Harsha MV | OrbitX 💳

💯 100 Days. 100 Stories. The Past, Present, and Future of Money.

Every great transformation hides patterns. Follow along as we connect 5,000 years of banking history to the code being written today.

This whole series is inspired by @finallrounder, who’s writing 100 Days of Bitcoin. I’ve been learning so much from his journey that I wanted to start my own - focused on banking and the transformation toward Banking 3.0 that we’re building at OrbitX.

✍️ Writing is how we think through complex problems.

For the past year, as we’ve been building @OrbitX_Pay and diving deep into the evolution of banking, I’ve come to realize just how little most people grasp about the transformation unfolding around us.

The conventional narrative is wrong. 🚫

People think banking innovation means better apps, faster payments, and lower fees. These are features, not transformations.

The real story is architectural. 🏗️

We're rebuilding the fundamental infrastructure of how money works at OrbitX. Self-sovereign identity. Programmable compliance. Decentralized networks. On-chain settlement.

This transformation is happening in silos. This series breaks down those walls - connecting the dots between past, present, and the banking systems we’re building next.

Historians study ancient banking systems. Technologists build DeFi protocols. Regulators adapt policy frameworks. Entrepreneurs create new companies.
Money is humanity’s greatest shared story - and the way we store, move, and trust it is being rewritten.

Over the next 100 days, I’ll tell you 100 short stories that connect those dots.
✅ How money moved before banks existed
✅ Why banks exist at all
✅ Why central banking changed everything
✅ How FinTech exploded in the last 20 years
✅ Where Web3 Banking 3.0 is taking us next

Each post will be short enough to read over coffee, but deep enough to make you think. Think of it as a history lesson, a tech guide, and a peek into the future - rolled into one.

Why 100 days?
Because complex topics require sustained attention. Banking touches everything: technology, regulation, economics, human behavior, geopolitics.

You can't understand the current transformation without understanding the historical context. You can't predict the future without recognizing the patterns.

This is thinking in public.

By the end of these 100 days, you’ll be able to see patterns others miss, ask sharper questions, and join the conversation with a deeper understanding.

Great writing happens in community. I'll share my thinking, you share yours, and together we'll understand this transformation better than anyone studying it alone.

📅 Day 1 starts Monday, Sept 15th
🔔 Follow me (Harsha MV) and turn on notifications — every day at 7:11 PM GST a new story will drop.

Let’s think through this together.
💬 Drop a simple “Banking 3.0 ✅” in the comments to show support and join me on this journey.

#100DaysOfBanking #ThinkingInPublic

Canada is not just a colder version of the Midwest.

Target treated it that way, and the bill ran into billions.

In 2011, Target bought Zellers leases across Canada for about C$1.825 billion. Canadians already loved Target from weekend trips to US stores. The brand walked into open arms.

Then the shelves went bare.

First stores opened in March 2013. By early 2015 Target had 133 Canadian stores and about 17,600 staff. Shoppers found empty racks, thin assortment, and prices often higher than Target US. Warehouses jammed while stores starved. Barcodes did not match the systems. Unit counts on boxes did not match the computers. New SAP tools were still being learned while openings were forced so rent would not burn on dark stores. Competitors had two years to sharpen price and range. On 15 January 2015 Target said it would leave. Losses for the Canadian unit sat around US$2.1 billion. Every store closed by 12 April 2015. CEO Brian Cornell later said they took on too much too fast, and the guest experience did not meet expectations.

Familiarity is not readiness. A shared language and a known logo can hide how different costs, languages, provinces and competitors really are. Adjacent is not identical, and brand love does not fix a broken first visit.

1. Test before you scale
Open a few sites. Fix the supply chain. Then grow. A national launch is not a dress rehearsal.

2. Price the market you are in
Border shoppers will compare you to your own US stores. If you cannot match, say why early, or they will feel cheated.

3. Hire the country, not the clone
Quebec needs French. Provinces set different rules. Local managers catch what HQ templates miss.

Canada looked like the easiest foreign market on the map. It punished the assumption hardest.

At OrbitX we treat the US and Mexico as different plays, not one North American copy. The US is an active market where sending money leads. Mexico is active too, but we lead with named MXN virtual accounts for freelancers and SMEs who get paid and pay across borders. Adjacent markets still need their own rails.

Where have you seen a brand treat a neighbour as a clone of home?

Should we do a GTA VI giveaway?

🗞️ LAST 24 HOURS IN STABLECOINS [14 NOV 2026]

Banks and fintechs kept hiding the coin behind familiar accounts, from Manila freelancers to Canadian retail investors. Covering 13 to 14 Nov.

📉 Total stablecoin supply was about $287.0B on 14 Nov per DefiLlama, down about $4.5B in a week. USDT is near $175.2B and USDC near $69.2B.

🇵🇭 RCBC and US payments network Meridian expanded the RCBC Pulz US Virtual Account to accept USDC and USDT from US employers and clients. Filipino freelancers never hold the coins: transfers are converted and credited as dollars around the clock, weekends included.

🇨🇦 Wealthsimple started offering CADD, the Canadian dollar stablecoin issued by Tetra Trust, to a beta group, with all clients to follow later this year. It is the first regulated financial institution in Canada to offer CADD to its clients.

