Crypto World
SWIFT built its answer to stablecoins: Bank money
The network that moves the world’s money spent 9 months building a blockchain, and the most important decision it made was what not to put on it. No stablecoins. No public tokens. Just bank deposits, wearing a new coat.
Summary
- On July 9, SWIFT launched a blockchain-based shared ledger with 17 major banks, including Citi, HSBC, UBS, and BNP Paribas, for round-the-clock cross-border payments using tokenized deposits.
- The ledger is built on Hyperledger Besu, an EVM-compatible architecture, developed with Consensys in 9 months, and it is positioned openly as the banking industry’s answer to a $315 billion stablecoin sector.
- The decisive choice is the instrument. SWIFT built this for tokenized deposits, not stablecoins. That distinction determines who controls the money, whether it is insured, and whether it funds lending.
- Tokenized deposits keep money on bank balance sheets, carry deposit insurance, and preserve credit creation. Stablecoins pull money into reserves, sit outside the banking system, and remove liquidity from it.
- For SWIFT, this is a structural shift: for the first time in 53 years, it is moving from a pure messaging network that never touches funds to an active coordination layer for the movement of value.
For 53 years, SWIFT has done exactly one thing: move messages. When a bank in Singapore pays a bank in Sao Paulo, SWIFT carries the instruction, not the money. It is the postal service of global finance, and it never once opened the envelope.
On July 9, 2026, that changed. SWIFT switched on a blockchain-based shared ledger with 17 of the world’s largest banks, and for the first time in its history it is coordinating the movement of value rather than just the messages about it. The financial press covered the launch as a technology story, which it is.
The more important story is a choice buried inside it: SWIFT built this thing to carry tokenized deposits and pointedly not stablecoins, and that single decision is a statement about who the banking system intends to let issue digital money. This piece is about that choice, why it matters, and who it leaves out.
What SWIFT actually launched
The facts first, because they are concrete and verified across SWIFT’s own release and independent reporting.
On July 9, SWIFT announced its blockchain-based shared ledger was ready for initial use, with 17 banks across 6 continents preparing to pilot live transactions. The roster reads like a directory of global banking: ANZ, BNP Paribas, BNY, Citi, DBS, First Abu Dhabi Bank, FirstRand, HSBC, Itau Unibanco, Lloyds, Mashreq, MUFG, OCBC, Standard Chartered, UBS, UOB, and Wells Fargo. The system was built in 9 months from announcement to production readiness, developed with input from financial institutions globally and, per multiple reports, with Consensys involved in the build.
Technically, the ledger uses an EVM-compatible architecture based on Hyperledger Besu, functioning as a shared orchestration layer that validates inter-bank payment commitments while preserving existing compliance, credit, risk, and control standards. Its purpose is specific and narrow: enable 24/7 cross-border payments, including overnight and on weekends, that current infrastructure cannot support because it depends on overlapping business hours between sender and receiver. Final settlement still occurs through existing payment rails. The ledger does not replace correspondent banking; it coordinates on top of it.
SWIFT’s chief business officer framed the move as extending the trust and stability of incumbent finance into the frontiers of digital money. That sentence is corporate, but it is also precise. The whole design is about carrying something old, bank money, on something new, a shared ledger, without letting go of the controls that make bank money what it is.
The choice that defines it
Here is the decision that matters more than the technology, and that most launch coverage mentioned only in passing: SWIFT built this for tokenized deposits, not stablecoins.
A tokenized deposit is a digital representation of money held in a regulated commercial bank, issued by that bank on a blockchain, maintaining a one-to-one relationship with the deposit on the bank’s balance sheet. It is commercial bank money with a new wrapper. A stablecoin is a token pegged to a currency and issued by a non-bank entity, backed by reserves such as Treasury bills that sit outside the banking system, and it operates on public blockchains accessible to anyone with a wallet.
They look almost identical. A dollar-denominated stablecoin and a tokenized dollar deposit both claim to be worth $1, both move on a blockchain, both settle in seconds. The New York Fed, in a February 2026 staff report, drew the structural line that the surface similarity hides: stablecoins intermediate safe assets into a medium of exchange, while tokenized deposits allow banks to keep funding loans and supporting credit creation, just on digital rails. That is not a technical distinction. It is a distinction about who gets to create money and what happens to the banking system if the answer changes.
SWIFT chose the instrument that keeps banks in the center. Its stated position is that bank-issued tokenized deposits offer a compliance-ready alternative within existing regulatory frameworks, without the risks some institutions associate with non-bank stablecoins. In plainer terms: SWIFT built a blockchain that does what stablecoins do, on rails the banks already control, so that the banks do not have to adopt an instrument that cuts them out.
Why banks care so much about the difference
The reason this choice carries such weight is that stablecoins and tokenized deposits do opposite things to a bank’s balance sheet, and therefore to the banking system’s capacity to lend.
When a customer buys a stablecoin, they move fiat out of their bank account and into the issuer’s reserves. That money leaves the bank. It now sits in Treasury bills or a custodial account backing the token, where it does nothing for credit creation. Multiply that across a $315 billion sector, and you get a measurable drain: deposits leaving banks reduce the money multiplier, the mechanism by which $1 of deposits supports several dollars of lending. Stablecoins, in the language of one industry analysis, remove liquidity from the banking system.
Tokenized deposits do the reverse. The money stays on the bank’s balance sheet, still counted as a deposit, still available to fund loans and investment. The token is just a more mobile representation of it. So a bank that issues tokenized deposits keeps the funding it would lose to a stablecoin, while offering customers the same 24/7 programmable settlement. From the bank’s perspective, that is the entire game: match the stablecoin’s user experience without surrendering the deposit base that the lending business depends on.
