From Tokenized Treasuries to CBDCs: When Blockchain Moves Onto the Bank Balance Sheet

On March 20, 2026, BlackRock—whose assets under management had crossed ten trillion dollars—announced it was launching a tokenized money-market fund on a public blockchain like Ethereum. It was called BUIDL. A fund registered with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, yet its units are bought and sold through digital wallets, via smart contracts. Three years earlier, no one would have believed such news. Back then, blockchain meant volatile coins, ransom demands and unregulated ICOs. In January of the same year, spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds were approved in the United States. One event belongs to a traditional asset manager, the other to a regulator—placed side by side, a clear pattern emerges. Blockchain is no longer a fringe technology; it is slowly entering the settlement layer of banks.

I am professionally accustomed to auditing data. Finding the process hidden beneath the numbers is my work. In the case of blockchain, that process is strangely familiar: the integrity of records, the speed of settlement, and the reduction of the cost of trust. So the real question for me is not "will blockchain survive." The real question is who will control this infrastructure, and who gains and who bears the risk under that control.

Context: Three Eras, Three Promises

The history of blockchain can roughly be divided into three parts. The first era, 2026 to 2026—the Bitcoin era. The goal was singular: transferring value without a central bank or intermediary. The method it uses, called proof-of-work, does provide security, but it is slow and consumes enormous electricity.

The second era began in 2026 with Ethereum. This brought smart contracts—code-driven agreements that execute automatically once conditions are met. From this idea was born the world of decentralized finance, stablecoins and non-fungible tokens. The promise was: financial services for everyone, without intermediaries.

The third era, which we are watching now, has a different character. Central banks, large banks, asset management firms and regulators are entering. The promise has changed. No one now says "banks will end." Now it is said that "settlement will be faster, costs will fall, and records will be immutable." This shift is not sudden. Three pressures drive it—the banking system's own dissatisfaction with settlement speed, the high cost of cross-border payments, and the need for greater transparency under regulatory pressure.

Signal One: Tokenized Treasuries and Real-World Assets

The clearest signal of institutional adoption has come from tokenized Treasuries. Franklin Templeton launched its OnChain US government money-market fund in 2026, with a token called BENJI. But momentum picked up in 2026-2026. With BlackRock's BUIDL, Franklin's expansion, and several smaller funds, the size of the tokenized US Treasury market reached a few billion dollars.

Why Treasuries? Because it is the safest, most liquid and most easily valued asset. If any institution wants to experiment with bringing real-world assets onto blockchain, it starts with the asset whose price is beyond doubt. The mechanism matters. When a fund's units exist as tokens, they are transferable 24 hours a day. The coordination of bank records, custodians and fund accounting no longer has to be done manually as before.

But here lies a subtle trap, which we will discuss later: the token is on the blockchain, but the underlying asset is not. The actual Treasury sits with a custodian, on the balance sheet of a traditional financial institution. So blockchain here is the layer of records, not the layer of assets. If this distinction is not kept in mind, the risk calculation goes wrong.

Signal Two: Deposit Tokens and Bank Settlement

The second signal has come from inside the banks. JPMorgan's Kinexys (formerly Onyx) has long been testing a blockchain-based platform for institutional settlement. The core idea here is the deposit token—expressing a customer's bank deposit as a token, instantly transferable on a specific network.

It is important to understand the difference between stablecoins and deposit tokens. Stablecoins generally operate outside banks, based on the reserves of a private company. Deposit tokens remain inside the bank's balance sheet, so they are governed by banking rules. This difference makes deposit tokens less frightening to regulators, and stablecoins more suspect.

Singapore's Monetary Authority is running Project Guardian, where banks, asset managers and regulators together test tokenized bonds, funds and foreign exchange. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority's Project Ensemble works toward the same goal. Switzerland's SIX Digital Exchange has been issuing digital bonds for some time. The European Investment Bank has also issued digital bonds on blockchain.

Note that none of these projects operate on the Bitcoin ideal. These are permissioned networks—that is, who participates is determined in advance. Using the word "decentralization" here would be misleading. These are essentially shared ledgers, where multiple institutions work from the same record. Technology here is a tool of transparency, not of liberation.

Signal Three: CBDCs and the Regulatory Framework

The third signal is central bank digital currency, or CBDC. China's e-CNY, India's e-rupee pilot, Nigeria's eNaira, the European Central Bank's digital euro preparation—all are part of this trend. Bangladesh Bank is also continuing discussions on digital currency, though it remains at an experimental stage.

There is a world of difference between CBDCs and private cryptocurrencies. A CBDC is a liability of the central bank, state-controlled, and usually offers the ability to set interest or limits. But at the technical layer, many CBDCs use blockchain-like ledgers. So the technology is nearly the same, the philosophy different. This pairing is the real story—the state wants to use blockchain's technical framework under its own control.

On the regulatory side, the biggest development is the European Union's Markets in Crypto-Assets, or MiCA, which began taking effect in stages in 2026. It is a full legal framework for crypto assets. In the United States, rules remain relatively unclear, though the stance of regulatory agencies is growing stricter. Here lies the key point. Institutional adoption of blockchain does not mean the end of blockchain's free image, but the beginning of its regulated form. As the industry becomes institutional, it follows institutional rules.