🇰🇭 Japan's SBI Holdings and the National Bank of Cambodia will run two pilots: tokenised, fractional government bonds on the Canton Network, and the yen stablecoin JPYSC for settlement between institutions behind international remittances.

🇰🇪 The IMF asked Kenya to let foreign-currency stablecoin issuers keep reserves abroad under strict oversight, instead of forcing part of them into Kenyan banks. It also wants capital rules sized to each firm, not flat floors like the Sh300M for issuers.

🇦🇪 MultiBank Group signed an MoU with Universal to use USDU, the first dollar stablecoin registered by the UAE central bank, for institutional settlement. A pilot starts with professional clients on its MB.io platform.

🇭🇰 The HKMA and SFC said the next step for Project Ensemble is using 24/7 tokenised bank deposits to pay for tokenised products such as money market funds. The pilot now has 12 participating banks.

💳 DCS DeCard widened its Visa deal to take stablecoin-linked consumer and corporate cards beyond Asia Pacific into Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, covering more than 70 markets.

🛒 Ramp made Open USD (OUSD) the asset behind its business stablecoin accounts. Customers earn rewards on balances and can pay suppliers and contractors in more than 140 countries.

🥈 Ripple's RLUSD passed PayPal's PYUSD to become the seventh-largest stablecoin, at about $2.71B against $2.67B on 12 Nov. The gap is thin enough to flip on a single day of issuance.

🏛️ Circle named Dante Disparte vice chairman for strategy and global affairs, and Mandeep Walia chief compliance and risk officer as well as COO, as it prepares for heavier regulation and global scale.

My take:
The best launches this week hid the coin. A Filipino freelancer gets paid on a Sunday and only sees dollars, and a Ramp customer just sees a balance that pays 140 countries. Meanwhile the IMF is telling Kenya that forcing reserves onshore may keep good issuers out. In emerging markets, the real contest is who owns the exit into local money.

Follow @harshamv for the Last 24 hours in Stablecoins, every day.

🗞️ LAST 24 HOURS IN STABLECOINS [13 NOV 2026]

Card networks went deeper into stablecoin settlement while regulators in Asia drew tighter lines around who can issue and how much can move. Covering 12 to 13 Nov.

📉 Total stablecoin supply was about $287.7B on 13 Nov per DefiLlama, down about $4.8B in a week. USDT is near $175.3B and USDC near $69.4B, and USDT has been trading slightly below its $1 peg.

💳 Visa partners can now settle VisaNet obligations in USDPT, Western Union's stablecoin issued by Anchorage Digital Bank. It is the first Anchorage-issued coin on Visa's settlement network, with more to be considered later.

🔄 Mastercard and BVNK now let businesses pay suppliers from a stablecoin balance straight into local bank accounts in 11 currencies, including the Mexican peso, Brazilian real, Philippine peso and Korean won. They plan to reach 40+ currencies during 2027.

🏦 SoFiUSD, the first stablecoin issued by a US national bank, went live on Polygon alongside Ethereum and Solana. SoFi's 17M+ members can buy, hold and convert it inside the app, with 24/7 cross-border transfers promised next.

🇹🇭 Thailand's SEC proposed capping stablecoin deposits and withdrawals at 5M baht (about $148,000) a day per customer at each regulated operator. Transfers to and from third-party wallets would be banned, and customers must prove they own the wallet.

🇰🇷 Korea's draft Digital Asset Basic Act would make banks hold at least 50% plus one share in any consortium issuing a won stablecoin. At a 12 Nov National Assembly forum, fintechs pushed back and asked to be licensed on capability, not on being a bank.

🇦🇪 Dubai's virtual assets regulator VARA signed an MoU with Mastercard covering knowledge sharing, founder support and possible sandbox testing, drawing on Mastercard's stablecoin payments work.

🇪🇺 Singapore-based stablecoin payments firm KAST bought Gemini's shuttered UK and EU units for under $10M, per a person familiar with the deal. The prize is the licences, not the business.

🇬🇧 UK bank Griffin raised a $20M Series B led by Octagon Partners at a valuation above $100M. It will build stablecoin reserve services and on-chain cross-border payments for the 80+ companies on its platform.

🇿🇦 South African B2B payments startup Lumepay raised a $6M pre-seed plus a $10M capital float for liquidity. It mixes bank rails and stablecoins and is live in Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique and the CFA franc zones.

🛡️ Tron, Tether and Chainalysis formed a Digital Crime Task Force to speed up freezes of illicit USDT on Tron, after their earlier T3 unit with TRM Labs was dissolved. Tether says it has frozen over $7B linked to illicit activity so far.

My take:
The rails are converging: Visa settling in a bank-issued coin, Mastercard paying out in pesos and won, SoFi putting a bank dollar on-chain. But Thailand and Korea are writing the rules around the edges, with daily caps, own-wallet checks and bank-majority issuers. In emerging markets, the winner will be whoever builds the compliance plumbing, not just the fastest rail.

Follow @harshamv for the Last 24 hours in Stablecoins, every day.