There is a safety dimension too, and it is not merely marketing. Tokenized deposits are backed by a bank’s capital and the supervisory framework that governs commercial banks; they carry deposit insurance up to the statutory limit, and the issuing bank can borrow from the Federal Reserve’s lender-of-last-resort window, which reduces run risk. Stablecoins have none of that. Under the GENIUS Act, they must hold full reserves and disclose them, which is real protection, but a stablecoin holder is not an insured depositor, and there is no central bank standing behind the token. The 2008 money-market-fund parallel is apt: instruments that look like deposits and are treated like deposits right up until one breaks the buck and reveals it was never a deposit at all.
The bull case for SWIFT’s approach
The optimistic reading is that SWIFT has done the sober, correct thing, and that its distribution makes it the most credible entrant in the entire tokenized-money contest.
The reach argument is genuinely hard to counter. SWIFT connects more than 11,000 financial institutions across over 200 countries. No stablecoin issuer, no crypto-native payment network, and no single bank consortium can match that footprint. If the pilot works across 17 banks and multiple currency corridors, the marginal cost for the next institution to join is low, because it is already on SWIFT. That is a distribution advantage measured in decades of accumulated network membership, and distribution is what actually decides payment standards.
The problem SWIFT is solving is also real rather than invented. SWIFT already processes 75% of payments to beneficiary banks within 10 minutes on existing rails, often in seconds, so speed of messaging was never the true constraint. The constraint is the dependency on overlapping business hours: a Friday-evening payment from Asia to a counterparty in the Americas waits for Monday. The shared ledger removes exactly that, enabling weekend and overnight settlement inside the regulated perimeter. This is a targeted fix to a specific friction, not a solution in search of a problem to solve.
And the model preserves what regulators and treasurers actually want preserved. Corporate treasurers who have routed weekend wires through batch systems for decades get round-the-clock movement without stepping outside the compliance framework their auditors require. Banks keep their deposits. Regulators keep their oversight. The financial system gets programmable, always-on settlement without a parallel monetary system forming outside it. For institutions whose first question about any innovation is what could go wrong, that is a strong pitch.
The bear case for SWIFT’s approach
The skeptical reading is that SWIFT is defending an incumbency, that a permissioned bank ledger recreates most of the limitations stablecoins were built to escape, and that the market has already voted for the other model.
Start with the scoreboard. Stablecoins are not a proposal; they are in the wild, with supply above $300 billion and tens of trillions in settled transaction volume, having survived multiple crypto winters. Tokenized deposits remain largely in pilots, and SWIFT’s own launch is explicitly an initial pilot, not full deployment. One instrument is battle-tested at scale, and the other is a promising experiment, and the gap is years, not months. BlackRock’s Larry Fink put the competitive framing memorably in his 2025 investor letter: if SWIFT is the postal service, tokenization is email, moving assets directly and instantly, sidestepping intermediaries. SWIFT’s ledger is an attempt to make the postal service deliver like email while keeping the post offices in business.
The permissioning is the deeper limitation. SWIFT’s ledger is a closed, bank-only system. Stablecoins are open: anyone with a wallet can hold and send them, no banking relationship required, which is precisely why they took hold in cross-border corridors that the banking system serves poorly or expensively. A fintech in Lagos pays a supplier in Shenzhen in USDC because the bank wire costs 6% and takes 4 days. SWIFT’s ledger does nothing for that user, because that user is not a bank on SWIFT. The tokenized-deposit model, by design, only serves people already well served by banks, which is not where the disruptive demand is.
There is also a crowding problem that undercuts the reach argument. SWIFT is not the only bank consortium building this. A group including JPMorgan, Bank of America, Barclays, and BNY is building a US-focused tokenized-deposit network through The Clearing House, targeting 2027. JPMorgan already runs Kinexys, live on Base and expanded to Canton, settling institutional payments today. If every major bank and consortium builds its own tokenized-deposit rail, the result is not one clean alternative to stablecoins but a fragmented set of walled gardens, which is the exact problem SWIFT’s shared ledger claims to solve, reappearing one level up.
What this means for the stablecoin giants
For Tether and Circle, the two issuers who dominate the $315 billion sector, SWIFT’s move is a signal rather than an immediate threat, and the distinction matters.
It is not an immediate threat because the two instruments serve partly different users. Stablecoins own the open, permissionless, retail-and-crypto corridors: exchange settlement, DeFi collateral, remittances, and the long tail of users without good banking access. SWIFT’s ledger serves regulated institutions moving money between themselves. In the near term, these are different markets, and SWIFT’s pilot takes nothing directly off Tether’s or Circle’s books.
It is a signal because it marks the point where the banking system stopped treating stablecoins as a curiosity and started building the institutional-grade alternative in earnest, with the sector’s most powerful distribution network behind it.
The competitive question for the stablecoin issuers is whether tokenized deposits expand to absorb the use cases stablecoins hoped to grow into, particularly institutional cross-border settlement and corporate treasury, which is exactly the ground stablecoins have been migrating toward as they moved from crypto on-ramps into real commerce. If banks lock down the institutional corridor with insured, compliant tokenized deposits, stablecoins may find their growth capped at the permissionless edge instead of expanding into the regulated core.
The GENIUS Act complicates the picture in both directions. It gave stablecoins a federal framework and legitimacy, which helps them. It also opened the door to bank-issued stablecoin models and, through OCC trust charters granted to Circle, Paxos, Ripple, and others, blurred the line between the two instruments. The likely future is not one model winning but convergence: bank-issued stablecoins, tokenized deposits, and non-bank stablecoins coexisting, with the interesting fights happening at the boundaries. SWIFT just planted a very large flag on the bank side of that boundary.
The three-way race nobody named
The cleanest way to see where SWIFT fits is to stop treating this as stablecoins-versus-banks and start counting the actual competitors, because there are three distinct bets being placed on how institutional money moves next, and they do not all win.
