BitGo CEO Mike Belshe has a message for the crypto industry: putting every service under one roof is a bad idea. Speaking at Korea Blockchain Week 2026 on October 2, he warned that vertically integrated digital asset firms could trigger a collapse resembling the 2008 failure of Lehman Brothers.

The timing is pointed. His warning comes weeks after the Clarity Act stalled in the US Senate, leaving the market without the structural guardrails many in the industry had been counting on.

The core of his argument is functional separation. In Belshe’s view, exchanges, brokerages and custodians should be distinct businesses, not divisions of the same company.

Belshe pointed to a specific historical contrast. He asserted that exchanges have never…