5 regional US banks are building a shared tokenized deposit network

Five US banks including Huntington National Bank, First Horizon Bank and M&T Bank, KeyBank and Old National Bank are working with the Cari Network, a blockchain-based platform led by former US Comptroller of the Currency Gene Ludwig to launch a shared tokenized bank deposit network.

Cari is set for the release of a minimum viable product at the end of March, followed by a pilot program in the third quarter, Ludwig said. The full service is expected to be available for customers of the banks involved in the fourth quarter.

Source: Bloomberg

➡️ Why this matters

Tokenized deposits are bank money on blockchain.

They are 

1) regulated bank liabilities

2) insured through the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation

3) with access to central bank liquidity facilities

Anyone with a bank account is already a user.

There are 125M bank accounts in the US.

There are 6B bank accounts in the world.

By contrast, stablecoins have no FDIC insurance, no lender of last resort access and rely on selling reserve assets for redemption liquidity.

So far, only big GSIBs such as JPMorgan, Citi and HSBC have live products. And those products are limited by their lack of interoperability. 

What makes this development different is coordination among regional banks on a shared platform.

If Cari ultimately enables interoperability between participating institutions, that becomes far more than a product launch. It becomes infrastructure.

That would represent a structural upgrade to how commercial bank money moves across balance sheets in real time.

As First Horizon put it: “Clients will want money-movement solutions and products and services that meet their future needs, and we want to be positioned to offer the latest solutions as they become available”

Matt McAfee, M&T’s Head of Digital Assets: “M&T is participating in the Cari Network on equal footing with peer banks to explore how tokenized deposits can enable regulated, always‑on settlement.”

➡️ The BIG question

Will the formation of a multi-bank tokenized deposit network unlock interoperability and scales?

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