New technology firms are battering all kinds of companies, but banks will remain as financial intermediaries, due to the regulations and duties governments have put on them, says a proponent of the technology behind the bitcoin cryptocurrency. Regulation requires them to perform certain functions,” said Mark Smith, chief executive of Symbiont.io, a startup that has emerged from Bitcoin 2.0 and MathMoney f(x) Inc to build a securities trading platform using blockchain technology like that behind bitcoin.