The first is the open stablecoin model: Tether, Circle, and the newer consortium efforts like Open USD. Non-bank issuers, public blockchains, permissionless access, reserves held outside the banking system. This model owns the present. It has the volume, the corridors, and the proven product-market fit in exactly the places banks serve badly. Its weakness is regulatory and structural: it pulls deposits out of banks, it carries no insurance, and it sits in a legal category the GENIUS Act only recently defined.
The second is the single-bank tokenized-deposit model: JPMorgan’s Kinexys is the leading example, live on Base and Canton, settling real institutional payments today. Here, a single large bank builds its own rail, issues its own tokenized deposits, and offers clients programmable settlement inside that bank’s walls. The strength is control and immediacy: JPMorgan did not wait for a consortium. The weakness is reach. A JPMorgan rail moves JPMorgan money well and everyone else’s money not at all, which reintroduces the interoperability problem that correspondent banking exists to solve.
The third is the shared-network model, and this is SWIFT’s bet, alongside the JPMorgan-BofA-Barclays-BNY effort running through The Clearing House for a 2027 launch. Instead of one bank’s walled garden or an open public chain, a coordinated ledger that many banks share. The strength is exactly what the single-bank model lacks: interoperability across institutions. The weakness is governance and speed, because getting 17 banks, let alone 11,000, to agree on anything is slower than one bank acting alone or an issuer minting a token.
Notice that the second and third models are in tension with each other, not just with stablecoins. Every bank that builds its own Kinexys-style rail is a bank that has less reason to join a shared network, because it already has a working system. SWIFT is betting that no single bank’s rail can achieve the reach that its 11,000-member network offers by default, and that banks will therefore converge on a shared layer instead of fragmenting into competing private ones. That is a plausible bet and not a certain one. The history of financial infrastructure is full of both outcomes: shared utilities that became universal, and walled gardens that stayed walled because their owners preferred control to reach.
Where this leaves the honest observer is that the digital-money endgame is not stablecoins-win or banks-win. It is a question of which of three architectures captures which use cases, and the likeliest answer is that all three persist, serving different corridors, with the boundaries between them contested for years. SWIFT’s launch does not settle that. It just guarantees that the shared-bank-network model has the strongest possible distribution behind it, which was not true a month ago.
The honest read
Strip away the framing and SWIFT’s launch is best understood as the incumbent financial system’s most serious attempt yet to answer a question stablecoins forced onto the table: if money is going to move on programmable rails, who issues it and who controls the rails?
Stablecoins answered: non-banks, on open networks, outside the system. SWIFT’s answer is the opposite: banks, on a permissioned ledger, inside the system, with all the existing controls intact. Both answers are coherent, and the choice between them is not really technical. It is a choice about whether the digital-money era strengthens the two-tier banking system or routes around it, and that is a question about power and financial stability, not about block times.
What makes SWIFT’s move consequential is not that it is better technology, because in raw capability a public-blockchain stablecoin is more open and more composable. It is that SWIFT has the one thing the crypto-native challengers cannot manufacture: 11,000 banks already on the network. That distribution is why a 9-month pilot from a 53-year-old messaging cooperative is a bigger deal than a flashier launch from a better-funded startup. The banks are going to move digital money somehow. SWIFT just gave them a way to do it without ever holding a stablecoin, and for an industry whose entire instinct is to preserve itself, that may be exactly the product it wanted.
Whether it works is an open question, and the pilot will answer it slowly, corridor by corridor, over quarters. But the strategic picture is already clear. The stablecoin sector spent years arguing that banks were too slow to compete in digital money. SWIFT just proved they were slow, not absent, and being slow with 11,000 members is a very different position than being fast with none.
Frequently Asked Questions
What did SWIFT launch?
On July 9, 2026, SWIFT launched a blockchain-based shared ledger with 17 major banks across 6 continents, including Citi, HSBC, UBS, and BNP Paribas, for round-the-clock cross-border payments using tokenized deposits. Built on Hyperledger Besu in 9 months, it acts as an orchestration layer coordinating bank-issued tokenized deposits, with final settlement still occurring through existing payment rails. It is an initial pilot, not full deployment.
What is the difference between a tokenized deposit and a stablecoin?
A tokenized deposit is commercial bank money represented on a blockchain, issued by a regulated bank, kept on the bank’s balance sheet, and covered by deposit insurance up to the statutory limit. A stablecoin is a token issued by a non-bank entity, backed by reserves held outside the banking system, operating on open blockchains with no deposit insurance. They look similar but differ in legal status, insurance, and effect on bank lending.
Why did SWIFT choose tokenized deposits over stablecoins?
Because tokenized deposits keep money inside the banking system. When a customer buys a stablecoin, funds leave their bank for the issuer’s reserves, draining deposits banks use to fund lending. Tokenized deposits stay on the bank’s balance sheet, preserving credit creation, while offering the same 24/7 programmable settlement. SWIFT’s position is that they provide a compliance-ready alternative without the risks some institutions associate with non-bank stablecoins.
Is this a threat to Tether and Circle?
Not immediately, but it is a signal. Stablecoins dominate open, permissionless corridors such as exchange settlement, DeFi, and remittances, which SWIFT’s bank-only ledger does not serve. The competitive risk is longer term: if banks lock down institutional cross-border settlement with insured tokenized deposits, stablecoins may find growth capped at the permissionless edge instead of expanding into the regulated institutional core they have been moving toward.
Does SWIFT’s ledger replace the existing system?
No. It is an orchestration layer on top of correspondent banking, not a replacement. Banks issue tokenized deposits on their own ledgers; the shared ledger coordinates the movement, and final settlement still runs through existing payment rails. SWIFT already processes most payments to beneficiary banks within minutes; the ledger’s specific contribution is enabling weekend and overnight settlement that current infrastructure cannot support.
Who else is building tokenized deposit networks?
