Squads CEO Stepan Simkin revealed that the company’s multisig infrastructure—already securing $15 billion in value—has effectively functioned as a shadow banking system for crypto-natives. With the launch of Altitude, Squads is formalizing this utility, offering a direct competitor to traditional fintechs like Brex or Mercury, but built entirely on stablecoin rails. The move signals a shift from pure security infrastructure to a full-stack financial operating system, designed to service not just Web3 natives but any global business seeking efficiency.

The critical innovation presented wasn't just cheaper payments; it's the concept of "Autonomous Finance." Simkin addressed a fatal flaw in current AI agents: hallucination. By pairing probabilistic AI agents with deterministic onchain guardrails, Altitude allows businesses to automate treasury management, rebalancing, and bill pay without human oversight. This "trustless execution" model removes the final bottleneck in enterprise automation—the human approver—by ensuring agents can only act within strict, programmable limits.

Strategically, the platform flips the traditional fintech expansion model. Instead of navigating regulatory licensing market-by-market, Altitude leverages self-custodial stablecoin accounts to offer instant global reach, adding local fiat rails only where necessary. With deep integrations into partners like Plume Network for institutional RWA yield and the release of the Grid API for developers, Squads is positioning itself as the backend infrastructure for the next generation of internet-native capital markets.