My Way of Reading: The Layer Beneath the Numbers

Through years of auditing sports data, I have learned that a single number says nothing on its own. Without context, every metric misleads. The same rule applies to the blockchain market. "How many billions in tokenized assets" sounds impressive, but one must separate how much is genuine economic activity and how much is merely record-changing.

Take an example: if someone sends a tokenized fund unit from one wallet to another, technically that is a transaction. But economically it may be merely a transfer of ownership, not an entry of new capital. Confusing the two makes the market look large when it is not. To me this is just like what happens in sport—having more possession does not matter if no real threat is created; it is just pride in numbers.

This is why I emphasize verifiability and context adjustment. How fast a token can be traded shows speed. But who bears the real risk behind that asset shows genuine safety. The question is not of speed, but of liability.

The Silent Infrastructure Upgrade

There is an invisible reason behind this transformation that few notice. It is the upgrade of the blockchain network itself. In September 2026, Ethereum went through a major change known as the Merge. This moved it from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake, greatly reducing the network's electricity consumption. Then in March 2026 came the Dencun upgrade, which significantly lowered transaction costs on layer-two networks.

Why do these upgrades matter? Because the first condition of institutional use is predictability of cost. If an institution does not know how much each settlement will cost, it will not work on blockchain. Lower costs and predictable costs—only when both come together do large institutions become interested.

This is why the cultural image of blockchain has changed. Once, those here were experimenters and idealists. Now comes someone who decides by calculating banking costs and settlement risk. These two groups do not have the same needs. The first wants open freedom; the second wants reliability. And it is the second group that is now setting the direction.

The Dual Character of Stablecoins

Stablecoins deserve separate mention, because they stand at the center of this whole change. Cross-border payments, a medium of exchange in crypto markets, and in many countries a tool for dollar-based savings—stablecoins play these three roles at once. In a country like Bangladesh, where both dollar shortages and remittance flows are important matters, the role of stablecoins directly touches questions of monetary policy.

The reason for the dual character is clear. On one hand, stablecoins offer fast, cheap and borderless transactions. On the other, they create new risks for reserve transparency, financial stability and currency management. Central banks therefore see stablecoins not merely as a technological innovation, but as a question of financial stability.

In this tension, a possible path is emerging: bank-issued deposit tokens, which would give the speed of stablecoins while keeping control within the banking framework. If this path succeeds, then in the coming years we will see the stablecoin market and the deposit token market standing as rivals to each other. That will be a decisive moment in blockchain's history.

The Contrarian View: The Mirage of Liquidity and Legal Gaps

Now we come to the part most enthusiastic analyses avoid. Tokenization means more liquidity—this idea is exaggerated. Even if a token can be traded 24 hours, the underlying asset—such as a Treasury bill or a building—is not liquid 24 hours. If the market closes, on a holiday, or in a crisis, the token's price may detach from the underlying asset's price. This can be called the mirage of liquidity.

The second risk is legal. How durable a token's ownership is in court remains unclear in many jurisdictions. If a custodian goes bankrupt, what claim the token holder has depends on the property law of the relevant country. Blockchain's record may be immutable, but the law is not written on blockchain. This gap is the largest, and the least discussed.

The third risk is concentration. Tokens are issued on public blockchains, but only approved institutional investors are allowed to buy them. As a result, the market is small, and concentrated in the hands of a few institutions. This is not a truly open market, but the market of club members.

The fourth risk is technological dependence. If there is a flaw in the code of a smart contract, or if an oracle—the system that brings outside information onto the blockchain—provides wrong data, the whole system produces the wrong result. Here the correction process is not as easy as in traditional banking. And most importantly, in a permissioned network the word "trustless" does not apply. There, trust rests on the members of the consortium. So the old question returns—who controls it, whose interests are protected, and who bears liability when things go wrong.

Bangladesh's Context: Promise and Reality

This discussion is relevant for Bangladesh, but not through direct imitation. Remittance flows are large in our financial system, and the cost of cross-border transactions remains significant. Blockchain-based settlement could theoretically reduce this cost, and also reduce the time to send remittances. But this requires a strong regulatory framework, a digital identity system and technological capacity—all three together.

A large part of our banking system still runs on manual processes. So restructuring processes before importing technology is essential. Otherwise what will happen is a coating of new technology over old inefficiency. This coating looks modern, but the problem remains inside.

Bangladesh Bank's digital currency discussions, the expansion of mobile financial services and fintech innovation are positive signals. But caution is needed here so that the balance between regulation and innovation is not broken. Too much regulation kills innovation, too little raises risk. This delicate balance is the real challenge, not technology.

Final Words: What Signals to Watch Ahead

Blockchain's institutional transformation is not really a victory of technology, but a victory of institutional need. Banks, asset managers and regulators—all are seeking solutions to the same problem: faster, cheaper and more transparent settlement. Blockchain is a tool there, not a religion. This must be kept in mind, or we will place technology above questioning.

In the coming months I will watch three signals. One, how much the actual size of the tokenized Treasury market grows, and how concentrated it remains. Two, interoperability—that is, whether separate networks can talk to each other. Three, clarity of the regulatory framework, especially legal recognition of token ownership.

And one question must always be kept in mind: will the benefits of this change reach everyone, or only strengthen the balance sheets of large institutions? Technology is neutral, but its use is not. If blockchain truly reduces the cost of trust, that must be proven—not in slogans, but in auditable numbers.