When America’s largest banks announce plans to build shared blockchain infrastructure, the focus shifts from whether the technology matters to how it will reshape financial markets.
JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo and several other major lenders confirmed Friday that they plan to launch a shared tokenized deposit network through The Clearing House, targeting the first half of 2027.
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The network would allow bank deposits to move across blockchain rails with 24/7 settlement, giving traditional bank money capabilities that have so far been stablecoins’ main selling point.
Why This Move Is Bigger Than It Looks
Banks don’t build shared infrastructure unless the threat is real and the math is clear.
Jefferies analysts have estimated that stablecoins could cause 3% to 5% core deposit runoff at traditional banks over the next five years. That might sound modest, but at the scale of JPMorgan or Bank of America, it translates into billions in lost low-cost funding, which props up bank profitability.
What made this move possible is regulation. The GENIUS Act, signed into law in July 2025, established the first US federal framework for payment stablecoins, legitimizing them and forcing banks to treat them as permanent fixtures rather than experiments.
Following this, the OCC, Treasury, and FDIC quickly introduced implementing rules and comment periods, shifting the legal landscape and prompting banks to respond.
More than half of the 25 largest US banks are currently experimenting with tokenization, custody, or stablecoin-related products. JPMorgan has already issued its USD deposit token on a public blockchain. Citi has integrated Token Services with 24/7 cross-border clearing.
It is not only banks that are moving in this direction. The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), which underpins US securities settlement and holds custody of more than $114 trillion in assets, plans to begin live production trading of tokenized securities through its DTC unit in 2026.
Digital Asset, the developer of the Canton Network, serves as the initiative’s primary blockchain infrastructure provider.
The Emerging Market Split
The impact of this shift is unlikely to be uniform across the crypto industry.
Stablecoins may face increased competition in institutional finance. Designed for corporate treasuries, cross-border payments, and settlement between financial institutions, bank-operated blockchain networks could offer similar 24/7 functionality while benefiting from established regulatory trust and banking relationships. This may directly challenge stablecoin growth in institutional use cases.
At the same time, the real-world asset (RWA) sector could benefit. Tokenized bonds, money market funds, and credit instruments require reliable institutional settlement infrastructure, and broader participation from banks could accelerate adoption in these markets.
More broadly, sustained involvement from large financial institutions has historically supported confidence in emerging financial technologies, potentially reinforcing longer-term capital flows into the sector.
A Key Distinction Often Missed
Tokenized bank deposits and stablecoins serve different functions and are unlikely to compete directly for the same users.
Tokenized deposits let banks move customer balances onto blockchain infrastructure while keeping them within the banking system. The deposit is represented as a digital token that can be transferred on-chain, but it remains a liability of the issuing bank.
Stablecoins like USDC and USDT, by contrast, operate on open blockchain networks and can move across wallets and protocols without intermediaries.
Why This Matters
The largest US banks are building shared blockchain infrastructure in part to reduce deposit outflows to stablecoins, while the DTCC is simultaneously tokenizing elements of the securities settlement system.
This creates direct competition with stablecoins in institutional and treasury use cases, while also providing a structural tailwind for real-world asset tokenization by establishing the institutional-grade infrastructure those systems require.
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People Also Ask:
Tokenized assets are real-world or financial assets represented digitally on a blockchain. Each token reflects ownership or a share of an underlying asset such as real estate, bonds, funds, or commodities.
Tokenized assets are created by issuing digital tokens that represent rights to an underlying asset. These tokens can be recorded, transferred, and settled on blockchain networks, enabling faster and more transparent ownership changes.
Regulation varies by country and asset type. Some jurisdictions apply existing securities and financial laws, while others are still developing specific frameworks for tokenized assets.
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