, making Mexico America’s largest trading partner.

Yet behind all that economic activity, most payments still depend on the same fiat rails that were designed, not to liberate people some decades ago.

Now we are told that the answer is to change 

If the objective is to move value across borders faster, cheaper, and with fewer/no intermediaries, why are we still thinking primarily in terms of upgrading the existing financial system rather than changing the underlying monetary rail?

What happens when the goal isn't simply to make correspondent banking more efficient, but to make correspondent banking 

Does putting a new settlement endpoint at the end of an old financial system actually solve the problem, or does it simply make the old system more efficient?

If billions of dollars of trade are ultimately settled through banks, accounts, custodians, and layers of intermediaries, where is the actual scaling happening?

Is the scaling happening at the institutional level—more banks, more liquidity providers, more endpoints, more infrastructure?

Or does true scaling mean that two businesses on opposite sides of a border can exchange value directly, using an open monetary network, without either business needing permission from a correspondent bank?

And if the latter is the goal, shouldn't we be asking a more fundamental question:

Why are we trying to build better rails for the existing financial system when we could be building a system where the rails themselves are open to everyone?

How do we make the existing system handle more transactions?

How do we make the existing system less necessary?

Because changing where the old rails can end is an improvement.

But eliminating the need for those rails altogether would be something much bigger.

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[Amboss and Aureo Connect the Lightning Network to Mexico’s Banking System](https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2026/09/09/3358873/0/en/amboss-and-aureo-connect-the-lightning-network-to-mexico-s-banking-system.html)

**Is this really the scaling path?**

The US and Mexico traded an estimated **$872 billion in goods in 2025**, making Mexico America’s largest trading partner.

Yet behind all that economic activity, most payments still depend on the same fiat rails that were designed, not to liberate people some decades ago.

Now we are told that the answer is to change *where those rails can end*.

But is that really scaling?

If the objective is to move value across borders faster, cheaper, and with fewer/no intermediaries, why are we still thinking primarily in terms of upgrading the existing financial system rather than changing the underlying monetary rail?

What happens when the goal isn't simply to make correspondent banking more efficient, but to make correspondent banking **unnecessary**?

And more importantly:

**Does putting a new settlement endpoint at the end of an old financial system actually solve the problem, or does it simply make the old system more efficient?**

If billions of dollars of trade are ultimately settled through banks, accounts, custodians, and layers of intermediaries, where is the actual scaling happening?

Is the scaling happening at the institutional level—more banks, more liquidity providers, more endpoints, more infrastructure?

Or does true scaling mean that two businesses on opposite sides of a border can exchange value directly, using an open monetary network, without either business needing permission from a correspondent bank?

And if the latter is the goal, shouldn't we be asking a more fundamental question:

**Why are we trying to build better rails for the existing financial system when we could be building a system where the rails themselves are open to everyone?**

Maybe the real scaling question isn't:

> *How do we make the existing system handle more transactions?*

Maybe it is:

> **How do we make the existing system less necessary?**

Because changing where the old rails can end is an improvement.

But eliminating the need for those rails altogether would be something much bigger.