JPMorgan Just Flipped the Script: Tokenized Treasuries Hit Public Markets

Wall Street’s sleeping giant wakes up—and drops a blockchain bomb. JPMorgan settles its first public trade using tokenized US Treasury bonds, proving even dinosaurs can (grudgingly) adapt.

The not-so-subtle subtext? ’We’ll disrupt ourselves, thank you very much.’ Because nothing says ’innovation’ like a megabank cutting out middlemen with the tech they spent years dismissing.

Next stop: TradFi grudgingly admitting DeFi had a point. Cue the institutional FOMO.

The future of a hybrid financial system that combines TradFi and DeFi

There has been a lot of talk about crypto and the digital asset class so far this year. This is because the first crypto-friendly government took office with the return of US President Donald Trump. With it has come beneficial regulations that have been put in place. 

The biggest one was debanking, which has now been done away with the proof of JPMorgan’s move.

Nelli Zaltsman, Head of Platform Settlement Solutions at Kinexys, JPMorgan’s blockchain unit, says that this is the first time the bank has put in place infrastructure ready for real use. JPMorgan has tried public blockchain tests before, including one with Siemens Digital in 2024.

JPMorgan relied on Chainlink’s interoperability protocol to execute the transaction. It allows private and public blockchains to communicate securely. This kind of merging could pave the way for a hybrid financial system that combines infrastructure built for institutions with innovations in decentralized finance (DeFi).

“This is not just another POC [proof of concept],” said Chainlink co-founder Sergey Nazarov, emphasizing the significance of the development. “This is the beginning of something big.”

Also, according to ONDO Finance, the transaction was the first cross-chain, atomic Delivery versus Payment settlement of a tokenized asset on the Ondo Chain testnet.

Tokenized assets and cross-chain payments are important parts of how finance is changing, and JPMorgan’s move shows that institutions are becoming more confident in public blockchain technology. This big step forward could speed up Wall Street’s adoption of DeFi tools.

JPMorgan is not the only bank planning to enter the crypto market. CEO of Bank of America Brian Moynihan said this year that the company WOULD release its stablecoin. He said that the bank was just waiting for the law that would make the product offering legal in the US as a whole.

The SEC crypto task force roundtable of tokenizations influences investors

Tokenized real-world assets are quietly going from an idea to a foundation in 2025 as regulated platforms start to change global finance from the inside out.

As reported by Cryptopolitan, the SEC’s Crypto Task Force held a roundtable on tokenization this week. This is the fourth meeting in a series that looks at how to regulate crypto assets. Using asset tokenization as a way for TradFi, like banks and DeFi, to work together was a big part of this discussion. This has yielded results. 

Besides JPMorgan,  investment company VanEck and the tokenization platform Securitize are launching a tokenized real-world asset (RWA) fund that gives investors access to US Treasury bills. With this move, VanEck joins many traditional financial companies that are getting into RWA tokenization.

VanEck said in a May 13 statement that the fund, which is called VBILL, will be launched on the Avalanche, BNB Chain, Ethereum, and solana blockchains. For investments working on Avalanche, BNB Chain, and Solana, the minimum subscription to the fund is $100,000. On Ethereum, the minimum subscription is $1 million.

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