Several major institutions. A consortium including JPMorgan, Bank of America, Barclays, and BNY is building a US-focused tokenized deposit network through The Clearing House, targeting 2027. JPMorgan’s Kinexys is already live on Base and Canton, settling institutional payments. The proliferation of separate bank networks raises the risk of fragmentation, the same problem SWIFT’s shared ledger claims to solve.
Are tokenized deposits safer than stablecoins?
They carry different protections. Tokenized deposits are backed by bank capital, covered by deposit insurance up to the statutory limit, and issued by banks that can access the Federal Reserve’s lender-of-last-resort window, reducing run risk. Stablecoins under the GENIUS Act must hold full reserves and disclose them, but holders are not insured depositors, and no central bank stands behind the token. The instruments carry structurally different risk profiles.
Why does SWIFT’s reach matter so much?
Because payment standards are decided by distribution, not technology. SWIFT connects more than 11,000 institutions across over 200 countries, a footprint no stablecoin issuer or crypto-native network can match. Once the pilot works, the marginal cost for another member bank to join is low because it is already on SWIFT. That accumulated network membership is why a pilot from a 53-year-old cooperative can matter more than a technically superior launch from a startup.
Disclaimer: This article is for information and educational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice. It describes payment infrastructure and a pilot program whose outcomes are uncertain, and it is not a recommendation to buy or sell any asset or token. Always do your own research. Information is accurate as of July 17, 2026.
Bitcoin Ordinals advocate Leonidas has introduced DOG Mode, an alternative open-source Bitcoin client that changes how nodes relay certain valid transactions without altering Bitcoin’s consensus rules.
Summary
- DOG Mode removes default relay limits while keeping Bitcoin’s existing consensus rules completely unchanged today.
- Leonidas says fee-paying users should access block space without Bitcoin Core deciding transaction purposes beforehand.
- BIP 110 takes opposite approach, proposing temporary consensus restrictions on several data-heavy Bitcoin transaction types.
The project adds a new layer to the dispute over Ordinals, Runes and the use of Bitcoin block space.
In his DOG Mode announcement, Leonidas argued that Bitcoin Core and Bitcoin Knots enforce policy restrictions that Bitcoin’s consensus rules do not require. He said a transaction can remain valid under consensus while default nodes still refuse to relay it across the peer-to-peer network.
DOG Mode targets relay policy, not Bitcoin consensus
DOG Mode would raise the maximum individual transaction size allowed under its relay policy to 3.9 million weight units. Bitcoin Core’s default policy currently limits individual standard transactions to 400,000 weight units. The client would also lower the dust threshold to one satoshi for small transaction outputs.
As reported by crypto.news, DOG Mode does not require a Bitcoin fork because it works within existing consensus rules. Nodes can choose to run the software and relay transactions that other clients may treat as non-standard, while miners still decide which valid transactions they include in blocks.
Ordinals and Runes return to the governance debate
The proposal centers on a long-running dispute over whether Bitcoin should treat every valid, fee-paying transaction equally. Leonidas supports a market-based model in which users compete for block space through fees rather than software developers deciding which transaction structures should receive default relay support.
DOG Mode could make it easier to propagate large Ordinals inscriptions and small outputs used by some Bitcoin-native token protocols. However, different relay policies could also leave nodes with different views of unconfirmed transactions before miners add them to blocks. Bitcoin’s consensus rules would remain unchanged even if node mempools differed.
DOG Mode takes a different path from BIP 110
The DOG Mode approach contrasts with BIP 110, which proposes temporary consensus restrictions on several forms of transaction data. As reported by crypto.news, Bitcoin developer Luke Dashjr has continued to support the proposal despite opposition from users who view the restrictions as censorship.
BIP 110 supporters argue that data-heavy transactions raise storage costs and consume scarce block space. Critics argue that changing consensus rules to restrict currently valid transactions could create a broader precedent. Michael Saylor and Adam Back have opposed BIP 110, as reported by crypto.news, while miner signaling remained far below its proposed 55% activation threshold in mid-July.
Bitcoin users decide which policies gain adoption
DOG Mode also raises questions about how Bitcoin governance works outside formal protocol changes. Bitcoin Core developers can set default relay policies, but node operators remain free to run other software. Miners can also receive transactions through direct channels instead of the public peer-to-peer relay network.
That distinction means DOG Mode does not need broad agreement to begin operating. Its influence will depend on whether node operators, miners and Bitcoin users choose to adopt its policies. Leonidas said the longer-term aim is for wider use to push existing Bitcoin clients to reconsider restrictions that he views as unnecessary.
The debate now presents two different approaches to disputed Bitcoin activity. BIP 110 seeks new consensus restrictions, while DOG Mode removes some default policy limits without changing consensus. The outcome will depend on which software users choose to run and which transactions miners choose to process.
U.S. financial regulators have missed the GENIUS Act’s one-year deadline to complete key rules for the country’s federal stablecoin framework.
Summary
- US regulators missed the GENIUS Act deadline with several major stablecoin rule packages still unfinished.
- Stablecoin issuers face a shorter preparation window before the federal framework takes effect next January.
- Customer identification and anti-money laundering proposals remain open, preventing regulators from completing final rules yet.
Several regulations remained at the proposal stage when the July 18, 2026, deadline passed.President Donald Trump signed the GENIUS Act into law on July 18, 2025. The law required primary federal stablecoin regulators to issue implementing rules within one year. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency began its main rulemaking process earlier this year, but final rules were not in place by the deadline.
Major stablecoin regulations remain unfinished
The OCC released its main proposed GENIUS Act rules in February. The proposal covers reserve assets, redemptions, capital, liquidity, custody and risk management for stablecoin issuers under its supervision.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation also proposed its own framework in April. It covers reserve requirements, capital, redemptions, custody and risk controls for issuers linked to FDIC-supervised banks. However, the rules remain unfinished.
As reported by crypto.news, major banking groups previously asked regulators to coordinate several GENIUS Act proposals before completing them. The groups argued that rules from different agencies remain closely connected and should not move forward separately.
