From the Top App on XRPL to a Self-Custodial Neobank on Solana

Shaped by capital controls

Panos Mekras traces the project to Greece's 2015 capital controls, which he says capped withdrawals at €60, or "about $70 $80 per day". His father's restaurant had to close during the crisis, he says. He closes on the line that "it's time for banking without the banks."

Why it left XRP Ledger

Anodos started by building missing DeFi tools on the XRP Ledger and gathered a big audience there, Panos Mekras says. But the ledger has no smart contracts and not enough liquidity in stablecoins or real-world assets for the experience he wants to offer. He calls Solana "the best place to be right now."

Hiding the blockchain

Panos Mekras says users should not need to know their dollars are USDC or that their stocks are tokenized on Solana. Anodos does not care about crypto natives, he says. It cares about "the everyday person". He calls the industry's jargon, such as "connect your wallet", terrible.

For self-custodial accounts, Anodos uses Dynamic from Fireblocks, and it partnered with Rain to issue its own Visa cards. After looking at four or five wallet providers, Panos Mekras calls Privy and Dynamic the industry standards.

Limits of vibe coding

Panos Mekras says vibe coding an app is the easy part. The risk sits in the details, such as what happens when something goes wrong with user funds. He says Anodos uses AI only for repetitive tasks, and its engineering team reviews all of that output by hand.