40 of the 50 Largest Banks Are Working on Onchain Money
Plus OKXICE opens with 59 ETFs after 56 company objections, Coinbase's trust charter and Anthropic's onchain pre-market
Happy Friday. This is Converge, The Defiant's weekly recap of tokenization, stablecoins, and real-world assets, by Chris Storaker.
TOP NEWS THIS WEEK
- OKXICE sets a Nov. 23 launch with 59 Direxion ETFs
- Morgan Stanley agrees to buy transfer agent Vinyl Equity
- Banks commit about $270 million to a joint dollar stablecoin
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE
- Coinbase's national trust bank wins final OCC approval
- Anthropic perps top $300 million of open interest before the IPO
- FinCEN cuts MEXC off from the U.S. financial system
- BoE, MAS and Bank of Thailand test linked FX settlement
- Standard Chartered tests early redemption liquidity for Ant
TOKENIZED STOCKS
OKXICE to Open With 59 ETFs After 56 Objections
OKXICE, the stock-token venue of OKX and NYSE owner Intercontinental Exchange, will open Nov. 23 with a lineup in which 59 of more than 70 assets are Direxion exchange-traded funds.
Recap: The venue's Oct. 4 filing named 62 companies. Fifty-six objected by Nov. 5. Only seven companies remain in the lineup; six that did not object to the initial filing (BitGo, Circle, Coinbase, Robinhood, Securitize and Strategy), plus Better.com.
Transfer agents, the firms that keep the shareholder register, are becoming the favored pathway for company stock tokenization.
- Morgan Stanley agreed on Nov. 9 to buy Vinyl Equity, a transfer agent founded in 2022, and said the deal adds infrastructure for future tokenization.
- Bullish, the crypto exchange that agreed to pay $4.2 billion for Equiniti, the transfer agent for nearly 3,000 issuers and more than 20 million shareholders, hired former NYSE Group president Stacey Cunningham as its president.
- NYSE, which has signed six transfer agents for its own planned venue, chose Avalanche to supply the ledger for that venue's clearing firm.
Related — The SEC is deciding what a register must hold. Its Sept. 1 proposal on transfer-agent rules keeps a holder's name and mailing address as the required record and allows a wallet address as a supplement. Computershare told the SEC to keep the name and address mandatory. Equiniti signed a letter with Securitize, Figure, Plume and Centrifuge asking that a wallet address be enough on its own.
Announced:
- Formation Securities told the SEC on Nov. 9 that it plans a Solana venue in early 2027 with shares of Exodus, Forward Industries and Galaxy Digital.
- DTCC said on Nov. 12 it will add Solana to its tokenization service in the second half of 2027.
STABLECOINS / TOKENIZED DEPOSITS
Where the 50 Largest Banks Stand
Forty of the world's 50 largest banks are working on stablecoins or tokenized deposits, and for now it is mostly promises: seven have a product clients can use today. Three issue a stablecoin and five run a tokenized deposit; HSBC does both.
In case you’ve been living under a rock: A stablecoin is a token backed one for one by reserves of cash and short-term government debt held apart from the issuer's other assets, and it can pass to anyone the issuer allows. A tokenized deposit is an ordinary bank deposit recorded on a blockchain: it stays a claim on the bank and on its balance sheet, and so far it moves only among the bank's own clients or a closed group of banks.
Stablecoins: most large banks hold a seat in tokens that do not exist yet (promises, promises). Twenty of the 50 belong to one of two consortium coins, the 21-member dollar venture or Qivalis in euros; neither is live yet. Six banks are testing a coin, among them Japan's three largest with a joint yen coin, and 24 have no public stablecoin position.
This week:
- The dollar venture's members committed about $270 million over five years, Bloomberg reported on Nov. 10, about $13 million a member by our own arithmetic.
- PNC began a pilot on Nov. 9 that converts clients' incoming USDC into dollars.
- Deutsche Bank's custody service went live on Nov. 11 holding USDC, EURC and EURAU, Reuters reported.
Tokenized deposits are further along. JPMorgan, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, HSBC and Standard Chartered run one for clients. Sixteen more are testing one, most of them in shared pilots such as Hong Kong's EnsembleTX and the UK's sterling deposit-token pilot, and seven have announced plans.
North America
JPMorgan is the only one of the four largest U.S. banks outside the dollar venture, and its deposit token runs on public blockchains, Base and Ethereum. Citigroup is funding the venture; on Oct. 13 its chief executive, Jane Fraser, told analysts that "stablecoins can be a bit more clunky, with more complexity around compliance, accounting and tax," and said deposit tokenization is the area Citi is most excited about. Wells Fargo launched tokenized deposits for corporate clients in September, chief executive Charlie Scharf said on the bank's Oct. 13 call. Six Canadian banks, five of them in the table, are studying a Canadian-dollar deposit token together. Morgan Stanley has neither product; its asset manager runs a money market fund that holds stablecoin issuers' reserves.