The National Credit Union Administration has also been working on rules for stablecoin issuers. Its latest standards proposal remained in the consultation process close to the statutory deadline.
Customer identification rules remain open
Federal regulators also have not completed rules covering customer identification for stablecoin issuers. The joint proposal released by federal agencies would require covered issuers to verify customers and maintain identification records.
As reported by crypto.news, the proposal would treat permitted stablecoin issuers as financial institutions under Bank Secrecy Act requirements. The public comment period runs beyond the July 18 rulemaking deadline, preventing regulators from completing the normal review process beforehand.
Anti-money laundering and sanctions rules also remain under development. The Treasury Department proposed separate compliance requirements in April, while the FDIC issued another proposal covering issuers under its supervision.
State oversight remains unsettled
The GENIUS Act allows some smaller stablecoin issuers to operate under state supervision when local rules meet federal standards. The law uses the term “substantially similar” to describe qualifying state frameworks.
The Treasury Department proposed rules for that certification process in April, but the framework has not been finalized. As reported by crypto.news, a bipartisan group of senators later urged Treasury to preserve the role of state regulators and provide clearer certification timelines.
New York has also moved to align its stablecoin rules with the federal system.Crypto.news reported that the state proposed updated requirements as it prepares to seek recognition under the GENIUS Act framework.
Missed deadline shortens the preparation window
Missing the July 18 rulemaking deadline does not automatically delay the GENIUS Act’s start date. The law is scheduled to take effect by January 18, 2027, unless final rules trigger an earlier effective date under its implementation timetable.
That leaves prospective stablecoin issuers preparing for a federal framework while several detailed requirements can still change. Companies must eventually adjust their reserve management, customer checks, redemption processes and compliance systems to meet the final rules.
As reported by crypto.news, the July deadline was a key point in the GENIUS Act rollout. Regulators have now passed that date with major rule packages still unfinished, reducing the time between final rule publication and the framework’s scheduled start.
BNB Chain has become the largest blockchain for assets tracked under Franklin Templeton’s Benji tokenization platform, with about $1.5 billion recorded on the network.
Summary
- BNB Chain now hosts $1.5 billion of Franklin Templeton Benji platform assets, leading all networks.
- RWA.xyz data shows BNB Chain holds 61.71%, while Stellar has fallen to second place overall.
- Franklin Templeton keeps expanding tokenized finance through Kraken, MoonPay, Binance, and multiple public blockchains globally.
The figure represents 61.71% of the platform’s distributed asset value, according to RWA.xyz data cited byBNB Chain.
The milestone marks a sharp change in the platform’s network distribution. BNB Chain holdings rose 1,226% over the past month, moving ahead of Stellar, which previously held the largest share. The data refers to the wider Benji platform rather than only the standalone BENJI tokenized money market fund.
BNB Chain takes the largest share of Benji assets
RWA.xyz lists Franklin Templeton’s Benji platform with about $2.44 billion in distributed assets as of July 18. BNB Chain accounts for roughly $1.5 billion of that total. Stellar follows with about $573.4 million, while Ethereum holds around $159.1 million.
Base, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Polygon and Aptos hold smaller amounts. The shift follows Franklin Templeton’s decision to bring its Benji Technology Platform to BNB Chain in 2025. The integration allowed the asset manager to use BNB Chain for transactions and ownership records tied to tokenized financial products.
RWA.xyz separately lists the BENJI asset at about $734.3 million, showing why the platform and fund figures should not be treated as identical. The broader platform includes multiple tokenized products, while BENJI represents one share of the Franklin OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund for investors.
Stellar remains central to Franklin Templeton’s tokenization history
Franklin Templeton launched its blockchain-based money market fund on Stellar in 2021. The product became an early example of a U.S.-registered mutual fund using public blockchain technology to process transactions and maintain share ownership records.
Crypto analyst ALLINCRYPTO said Stellar provided the early foundation before Franklin Templeton expanded its tokenization strategy across more networks. However, current RWA.xyz data shows that BNB Chain now holds the largest share of assets tracked across the broader Benji platform. The data does not show how much of the recent increase came from new issuance compared with assets moved between networks.
Franklin Templeton expands BENJI access across crypto platforms
Franklin Templeton has also expanded the use of its tokenized products through major crypto companies. As reported by crypto.news, the firm added BENJI to MoonPay Trade in June, allowing eligible institutional clients to move between stablecoins and tokenized fund products through an onchain trading system.
The asset manager also partnered with Kraken parent Payward to integrate BENJI as a collateral and cash management tool. As reported by crypto.news, the partnership also covers plans to develop more tokenized investment products. A separate Franklin Templeton and Binance arrangement allows eligible institutions to use tokenized money market fund shares as off-exchange collateral.
Tokenized finance gains wider institutional distribution
Franklin Templeton’s multi-chain strategy comes as more traditional financial firms use public blockchains to distribute regulated investment products. The company has expanded its tokenization work across several networks while also developing new products and distribution partnerships.
As reported by crypto.news, Franklin Templeton has also worked with Ondo Finance on tokenized ETFs designed for round-the-clock wallet-based trading outside the United States. The latest BNB Chain data shows how quickly blockchain distribution can change as issuers add new networks and institutional access points.
For now, BNB Chain leads Franklin Templeton’s broader Benji platform by distributed value, while Stellar remains the network where the firm began its public blockchain fund strategy.
Strategy Chairman Michael Saylor has stepped up his opposition to Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 110, arguing that the temporary soft fork could weaken Bitcoin’s neutral base rules.
Summary
- Saylor says BIP 110 risks Bitcoin neutrality by restricting transactions through new consensus-level protocol rules.
- BIP 110 would temporarily limit data-heavy transactions while leaving outputs created before activation entirely unaffected.
- Miner support remains near zero, while Saylor and Back warn disputed rules could divide Bitcoin.
