The Next Era of Digital Money

Digital finance has moved beyond experiments. Our founder Rhomaios Ram lays out key shifts shaping the next phase of the market. 

There is a fundamental shift happening in wholesale markets. Banks are launching deposit tokens, stablecoins are moving trillions and tokenized assets are going live across multiple chains. This convergence is creating fragmentation. Different assets, different rails, different definitions of money, all moving in real time, but with no common layer to settle safely across them.  

The market is heading toward a breaking point, and whoever solves wholesale settlement across this fragmented landscape will define the next decade of digital finance.   

Public blockchains are now safe for real financial transactions 

This is the quiet revolution, that changed everything.  

Regulatory clarity, including major moves like the US Genius Act, has finally made it possible for regulated institutions to use public blockchains for real financial transactions without facing regulatory risks in doing so.  

Here’s what matters: many of the benefits people associate with stablecoins – 24/7 availability, global reach, easy interoperability – aren’t really about the coins themselves. They’re about the platform they run on. Once regulated money can use similar rails, the comparison starts to shift. The same advantages can be delivered in formats that sit within established regulatory and risk frameworks. No model can fully remove stress or volatility, but the field becomes much more level. 

The three types of digital money 

Banks now have the green light to issue digital instruments on public blockchains. Three formats are emerging:  

• • Deposit tokens – These move on public rails and carry traditional, regulated bank credit risk. 

• • Tokenized deposits – These stay inside one bank’s system, essentially digital representations of existing deposits. 

• • Stablecoins – These circulate widely but introduce exposure to a private issuer and its reserves.

Each format has trade-offs, but all three share something crucial: they can offer the same speed and user experience as crypto-native stablecoins, but with centuries of banking trust and regulatory oversight. 

Deposit tokens are one of the key ways banks will compete. They can pay interest, build on existing client relationships, and help define how digital money actually works in practice.  

But to really compete, they still need a robust path to risk-free settlement in central bank money – something none of these formats can deliver on their own. 

Intermediation is back (and that’s good) 

This brings us directly to Fnality’s role. Intermediation is clearly evolving – and banks are well placed to play a central part in it, provided they have modern rails to support that role.  

The promise of crypto was “no intermediaries.” 

In reality, it’s gone the other way. The evolution of public blockchains is reintroducing intermediation – and banks are the natural endpoints because they can provide KYC, fraud controls, fiat conversion, and more. 

Layer on the fact that stablecoins cannot pay interest directly, and the system naturally starts to favour traditional, regulated intermediaries who can. That doesn’t kill innovation; it channels it into institutions that actually understand risk, liquidity, and customer protection. 

Banks will be the gateways, issuers and servicers in this next phase – but they’ll need modern rails to support that role. 

The orchestration layer becomes essential 

Digital markets generate real-time settlement needs, but also real-time credit, liquidity optimisation, netting, and risk signalling. 

Today, these functions happen in different systems, often with delays. Tomorrow, they need to function in seconds. You need real-time credit and liquidity, orchestration has to stretch across stablecoins, deposit tokens and everything in between. 

And this is where fragmentation becomes a real problem: 

• • Some assets will settle in deposit tokens 

• • Some will rely on tokenized MMFs 

• • Some will run on public chains, others on private rails 

• • Some will use stablecoins for retail or cross-border flows 

You can’t rebuild treasury and operations around four different definitions of money. The market needs a risk-free settlement anchor that can sit underneath all of them. 

That’s where real-time settlement in central bank money becomes the foundation. Whether the path is “modernisation”, “disruption” or some hybrid in between, every scenario ends in the same place… 

You still need a risk-free settlement asset to close out interbank exposures generated by all these digital forms of money. Whatever form innovation takes at the edges, final settlement for wholesale markets must happen in central bank money – and that’s exactly where Fnality comes in. That’s the key point: 

• • Stablecoins need a way back to fiat currency

• • Deposit tokens need a settling layer between banks 

• • Tokenised MMFs still require underlying cash movements at scale 

• • Public blockchain rails need regulated wholesale endpoints 

• • Cross-border flows need a high-quality, systematically robust settlement anchor 

Fnality is designed precisely for this role – real-time, final settlement in a digital representation of central bank money, across platforms, assets and use cases. 

We don’t compete with stablecoins or deposit tokens.
We connect them safely.

We don’t replace bank innovation.
We enable it.

We don’t try to be the asset.
We provide the finality that all assets need.

So, what does the future look like? 

A world where…

• • Assets move in real time 

• • Money moves in real time 

• • Settlement risk shrinks dramatically 

• • Liquidity is used more efficiently 

• • Banks issue their own digital money 

• • Platforms interoperate safely 

• • And central bank money remains the anchor of trust 

This is not a fringe vision or a crypto dream. It’s the direction that regulation, technology and customer expectations are already pushing us. And it’s exactly the world Fnality was built for. 

The opportunity ahead 

The next phase of digital finance will not be defined by any one coin, one chain, or one issuer. It will be defined by interoperability, instant settlement, and the safe, regulated movement of money across platforms – all underpinned by central bank money. Fnality is built for that world, and 2026 will quietly mark the beginning of that shift.