Why Wall Street giants build tokenization money for institutions, not regular consumers
Wall Street institutions are currently prioritizing internal, permissioned blockchain projects for tokenized money rather than consumer-facing applications. Experts argue that legacy banking infrastructure and the need for regulatory compliance are the primary hurdles preventing these innovations from reaching retail customers.
Why it matters
The divide between institutional and retail blockchain adoption underscores the challenges of modernizing 1970s-era banking systems while maintaining liquidity and regulatory standards.
That gap is not an accident. "Most of the coins that have been minted and are being used for money transfer are all internal projects," said Mintoo Bhandari, founder of Monument Bank, a U.K. challenger bank with a roughly $2.4 billion balance sheet.
“Is that really moving the needle for the whole bank and for the consumer? Not yet."
That is the central divide in the tokenized-money debate. Banks are putting tokenized deposits and payments on blockchain infrastructure, but most projects remain restricted to institutional customers or permissioned networks. Monument and privacy-focused blockchain Midnight are betting that regulated, interest-bearing bank deposits can eventually give retail clients access to tokenized investments and lending without requiring them to understand crypto.
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