Y Combinator, Base, and Coinbase Ventures have jointly launched an initiative dubbed Fintech 3.0, urging founders to build financial systems directly on-chain as regulation, infrastructure, and adoption align in crypto and decentralized finance. The concept is that the next wave of fintech innovation will skip over legacy intermediary rails and instead use blockchain underpinnings as native infrastructure. The initiative is accepting applications from startups working on themes like expanding stablecoins beyond the U.S. dollar into local currencies, tokenization of assets (stocks, credit, real estate), and consumer-facing apps and AI-driven financial agents. It builds on Base (the Ethereum overlay blockchain tied to Coinbase), which already is being used for global USDC payments and is positioning itself as a backbone for decentralized financial services. The article frames Fintech 3.0 as a natural progression: Fintech 1.0 is banking going digital (online banking, mobile apps on top of legacy rails), Fintech 2.0 is fintechs layering new services (lending, payments, neobanks) on those rails, and Fintech 3.0 means moving the rails themselves onto programmable, transparent blockchain infrastructure. In this paradigm, financial logic, settlement, identity, compliance, and asset issuance can be native to the chain rather than grafted on. The initiative is both a branding and builder program, aiming to seed and support startups that can realize that vision, with backing, infrastructure access, and capital from Y Combinator, Base, and Coinbase Ventures. It’s a bet that the future of finance will be built on-chain, not beside it.