In an article titled “110 Reasons BIP 110 Is a Bad Idea,” Saylor said the network should not use consensus changes to decide which valid transactions deserve access to block space.
In Saylor’s article, he argued that Bitcoin cannot reliably determine why transaction data exists. He closed with the line: “Bitcoin does not need guardians of purity. It needs guardians of neutrality.”
Saylor challenges consensus restrictions on transaction data
BIP 110, formally called the Reduced Data Temporary Softfork, would apply consensus rules for about one year. The official BIP 110 specification would restrict large data fields, limit OP_RETURN outputs to 83 bytes and cap payloads at 256 bytes. Outputs created before activation would remain exempt.
Supporters say the proposal would reduce arbitrary data storage and lower burdens on node operators. Saylor accepts that some inscriptions, tokens and files may have value or may be linked to harmful activity. However, he questions whether those concerns justify changing Bitcoin’s consensus rules to block transaction structures the network currently accepts.
Neutrality becomes the center of the BIP 110 debate
Saylor’s argument focuses on the difference between transaction intent and transaction structure. He said the protocol cannot know whether data represents an image, proof, authentication record, contract or another future use. Under his view, miners, node operators and fee markets should handle disputed activity without imposing new base-layer restrictions.
The position follows an earlier clash over the proposal. Saylor and Blockstream co-founder Adam Back opposed BIP 110 and warned that enforcing disputed rules without broad support could create fork risks. Saylor previously called the proposal’s consensus precedent “extremely dangerous.”
Miner support remains a key test for BIP 110
BIP 110 uses a modified activation process that seeks support from 1,109 of 2,016 mined blocks, equal to 55%. Crypto.news reported on July 12 that miner signaling remained near zero, far below the threshold needed to lock in the proposed rules.
Bitcoin developer Luke Dashjr continues to support the proposal. As reported by crypto.news, Dashjr rejected calls to withdraw BIP 110 as debate grew over Ordinals, Runes and other data-heavy uses. Supporters argue that such activity increases storage demands and moves Bitcoin away from peer-to-peer money.
Saylor calls for slower change at Bitcoin’s base layer
Saylor’s latest comments fit his broader view that Bitcoin should change cautiously. He has argued that the network’s value comes from predictable rules rather than frequent feature changes. His BIP 110 critique says policy tools, pruning, fee pricing and second-layer development offer alternatives for managing resource use without changing consensus.
The dispute also tests how Bitcoin reaches agreement when developers, miners, node operators and users disagree. As reported by crypto.news, Saylor described Bitcoin as a network where capital, node activity and mining power remain in balance. His latest position places neutrality at the center of that debate while BIP 110 moves toward its activation window.
Crypto World
This Week’s Biggest Gainers and Losers Revealed as Bitcoin (BTC) Aims at $65K: Weekend Watch
Bitcoin continues with its gradual weekend climb and has neared $65,000 after bouncing from $63,700 yesterday.
Most larger-cap alts have remained still over the past 24 hours, which is why we will focus on their weekly moves, where ZEC, CRO, LTC, and ONDO stand out.
Can BTC Reclaim $65K?
The previous weekend was also quite sluggish but slightly positive for BTC, as it stood at around $64,000 for 48 hours straight despite the new attacks between the US and Iran. However, the market finally priced in the skyrocketing tension on Monday morning with a painful dip to $61,800.
The softer-than-expected CPI numbers for June announced on Tuesday, though, were well received by BTC as the asset flew by several grand to $65,600 on Wednesday. This became its highest price tag in about three weeks.
However, it couldn’t keep the momentum going and crashed toward $62,000 once again on Thursday and Friday. Nevertheless, the bulls intercepted the move and didn’t allow another leg down. Instead, BTC recovered some ground to $64,000 yesterday and climbed to almost $65,000 earlier today. It still remains below that level, which has been categorized as key for its short-term price performance.
Bitcoin’s market capitalization has risen to almost $1.3 trillion on CG, while its dominance over the altcoins has rocketed to over 57%.
Weekly Gainers and Losers
Ethereum jumped to almost $1,950 earlier this week, and even though it has dropped by nearly $100 since then, it’s still 4.2% up since last Sunday. ZEC is the biggest gainer from the larger caps, gaining 9% to $560. LTC, ONDO, and CRO have posted impressive increases as well, up to 8% in the case of Crypto.com’s native token.
In contrast, HYPE has plunged by more than 9%. Nevertheless, it has defended the $60 support and now sits inches above it. BCH, CC, TAO, and AAVE have marked significant losses since last Sunday as well.
The total crypto market cap, though, has increased by approximately $60 billion since this time a week ago and now sits above $2.270 trillion on CG.
The post This Week’s Biggest Gainers and Losers Revealed as Bitcoin (BTC) Aims at $65K: Weekend Watch appeared first on CryptoPotato.
FTX will begin its fifth creditor distribution on July 31, sending nearly $900 million to eligible claimants under its court-approved recovery plan.
Summary
- FTX will distribute nearly $900 million to eligible creditors beginning July 31 through approved providers.
- The fifth payout round pushes total creditor distributions to about $10 billion since FTX collapsed.
- Bankman-Fried faces growing political resistance to clemency after losing his appeal against the fraud conviction.
The payment will cover creditors in the Convenience and Non-Convenience Classes who completed required steps before the June 16 record date.
A repayment update shared by creditor advocate Sunil Kavuri said eligible users can receive funds through BitGo, Kraken or Payoneer. Payments should arrive within one to three business days after distribution starts. The new round brings total payouts since FTX entered bankruptcy to about $10 billion.
FTX moves ahead with fifth creditor distribution
FTX’s recovery process continues nearly four years after the exchange filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November 2022. The company collapsed after a liquidity crisis exposed a large gap in customer assets and left users unable to access funds held on the platform.
