River vs Swan

Beyond the Features

Swan Bitcoin and River are the two most philosophically similar Bitcoin companies in the United States. Both were founded in 2019. Both reject the crypto casino. Both are Bitcoin-only. Both founders speak fluently about debased money, long-term savings, and the corruption of the current financial system. If you're choosing between them, you're already making a good decision.

But beneath the shared language, these two companies are building for fundamentally different futures. The question is which future you believe in.

Cory Klippsten founded Swan to create what he calls an "intransigent minority" of 10 million Bitcoiners who understand what they own, defend it politically, and hold their own keys. Swan has an internal company goal that Klippsten describes as "completely counter to the traditional financial AUM model": zero sats under custody. To back that up, Swan acquired Specter, an open-source desktop wallet, and built Swan Vault, a collaborative 2-of-3 multisig setup where the user holds two keys using Blockstream Jade signing devices. Swan offers free withdrawals and integrates self-custody education directly into onboarding. Klippsten has framed a concept he calls the "sovereignty multiple": Bitcoin in self-custody is worth more to the user than Bitcoin held by a third party, because it eliminates counterparty risk entirely.

Alex Leishman founded River to become the "world's most trusted financial institution" and the "Bitcoin bank of the world." He is building for what he calls the "dual money era," a transitional period he predicts could last decades, where people continue earning and spending in dollars while saving in Bitcoin. River reflects this by offering direct deposit, bill pay, Bitcoin interest on cash deposits (derived from Treasury rates, paid out in Bitcoin, with FDIC-insured cash via Lead Bank), and zero-fee recurring buys. The goal is for River to replace your bank entirely: receive your paycheck, pay your bills, sweep the remainder into Bitcoin, all without leaving the app.

This is where the two paths diverge in ways that matter.

The shortest bridge vs. the most comfortable one
Swan is building the shortest possible bridge between the fiat system and individual sovereignty. The on-ramp exists because it has to, but the architecture points toward making Swan unnecessary. If every Swan user graduated to full self-custody and circular Bitcoin economies, Klippsten's stated mission would be fulfilled.

River is building the most comfortable bridge, one designed for you to stay on as long as you need. Leishman has stated that River "very much encourages self-custody" and builds features like auto-withdrawals to automate it. But he frames custody as a journey, advising newcomers not to let technical complexity stop them from getting started: just "sign up and buy $5 of Bitcoin" first, get skin in the game, and learn about hardware wallets and security later. The logic is reasonable. The problem is that the product's center of gravity pulls against the journey's destination. Bitcoin Interest on Cash, direct deposit, bill pay, inheritance planning: these features reward staying. The "vast majority" of River clients keep their Bitcoin on the platform, and the architecture is designed to make that feel safe rather than temporary.

The problem with the Bitcoin bank
There is a deeper problem with the "Bitcoin bank" vision. By building River as the place where you hold dollars and Bitcoin, Leishman is treating Bitcoin as an asset within the current debt-based system. You save in Bitcoin, but you measure it in dollars. You earn interest in Bitcoin, but the yield comes from Treasury rates. The frame remains fiat. This matters because Bitcoin's security depends on decentralization: individuals running nodes, holding keys, transacting peer-to-peer. The "trusted financial institution" model, however transparent, encourages centralization. If Bitcoin remains an investment held in custodial vaults and measured in dollars, it risks the same fate as gold: captured by the system it was meant to replace.

The dual money era won't last
Leishman's "dual money era" thesis assumes the dollar and Bitcoin can coexist for decades. But these are diametrically opposed systems. One is built on inflation and debasement. The other is built on scarcity and truth. An inflationary system that relies on debasement to survive cannot indefinitely coexist with a deflationary one that returns productivity gains to the people. One must eventually absorb the other. Building your infrastructure around their coexistence means building for a future that resolves into either Bitcoin winning (making your fiat features obsolete) or the control system winning (making your Bitcoin features captured). There is no stable equilibrium.

This connects to Leishman's self-described "nationalist Bitcoiner" stance. He has stated that he doesn't view Bitcoin as an attack on the financial system but as a "life raft" for Americans, and that he wants the United States to disproportionately benefit from Bitcoin. It's an understandable impulse, but Bitcoin is inherently the opposite of national thinking. National thinking views the individual as a citizen whose financial activity belongs within a specific geography, subject to state knowledge and control. Bitcoin views the individual as sovereign, transacting freely across borders on an open protocol. River's US-only availability (excluding New York and Nevada) is a practical constraint, but it also reflects this national framing.

Meanwhile, the medium-of-exchange transition isn't waiting for the distant future Leishman describes. It's happening now through layers, the same way the internet scaled. Bitcoin's base layer provides security and decentralization. Lightning, Liquid, and Fedimint handle the volume. Circular economies in El Salvador and Madeira already use Bitcoin as money. River runs significant Lightning infrastructure through River Lightning Services (powering exchanges including Chivo in El Salvador), which is a genuine contribution to the Bitcoin ecosystem. But River's own consumer product doesn't encourage spending or receiving Bitcoin as money. It encourages buying Bitcoin and holding it, inside River, measured in dollars.

Swan's real weakness
Swan's execution has not matched its philosophy cleanly. This needs to be said directly. Swan has cycled through three custodial partners: Prime Trust (which collapsed), Fortress (which was hacked and then acquired by Ripple), and now a combination of Bakkt, BitGo, and Equity Trust. Each transition created real disruption: service outages, forced re-KYC, user anxiety. The mining business "blow up" Klippsten described, involving major litigation and significant layoffs, adds another mark. River, by contrast, built its custody infrastructure in-house from the ground up and has never experienced a custodial incident. For a company that preaches self-custody, Swan's track record of trusting the wrong custodial partners is a meaningful contradiction.

But here's how I weigh this: Swan's custodial failures are operational growing pains. River's architectural direction is a philosophical choice. Growing pains can be fixed. In fact, Swan Vault, where the user holds two of three keys and can recover funds independently through Specter Desktop without Swan's involvement, is the fix. A philosophical direction that builds toward becoming the next indispensable financial institution is harder to walk back, because every feature that makes River stickier also makes the "bridge" longer.

Both companies contribute to the Bitcoin ecosystem beyond their platforms. River's Lightning infrastructure powers real payment volume for other services. Swan's contribution is primarily social: 57 million YouTube views, the Pacific Bitcoin Festival, free distribution of Inventing Bitcoin, and venture investment in Bitcoin startups through Bitcoiner Ventures. Both are real contributions. River's is more technical, Swan's is more cultural, and both matter for Bitcoin's long-term adoption.