Europe
Thirty-seven banks back Qivalis, the euro coin that the Dutch central bank authorised on Oct. 14 and that has issued nothing. Société Générale built its own: its SG-Forge unit had €171.5 million of EURCV in circulation on Nov. 12. BBVA sits in both consortia. Barclays and BNP Paribas were in the ten-bank study that preceded the dollar venture a year ago and are absent from the 21. Barclays and NatWest have no stablecoin position and are in the UK's sterling deposit-token pilot.
Asia-Pacific
Unsurprisingly, none of the 13 mainland Chinese banks has a stablecoin, and all 13 operate the e-CNY, the central bank's digital yuan. Beijing bars yuan-pegged stablecoins issued without its approval. Six run tokenized deposits through Hong Kong units in EnsembleTX, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority's settlement project, which the HKMA says enables "real-value transactions" under a "controlled pilot environment." Bank of China's Hong Kong unit reported more than HK$2.3 billion through the end of October. Japan's three largest banks tested a joint yen coin in July and aim for live use by March 2027.
The consortium tokens
Thirteen of the 50 are in the dollar venture and eight in Qivalis. Neither coin has a token, and the dollar venture has no company or name yet. Five of its members, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Santander and TD, also back The Clearing House's planned deposit-token network. Outside the 50, PNC and Capital One hold seats in the dollar venture, and U.S. Bank is testing its own coin internally.
Additional Read: Latin America (none in the top 50)
While No bank in the region makes the 50, its worth looking into Latin America, as the region leads in stablecoin adoption. Brazil ranks first in Chainalysis's 2026 adoption index, and stablecoins carried 32.1% of Latin America's cross-border crypto value in the year to June. In Mexico, $47 billion of $77.6 billion in crypto flows went through stablecoins. : Itaú Unibanco, the largest, reported $562 billion of assets, against $835 billion for CIBC, 50th on our list.
Its largest banks mostly distribute tokens that other firms issue:
Of the region's 12 largest banks, only Bancolombia issues its own coins, a peso coin and a dollar coin launched in April, through Wenia, a unit licensed in Bermuda. Itaú, BTG Pactual and Nubank sell USDC in their apps, and Banco Inter sells Tether's USDT. BTG closed its own dollar coin, BTG Dol, on July 1 and moved holders into USDC. Itaú is the only one testing a tokenized deposit, on a ledger Swift is building. Mexico's central bank bars banks from offering crypto to clients, and Argentina's has done so since 2022. Mercado Pago, MercadoLibre's payments arm and not a bank, runs a dollar coin, Meli Dólar, in Brazil, Mexico and Chile.
OTHER STORIES WORTH YOUR TIME
Anthropic Perp Exposure Tops $300 Million in Snapshots
Anthropic's Hyperliquid perps showed more than $311 million of open interest in Buildix's Nov. 11 snapshots. Trade.xyz's ANT contract marked $105.91 a share, about 36% above the top of the $70 to $78 range on the 825 million shares on offer, by our own arithmetic. The contracts are cash-settled and carry no shares or allocation rights. Dinari and Ondo have promised tokenized shares on day one; pricing is expected Nov. 18 and trading Nov. 19.
Coinbase, Five Firms Back CFTC in Stock Perps Lawsuit
Coinbase and five other firms, including Kalshi, Payward, DRW and Jump Trading, asked a Manhattan federal judge on Nov. 9 to let them file a brief backing the CFTC's authority over single-stock perps. The Capital Markets Alliance Association wants the approvals for KalshiEX, Coinbase Derivatives and Bitnomial blocked. On Nov. 3, Judge Valerie Caproni denied a temporary halt but found the alliance likely to win its claim that the contracts are swaps under SEC jurisdiction. No hearing is set.
Coinbase Wins Final OCC Approval for National Trust Bank
The OCC gave Coinbase National Trust Company final approval on Nov. 6, Coinbase said on Nov. 9, putting its institutional custody under one federal regulator. The charter covers fiduciary custody; Coinbase says it will not take retail deposits or lend. Anchorage, Circle and Ripple hold the same charter. Coinbase gave no start date.
PNC Launches USDC Payments Pilot With Coinbase
PNC, with $628 billion in assets, began a pilot on Nov. 9 that lets corporate and institutional clients receive USDC on Ethereum. Coinbase converts each payment one for one into dollars and wires them to the client's PNC account. Coinbase set up a similar arrangement with Citi's merchant platform in September.
