So, Niku, I want to ask you to pull up your phone and if you could go to your banking app.

Okay, well, I bank with Starling. Let me get my phone out and log in.

Okay, once you're logged in, tell me what are the last three things that you bought?

So my last three things are my tube fare to get into the

office this morning, the coffee that I bought this morning, and then also yesterday, my Spotify bill

went out of my bank account as well. Sounds like a typical weekday routine there. Yep,

pretty much. Well, so, Niku, the reason I just ask you to do this is because,

as the FTs Digital Markets correspondent, you've been covering how these kinds of purchases

using your phone might actually one day involve cryptocurrency. Yes, absolutely. I mean,

when I was buying my coffee or tapping my phone on the tube,

I wasn't thinking about what's actually happening in that transaction once I tap my phone to pay.

And I doubt you do at any point either. But crypto companies are looking to change that, the plumbing,

the technical stuff that happens once you pay, how you pay and what you pay with.

Right now, we pay in US dollars, or British pounds, or whatever other currency you use.

Crypto companies think we should be using stable coins instead.

Now, stable coins are essentially a type of digital cash that's pegged one to one with sovereign

currencies like the dollar or the euro. And crypto fans say that stable coins are better than the

money we use at the moment because they're faster and cheaper. And essentially, they really

think that the financial system we have at the moment can and should be improved. But not everyone's

so enthusiastic about this idea.

Wall Street banks are pushing back on some aspects of crypto,

and especially when it comes to payments and to being used as part of the financial system.

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