From Stablecoins to Tokenized Deposits: Why Banks Are Reclaiming the Narrative

The initial phase of digital money, dominated by stablecoins, solved technical limitations in value transfer outside traditional banking rails. However, banks are now advancing tokenized deposits as a containment strategy to reclaim control over money creation, liability structure, and regulatory alignment. Tokenized deposits keep the asset as a bank liability, subject to existing capital requirements and deposit insurance, unlike stablecoins which are liabilities of non-bank entities, creating structural risks. Banks support the underlying tokenization technology but resist stablecoin substitution because it externalizes settlement liquidity and fragments supervision. Tokenized deposits offer legal certainty and inherited consumer protection, positioning digital money as an evolution of deposits rather than a replacement, ultimately aiming for convergence where blockchain rails carry bank money.

(Source：CoinDesk)