Visa Adds Monad to Stablecoin Settlement: The Block
Visa added Monad to the blockchains its card issuers and acquirers can use to settle in stablecoins, The Block reported, citing the Monad Foundation and a Visa executive. Visa said in September the program had passed a $20 billion annualized run rate.
Visa will also accept Western Union's USDPT, issued by Anchorage's bank, for settlement, Anchorage Digital told The Block on Nov. 12.
Securitize Agrees to Buy River One to Add Asset-Backed Lending
Securitize agreed on Nov. 9 to buy River One, a New York platform founded in 2025 that arranges warehouse financing against loan portfolios. Terms were not disclosed; closing is expected this quarter. Securitize says the deal lets institutions borrow against assets they tokenize on its platform.
Securitize, Ethena Open BUIDL Facility With $100 Million Capacity
Securitize and Ethena opened a facility on Nov. 12 that lets eligible investors swap shares of BlackRock's BUIDL fund for stablecoins and back at any hour. It starts with $25 million each of USDC and BUIDL, and another $50 million can be added within about an hour, subject to availability. Circle has offered a BUIDL-to-USDC exit since April 2024.
Alta Raises $47.5 Million for Bank-Focused Blockchain
Alta raised a $47.5 million Series A led by Index Ventures, with GV, Blackbird, Square Peg and Capital49, for a Layer 1 blockchain that lets banks enforce payment rules without publishing customer data. Total funding is $80 million, and Airwallex is its first design partner. Alta has no launch date and names no bank users.
BoE and Asian Central Banks Test Linked FX Settlement
The Bank of England, the Monetary Authority of Singapore and the Bank of Thailand published results on Nov. 13 from Project Meridian FX APAC, which settled both legs of a currency trade together across one account-based and two tokenized test systems. Partior built the prototype; no live participants took part. BIS research found more than $1.4 trillion of daily FX settlement, 10% of the total, fully exposed to settlement risk in April 2025.
xStocks Adds 200-Plus UK and EU Stock Tokens With GTN
xStocks, issued by Jersey-based Backed and developed by Kraken parent Payward, added more than 200 UK and EU equities on Nov. 11, including all 40 DAX companies, which also trade on Deutsche Börse's 360X. Holders get price exposure only, with no voting rights or claim on the shares; UK and U.S. investors are excluded. Payward puts xStocks assets above $1.1 billion.
Standard Chartered Tests Early Redemption Liquidity for Ant's Tokenized Fund
Standard Chartered's Hong Kong bank said on Nov. 10 it completed a pilot with Ant International of a facility that pays out tokenized money market fund redemptions before the fund settles. It named no fund or size, and said it will next look at taking digital assets as collateral.
FinCEN Cuts MEXC Off From the U.S. Financial System
FinCEN on Nov. 6 ordered U.S. financial institutions to stop moving funds to or from MEXC Global, under section 9714(a) of the Combating Russian Money Laundering Act. Treasury says the exchange handled at least $16 billion tied to sanctions evasion, cybercrime and other illicit activity from May 2021 to May 2026. The order takes effect 30 days after its Nov. 10 Federal Register publication.
Even more this week:
- The CFTC approved tZERO's derivatives exchange, effective Nov. 10, completing an earn-out milestone in its $350 million SPAC merger.
- Nomura is exploring a sale of its crypto unit Laser Digital, and Marex is among the possible buyers, Bloomberg reported.
- BitGo returned to a $44.1 million profit in the third quarter on crypto gains as revenue fell 50.9% to $2.85 billion.
- BitGo added USDC minting and redemption for clients of its national trust bank, on nine blockchains.
- Western Union ended its agreement to buy Intermex on Nov. 10, citing conditions set by California's financial regulator; no break fee is due.
- OFAC sanctioned eight Canadian money-services businesses it says moved funds for Iranian entities through crypto.
- Leverage Shares plans a 3x Anthropic exchange-traded product in Europe that holds interest-bearing assets until the stock lists.
- Pyth became an approved distributor of NYSE market data, adding real-time quotes and trades from five NYSE exchanges.
- Kimber Digital Securities, a Plume affiliate, registered as a broker-dealer and plans to tokenize security entitlements in the first half of 2027.
- Charles Schwab added Solana, Avalanche and Chainlink to trading in Schwab Crypto accounts.
- The ECB, the European Commission and ESMA opened nominations for a tokenisation standards group; applications close Nov. 27.
- Nigeria's central bank set capital of ₦15 billion for issuers of foreign-currency stablecoins and ₦10 billion for naira issuers.
Converge is produced by The Defiant. This briefing is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
Free newsletters
Good reporting. Delivered.
Choose the newsletters you want in your inbox.
Free. Unsubscribe anytime.
