The Battle for Control of the Tracks Enters the Second Half: Banks vs. Crypto, Who Will Have the Last Laugh?
The competition for control over the tokenization infrastructure, or the "rails," is intensifying, moving beyond initial asset listing to dominance over settlement, custody, and regulatory layers. Recent developments signal a shift in power towards traditional finance.
Key evidence includes: the formation of the BankChain Alliance by 39 U.S. state banking associations to launch a banking-owned blockchain network; moves by market infrastructure giants like DTCC, ICE, and Citadel Securities to establish their own institutional-grade on-chain systems; the struggle of crypto-native custodians like ZeroHash (re-applying for a bank charter) and Copper (facing a severe valuation drop), highlighting that regulatory "license moats" are now more critical than technical advantages; and the launch of stablecoin USD1 by licensed trust bank BitGo on the permissioned Canton network, showing convergence of stablecoin issuance towards regulated entities.
The analysis concludes this is not a simple "banks vs. crypto" battle but a redefinition of the foundational infrastructure. A clear division of labor is emerging: open public chains for DeFi and innovation, while bank-led consortium chains and licensed entities capture institutional settlement, tokenized deposits, and regulated custody. The defining question is no longer *if* an asset is tokenized, but *on which rails* it runs and *who controls* those rails, with regulation and牌照 providing the ultimate backstop.
marsbit9m ago