Convenience claims below $50,000 are set to receive 120% of their allowed claim value under the recovery plan. Other eligible classes are expected to receive distributions of about 103% to 105%, according to the creditor update. FTX said future dates will depend on claim approvals and eligibility.
Bankruptcy estate keeps returning recovered funds
The July payment follows earlier rounds that returned billions of dollars to former customers and creditors. The estate has funded repayments through recovered cash, investments and asset sales carried out during the bankruptcy process.
Some of those sales have drawn criticism from creditors because several assets later rose sharply in value. As reported by crypto.news, the estate sold a 5% stake in Cursor developer Anysphere for $200,000 in 2023. That former stake was later estimated at about $3 billion based on a reported $60 billion valuation.
Legal disputes tied to FTX remain active
FTX’s collapse continues to produce lawsuits involving former executives, advisers and other parties linked to the exchange. In May, law firm Fenwick & West agreed to pay $54 million to settle claims brought by former FTX customers.
As reported by crypto.news, the plaintiffs accused the firm of helping create legal structures that allowed FTX and Alameda Research to move customer funds without proper safeguards. Fenwick denied wrongdoing, and the proposed settlement requires court approval.
Bankman-Fried faces resistance to clemency
Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried remains in federal prison after a jury convicted him of fraud and conspiracy charges linked to the exchange’s collapse. A judge sentenced him to 25 years in prison in 2024.
His legal options narrowed in June when a federal appeals court upheld his conviction and sentence. As reported by crypto.news, the court rejected arguments that the trial judge improperly limited evidence that Bankman-Fried wanted to present.
Bankman-Fried has also sought a presidential pardon, but the effort faces political opposition. The U.S. Senate unanimously adopted a resolution opposing clemency, as reported by crypto.news. The resolution cannot prevent a president from granting a pardon, but it places senators on record against clemency.
The latest $900 million payout keeps FTX’s repayment process moving while legal cases tied to the exchange remain unresolved. Creditors who qualify for the July round must use an approved distribution provider and complete all required verification steps before receiving funds.
Coinbase product executive Jordan Fish, better known as Cobie, said the company has become too distant from crypto-native users as questions grow over trust in the Base ecosystem.
Summary
- Cobie says Coinbase lost touch with crypto-native users after avoidable mistakes damaged trust across Base.
- Base App leadership shifted to Cobie as Coinbase refocuses product on trading and onchain activity.
- Rune questioned whether Base can attract users while community members continue to distrust management decisions.
His comments followed a public challenge from crypto commentator Rune over how the Base App plans to attract onchain users after recent community disputes.
Cobie said he had taken responsibility for the Base App and Coinbase trading products only days earlier. He also made clear that he does not run the Base blockchain. Jesse Pollak confirmed the leadership change, saying he had handed the app to Cobie so he could focus on the Base network.
Rune questions whether Base can rebuild user trust
Rune asked how the Base App could bring more users onchain when some supporters feel the ecosystem has repeatedly damaged their trust. He said Base still has strong infrastructure but questioned whether the project could attract new users without changing how its teams interact with the community.
Cobie acknowledged the criticism in a public exchange shared by Wu Blockchain. He said Coinbase had operated in an “ivory tower” to some extent and had become distant from users, especially crypto-native users. He also said Coinbase and Base had lost a large amount of trust through mistakes that could have been avoided.
Cobie added that the problems could not be fixed within a week or even a month. He said he plans to listen more closely to onchain users and create stronger links between product developers and the people using Coinbase products.
Cobie takes over as Base changes product direction
The comments came days after Pollak transferred leadership of the Base App to Cobie. As reported by crypto.news, Pollak stepped back from the app after Base’s focus on social products failed to produce the growth the team expected.
Pollak will now focus more closely on the Base blockchain, while Cobie oversees the Base App alongside Coinbase’s wider trading products. The shift gives Cobie responsibility for products including the main Coinbase App and its advanced trading services.
The management change also follows a wider reset in Base’s product strategy. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong recently admitted that Base had “messed up” with content coins, as reported by crypto.news. The network has since shifted more of its attention toward trading, payments and AI-related products.
Base faces pressure after product and network setbacks
Base has faced several setbacks while changing its product strategy. The network suffered a nearly two-hour halt in block production in June after an invalid block created a consensus problem.
As reported by crypto.news, Pollak said user funds remained safe during the outage but described the incident as unacceptable for infrastructure built to support financial activity around the clock.
Base has also continued to expand its technical infrastructure. The network recently activated its B20 token standard, which allows developers to issue stablecoins and tokenized assets with built-in controls for issuers.
The B20 standard followed Base’s Beryl network upgrade, as reported by crypto.news, and forms part of the network’s broader push into trading and financial applications.
Cobie says closer contact with users will take time
Cobie said rebuilding trust would require sustained work. He plans to listen more closely to crypto-native users, connect product teams more directly with the community and focus on products that users actually want.
His comments focused mainly on the Base App and Coinbase trading products rather than the Base blockchain itself. Rune later said Base’s underlying infrastructure could still compete among leading layer-2 networks but argued that the project needs to place users at the center of its decisions.
Cobie joined Coinbase after the company acquired Echo, the onchain fundraising platform he founded. Coinbase announced the $375 million Echo acquisition in October 2025, bringing Cobie into a larger role within the company.
His move into leadership of the Base App now comes as Coinbase tries to rebuild stronger ties with crypto-native users while expanding its trading and onchain products.
Bitcoin has managed to recover some ground from the early July drop to a multi-year low and now fights for $65,000. On the more macro scale, though, the asset has flashed a signal that preceded one of the most impressive rallies in its recent history.
Can it do it again now?
BTC to $500K and Beyond?
The signal in question was the formation of a bullish RSI divergence on the weekly chart, as outlined by popular analyst Ali Martinez. It emerges when the asset’s price and its 14-period Relative Strength Index on a weekly chart move in the opposite direction, suggesting that the underlying trend is losing momentum.
