🏠 Better Wants Mortgages in 47 Seconds. X Money Starts to Show Its Cards. Zerohash Eyes a Trust Bank Charter.

Some fintech founders are quiet operators.

And then there’s Vishal Garg.

Yes, that Vishal Garg — the CEO who went viral in 2021 for firing 900 employees on a Zoom call like it was the fintech version of The Apprentice. If you thought he’d fade away after that PR meltdown, think again.

This week his company Better.com is back with a bold claim: mortgages approved in 47 seconds using AI.

Meanwhile over in Elon-land, X Money is starting to peek out from behind the curtain as part of Elon Musk’s plan to turn X into the “everything app.”

And in crypto infrastructure land, Zerohash is trying something interesting: if regulators won’t come to fintech, fintech might just become the bank.

Let’s stack it.

Better Home & Finance Holding (BETR) is back in the headlines, and this time it’s not about layoffs.

The digital mortgage lender just launched a new AI-powered tool that can approve a mortgage in 47 seconds, powered by a chatbot-style interface similar to ChatGPT.

The pitch is simple: instead of working with a loan officer for days (or weeks), borrowers upload documents, answer a few prompts, and the AI crunches underwriting instantly.

The tool isn’t just for consumers either. Better is pitching it directly to lenders as a white-label underwriting engine — which puts it squarely against the giants of mortgage fintech like:

For context, Better was founded in 2016, headquartered in New York, and built its brand on the idea that mortgages should feel more like ordering an Uber than applying for a 30-year loan.

The company went public via SPAC in 2023 and has been clawing its way back to relevance after the housing slowdown and, well, the Zoom incident heard around the internet.

Now Garg is leaning hard into AI as the next chapter.

Think of it like the fintech version of Domino’s Pizza Tracker. Once consumers see the process moving instantly, waiting days for approval starts to feel prehistoric.

Takeaway: If Better’s AI works, mortgage underwriting might become a software product instead of a human process.

Elon Musk has been talking about turning X into a financial super app since the day he bought it.

Now we’re starting to see what that actually looks like.

New images surfaced this week showing the early interface for X Money, the payments and financial services layer Musk has been teasing for years.

The idea: turn X into something closer to China’s WeChat, where users can:

The company has already been quietly securing money transmitter licenses across U.S. states, which is the regulatory groundwork needed to move money domestically.

If it works, X Money could become a native payments layer for:

And while there’s no public stock ticker yet, the implications for fintech are massive.

Every social platform has tried payments.

None have fully cracked the “super app” model in the West.

But if anyone is stubborn enough to try, it’s Musk.

This is basically PayPal 2.0, which is fitting since Elon helped found PayPal (PYPL) back in the late 90s.

It’s like watching someone remake their original hit album — think Taylor Swift’s Version, but for payments infrastructure.

Takeaway: If X Money launches at scale, Elon Musk could quietly become one of the biggest fintech competitors on the planet.

Remember when Mastercard (MA) tried to acquire crypto infrastructure firm Zerohash?

Yeah… that deal didn’t happen.

Now Zerohash is taking a different path: become the bank instead.

The Chicago-based company has applied for a national trust bank charter with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC).

If approved, it would allow Zerohash to operate as a federally regulated trust bank, similar to how crypto custody firms like Anchorage Digital Bank structured themselves.

For those unfamiliar, Zerohash is one of the quiet infrastructure players powering crypto trading behind the scenes. Its APIs help fintech apps and brokers add crypto capabilities without building the plumbing themselves.

Customers include fintech platforms that want to offer:

Applying for a trust charter is part survival strategy, part expansion.

Crypto infrastructure firms are increasingly realizing something important: regulation isn’t optional anymore.

By becoming a regulated trust bank, Zerohash could:

It’s a similar move we’ve seen from companies trying to bridge fintech and banking.

Think of it like fintech’s version of earning a blue check mark — except the regulator is the one doing the verification.

Takeaway: Crypto infrastructure firms are realizing the future isn’t avoiding banks — it’s becoming one.

Better wants mortgages approved in seconds, X Money is inching toward becoming a financial super app, and Zerohash is taking the regulatory route by trying to become a trust bank.

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This content is for information and entertainment only and is not investment advice. I may or may not hold positions in some of the companies mentioned. Assume I at least own a fintech hoodie and a bunch of debit cards.