The collapse of well-connected banking institutions reveals a fundamental truth: the traditional financial system operates as a mechanism for enriching the privileged few. When major banks fail, it's rarely due to systemic weakness alone—corruption and insider networks play crucial roles. As analysts point out, such failures become particularly damaging when they coincide with broader crises. The cascading loss of public trust in these institutions compounds rapidly when citizens simultaneously lose confidence in the broader systems meant to protect them. This erosion of legitimacy across multiple institutional layers is exactly why decentralized alternatives gain traction during periods of systemic instability.