Crypto Stopped Fighting Banks and Started Copying Them

The most consequential developments in blockchain finance today are no longer happening at the edges of the financial system. They are happening at its core.

Banks, asset managers, exchanges, payment providers and regulators are no longer treating blockchain as a parallel financial universe and started treating it as a faster, more efficient way to package, distribute and settle the products they already offer.

Of course, crypto-native firms are targeting many of the same commercial and customer outcomes.

The week’s announcements from players across financial services and crypto—including Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), Franklin Templeton, MoneyGram, MoonPay, Anchorage Digital and more—collectively point to a shift where the distinction between a bank product, a capital markets product and a blockchain product is becoming blurred.

The shift raises larger questions for regulators as well. If a money market fund, a payment account or a custody service can be delivered through blockchain infrastructure, what exactly should be regulated: the institution, the product, the technology, or all three?

Also read: Why Stablecoins Are a Money Story, Not a Consumer Story

Tokenized Deposits and Treasury Funds Now Compete With Bank Accounts

Historically, financial products were closely tied to the institutions that offered them. Consumers held deposits at banks, invested through asset managers, and moved money through payment networks. Regulatory frameworks reflected those distinctions.

Digital assets and blockchain technology are reorganizing the market around products instead. Rather than anchoring products to institutions, blockchain infrastructure allows products to move more freely across platforms and networks. Assets can be tokenized, transferred and settled using infrastructure that operates independently of traditional banking systems while still interacting with regulated financial markets.

A tokenized Treasury fund may compete with a bank savings account, while a stablecoin may compete with a remittance service, and a blockchain-based custody platform may compete with a traditional securities custodian.

In each case, the underlying economic function remains familiar, but the delivery mechanism changes. The result is a growing class of financial products that compete not by becoming banks, but by replicating specific banking functions.

The common thread is portability, and that dynamic was evident in marketplace announcements this week.

More like this: Crypto Experts Tell PYMNTS Where Digital Assets Go Next

ICE, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, on Monday (June 22) announced an expansion of its digital asset strategy through a partnership with OKX designed to support tokenized financial markets. Rather than building an entirely new financial ecosystem, ICE is focused on bringing traditional capital markets products onto blockchain rails. The goal is operational efficiency, programmability and potentially lower settlement costs.

Anchorage Digital also on Monday launched a new tokenized deposit infrastructure aimed at enabling banks to offer around-the-clock settlement without overhauling their existing core systems. As a federally chartered digital asset bank in the United States, Anchorage provides custody and infrastructure services that allow institutions to hold and manage blockchain-based assets within regulated frameworks.

“I want every bank to become a crypto bank. In a world where there are 4,000 banks, we’re powering 3,999 of them,” Anchorage Co-Founder and CEO Nathan McCauley told PYMNTS in an April episode of “From the Block.”

Franklin Templeton, one of the earliest asset managers to embrace tokenization, on Monday announced the completion of its acquisition of 250 Digital, a cryptocurrency investment management firm, and formally established Franklin Crypto, a new, dedicated active digital asset management division. The company a few days earlier (June 18) filed an application with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for two Bitcoin DRIP Index ETFs that reinvest corporate dividend payments into Bitcoin.

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MoneyGram and MoonPay are approaching the market from a different angle. Their focus is less on capital markets and more on payments and financial access. Yet the strategy is similar: use blockchain infrastructure to perform financial workflows more efficiently while maintaining familiar user experiences.

On Monday, for example, MoonPay announced its acquisition of Entendre, a maker of artificial intelligence (AI) accounting agents for stablecoin firms. Also on Monday, MoneyGram joined the Solana blockchain’s proof-of-stake network as a validator, underscoring the competitive realities traditional FinTechs face to offer interoperable settlement rails where, for customers, the service may feel like a conventional payment product. Behind the scenes, however, blockchain networks provide the settlement layer.

Taken together, these developments suggest the next phase of competition will not be bank versus crypto company. It will be product versus product.

At the same time, “Waiting for Certainty: Why Most CFOs Are Holding Back on Crypto and Stablecoins,” a recent installment of PYMNTS Intelligence’s 2026 Certainty Project, shows that most middle market companies remain cautious about digital assets. Usage is limited, with 13% of firms using stablecoins and 5% employing other cryptocurrencies.

See also: MiCA’s Moment of Truth: Can Crypto Survive the Regulation It Asked For?

Bank of England Advances Stablecoin Rules as Regulatory Lines Blur

Regulatory authorities in both the United States and abroad have not been watching these crypto developments disinterestedly. Supervision, custody, consumer protection and systemic risk remain the fundamental concerns.

The Bank of England (BoE) this week advanced its framework for systemic stablecoins and digital settlement assets. While the bank had previously proposed temporary ownership limits on U.K. stablecoins of 20,000 pounds per coin for individuals and 10 million pounds for businesses to prevent a major outflow of deposits from banks, those restrictions were rolled back.

“It’s almost a full-time job to keep up with all the changes on the legislative front, on the regulatory front, on the technological front,” Mike Katz, partner in Manatt’s Financial Services Group, told PYMNTS during the most recent “From the Block“ conversation.

“It’s not like, ‘This is how a regulator has interpreted this for the last 40 years.’ It’s more like, ‘These rules are not yet final, but we think it’s going in this direction,” Katz added.

The PYMNTS Intelligence and Citi report “Chain Reaction: Regulatory Clarity as the Catalyst for Blockchain Adoption“ found that blockchain’s next leap will be shaped by regulation.

And regulators are now faced with a question that would have seemed unlikely only a few years ago: not whether blockchain belongs in finance, but where exactly it fits.