents a significant structural shift.
Tokenized pre-IPO instruments and perpetual contracts could offer retail investors earlier exposure to that growth curve, subject to local regulatory frameworks.
On-Chain Infrastructure Is Powering AI-Native Finance
The financial inclusion framework is also beginning to extend beyond human users toward autonomous AI agents.
Binance noted that AI-driven economic participants require three key components currently available together only through on-chain systems: programmable money, permissionless identity, and composable settlement infrastructure.
Stablecoin systems such as USDC enable nanopayments costing as little as US$0.0001 per transaction, compared with Visa’s estimated 30-cent minimum transaction floor.
Meanwhile, standards such as ERC-8004 are introducing “Know-Your-Agent” frameworks that can support identity verification for autonomous agents alongside existing KYC systems.
The trend is already becoming measurable. More than 17,000 AI agents have been launched since 2025, approximately 19% of on-chain activity is now automated or agent-driven, and 76% of stablecoin transfer volume is attributed to bots.
Emerging Markets Continue to Drive Crypto Adoption
Binance data suggests that crypto adoption continues to accelerate most rapidly in emerging markets.
Using the World Bank’s income-level classification framework, Binance reported that users from emerging markets accounted for 49% of its user base in 2020. By 2026, that figure had increased to 77%.
The data indicates that users in these regions increasingly rely on crypto infrastructure not only for trading, but also for savings, payments, and investment access. Internal Binance research found that users engaging with at least two platform products represent 24% of active users, while those using three or more account for 14%. Among these multi-product users, 83% are located in emerging markets.
Furthermore, Binance revealed that roughly 28% of users with balances above US$10 now allocate at least half of their portfolio to stablecoins — a figure that has climbed from just 4% in 2020.
The behavior is even more pronounced in emerging markets, where 36% of users maintain similar stablecoin-heavy allocations. Binance data also shows that 73% of stablecoin savers globally are based in emerging economies.
Final Thoughts
The data presented throughout the report point toward a broader structural transformation in financial access. Historically, financial inclusion has been constrained by the cost of distributing banking infrastructure across geographically dispersed populations.
Mobile-device penetration and blockchain-based settlement systems are now materially reducing those barriers. Persistent gaps in payments, savings, yield generation, and capital-market access are increasingly being addressed at the infrastructure level rather than solely through traditional financial institutions.