According to Martinez, the last time this happened was four years ago during the 2022 bear cycle. At the time, BTC bottomed at around $16,000 before the next expansion phase began, culminating three years later in a new peak of over $126,000.
The subsequent correction since that October peak has driven the cryptocurrency south to around $60,000, where the bullish RSI divergence appeared. History is no indicator of future price performance, but it’s still fun to speculate that if bitcoin were to mimic its 2022-2025 rally precisely, it would skyrocket to over half a million dollars per unit.
The Right and Wrong Strategies
Fellow analyst Altcoin Sherpa noted that the 200-EMA on the 4-hour chart had flipped for the first time in months, but BTC still needs to reclaim $65,000 to signal that the dip and bottom are in during this cycle.
Michaël van de Poppe spoke about when and how investors should consider (re-)entering the bitcoin ecosystem. He argued that many expect another leg down and a drop to $40,000 in the next few months and want to buy there. However, he asked what their plan B would be if that didn’t happen.
“Most of those people will then be buying back at $90,000 per bitcoin. That, to me, is a stupid strategy to go for.”
Instead, he believes buying at current levels is such a “phenomenal opportunity” that investors should take advantage of and wait 2-5 years to fully enjoy the potential price appreciation. And, if BTC indeed dips to $40,000, that would be an “even extra opportunity,” but he wouldn’t rely blindly on such a scenario.
The post This Rare Bitcoin Signal Preceded a 700% Rally: Is History About to Repeat? appeared first on CryptoPotato.
Crypto World
Inside Zcash’s new node that targets Visa-scale privacy at 50,000 transactions per second
Throughput targets and Tachyon’s role
The reason for building all this is arithmetic.
Mastercard and Visa process more than 50,000 transactions per second, and the team calls that figure ‘“its floor, not its target.” Zcash’s current cryptography would require a node to take in and verify more than 500 megabytes of data every second to keep up, because every private transaction carries a proof, and proofs are large.
That is roughly a full DVD of data arriving every ten seconds, continuously, and no current Zcash software runs anywhere near that. But the missing piece is the reason each bottleneck exists.
Bowe’s Project Tachyon is tackling this by working on recursive proofs, in which one proof attests to the validity of thousands of others, dramatically reducing the amount of data that must be checked at consensus.
Under Tachyon, a node verifies a single proof instead of the thousands, which the team says reduces the requirement for consensus data from 100 megabytes per second to 500 megabytes, a level they claim is technically achievable with careful engineering.
Wallet bottlenecks and Valar’s PIR solution
Wallets have a different problem. Because Zcash hides who a transaction is for, a wallet cannot ask a server which transactions belong to it without giving itself away. It pulls down everything and tests each one, which is why wallet software tops out at about one transaction per second.
Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev has defended trading against claims that it should be treated as gambling as the brokerage takes on a role in the U.S.
Summary
- Robinhood is helping operate Trump Accounts as it seeks deeper ties with younger American investors.
- Tenev rejects labeling all trading as gambling, arguing speculation remains necessary for functioning financial markets.
- Robinhood is expanding beyond stocks and crypto into prediction markets, tokenization, banking, and global finance.
Government’s new Trump Accounts program. The accounts are designed to help children start investing early as Robinhood broadens its business beyond retail trading.
In an interview with The New York Times, Tenev said Robinhood is working with the government to operate the accounts. He also said more than 90% of his personal net worth remains invested in Robinhood shares. His comments come as the company expands into prediction markets, tokenized assets and other financial services.
Robinhood takes a role in Trump Accounts
Trump Accounts are tax-deferred investment accounts created for children. Those born from 2025 through 2028 can receive a $1,000 government contribution. Robinhood helped develop the app used to manage the program, while families can begin making contributions after account activation. The company has presented the program as an effort to bring people into long-term investing.
Tenev sees the government partnership as a way to reach a new generation of users. Robinhood became linked with younger retail traders during the pandemic, when activity in stocks, options and cryptocurrencies rose sharply. The company now wants to build a broader relationship with customers that extends beyond short-term trading and into long-term financial products.
Tenev rejects a simple link between trading and gambling
Tenev pushed back against criticism that Robinhood encourages younger users to “gamble” through financial markets. He argued that trading should not automatically be described as gambling. He said speculation plays a core role in markets because buyers and sellers make predictions about future prices when deciding where to place capital.
The debate has become more relevant as Robinhood expands its prediction market business. As reported by crypto.news, Bernstein projected that Robinhood’s prediction market revenue could reach $586 million in 2026, up from about $150 million in 2025. The growth has brought more attention to the line between regulated trading, event contracts and betting.
Robinhood works to move beyond its meme-stock image
Robinhood became closely associated with the 2021 meme-stock boom and the GameStop trading episode. Tenev said the company is now trying to move past that image and build a platform that can cover a wider range of assets and financial transactions. Its recent product launches show how far the company is extending beyond its original commission-free brokerage model.
Robinhood launched Robinhood Chain on July 1 as an Ethereum layer-2 network focused on tokenized real-world assets. The company has also gained approval for Robinhood Securities to act as an IPO underwriter, as reported by crypto.news. Those moves give Robinhood roles in trading, blockchain infrastructure and capital markets as it builds a wider financial platform.
Tenev keeps most of his wealth tied to Robinhood
Tenev told The New York Times that more than 90% of his personal net worth is held in Robinhood shares. The statement gives context to his long-term position on the company as Robinhood expands into new markets and products. The company’s shares have also drawn attention after a strong rally during its broader product push.
As reported by crypto.news, Tenev sold 375,000 Robinhood shares on July 6 through a Rule 10b5-1 trading plan adopted in September 2025. He still held more than 48.2 million Class B shares after the transaction. Robinhood’s latest strategy now combines retail trading, prediction markets, tokenization and government-backed investment accounts as the company seeks a larger role in global finance.
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