Wall Street's private blockchain obsession is a 'race to the bottom,' Ethereum advocate Raman warns
Ethereum advocate Raman argues that traditional finance firms' preference for private, permissioned 'consortium chains' is a flawed strategy. He suggests that an open, permissionless base layer like Ethereum is essential for long-term interoperability and liquidity.
Why it matters
This highlights the ongoing architectural debate between private enterprise blockchains and public decentralized networks in the financial sector.
Etherealize acts to attract traditional finance (TradFi) firms to Etheruem. The 10-year-old blockchain is a base layer for billions of dollars in tokenized assets and the settlement layer underpinning much of decentralized finance (DeFi). Now the story is about attracting institutions such as BlackRock (BLK) to the permissionless ecosystem where all transactions are visible to everyone.
Ethereum stands in contrast to the permissioned systems that are becoming increasingly popular again, as evidenced by the rise of Digital Asset’s Canton Network, Circle’s stablecoin payments play ARC and Stripe’s vertically integrated Tempo blockchain. These systems, which Raman calls "consortium chains," tout their inherent privacy and reduced counterparty risk — attributes that mainstream finance finds attractive.
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