Please note that VanEck may have a position(s) in the digital asset(s) described below.

Key takeaways

• Blockchain rails are displacing the deposit layer: tokenization compresses settlement time and expands trading hours, while GENIUS Act stablecoins create a compliant crypto rail that bypasses traditional deposits.
• Corporations are building their own chains to defend core economics rather than pay “protocol taxes” to public networks.
• Many public crypto projects will lose substantial value if they cannot assert their revenue-generating use cases in a world awash in corpchains.

The Rise of Corporate Blockchains: Settlement Goes Onchain, Value Capture Goes In-House

Since the beginning of 2025, altcoins like ETH and SOL have fallen by -40% and -57% while an index of crypto equities (MVDAPPP) is down -4%. The divergence reflects a deeper shift: corporations are capturing the settlement economics that previously flowed to public-chain tokens. Even with a more permissive regulatory environment under a “Bitcoin President,” value is migrating from protocol tokens to the equities and infrastructure providers building corporate blockchains (“corpchains”).

L1 Blockchain Tokens Are Down -51% Since the Start of 2025

Source: Bloomberg as of 3/30/2026. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results. Not intended as a recommendation to buy or sell any securities named herein.

Three forces are converging to drive this shift: economic incentives from faster onchain settlement, the GENIUS Act formalizing compliant stablecoin issuance, and direct integration with Federal Reserve rails through new banking charters. Together, they enable corporations to run regulated blockchain settlement systems while bypassing the traditional deposit layer. We unpack each below.

One major reason is that stablecoins and real-world asset (RWA) tokenization have achieved some measure of regulatory clarity. Meanwhile, many public blockchain tokens are stuck in an uncomfortable legal limbo in which they can neither provide strong value accrual nor offer important investor protections via a functioning disclosure regime. The competitive landscape has also materially widened to include banks, fintechs, financial entities, and newly public infrastructure providers. Some of these companies even have substantial advantages including special-purpose bank charters.

The blockchain revolution is here, but enterprises are capturing the value while many tokens get left behind.

Corporate Blockchains

Source: VanEck Research, BIS, DTCC as of 3/30/2026. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results. Not intended as a recommendation to buy or sell any securities named herein.

While public blockchains excel at innovation, they struggle with governance, compliance, and service guarantees required by regulated financial players. Most importantly, value accrues to onchain traders and tokenholders. These incumbent-built “corpchains” will move regulated value (cash, collateral, securities) with controlled validator sets, privacy, and fee capture.

Why Corpchains Now: Three Forces Converging

1) Economic Incentives: Faster Settlement Unlocks Idle Capital

When ownership transfer completes in seconds rather than days, capital can move faster. This enables more trading turnover in existing securities and allows new trading venues and financial markets to spawn. Market makers, for example, gain capacity to build deeper liquidity in prediction markets. An estimated >$1T of initial margin was held at clearing houses at the end of 2025. Moving from T+2 days to T+12 seconds (or less) will enable working capital to more efficiently stream across trading venues. Tens of trillions more in assets and commodities also rest in systems in which they cannot be used as collateral.

2) The GENIUS Act Formalized “Narrow-Bank-Like” Stablecoin Issuance

GENIUS creates a legal framework for stablecoins to act as “narrow banking” or “skinny” entities that only hold safe, liquid reserves and do not make loans (except to the US Treasury). This codifies stablecoins as a regulated, nimbler form of transferable demand deposits. The result is a federal framework for payment stablecoins with 100% reserve backing, required disclosures and attestations, and full Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) and anti-money laundering (AML) compliance.

Predictably, banks are trying to constrain stablecoins by seeking regulation that prohibits yield incentives and also labels stablecoins as a “systemic risk.” However, banks are quickly adopting stablecoins themselves and linking them to their existing business franchises. Going forward, stablecoins give both consumers and institutions more freedom by acting as important payment mechanisms and more dynamic collateral. Visa is processing $3.5B annualized, Fiserv has made the FIUSD stablecoin available to more than 10,000 financial institutions, and stablecoin supply currently sits at $310B.

3) Direct Fed-Rail Integration Is Happening

A major milestone for crypto entities has been to link the blockchain financial system to the banking rails that run directly to the Federal Reserve. A banking charter enables a crypto-linked firm to connect crypto with global settlement and payment systems, and could allow blockchain finance to tap into Federal Reserve liquidity. More than 21 crypto entities have applied for state and national banking charters since 2020¹, and approvals could lead to direct Fed connections. To date, 9 bank national charters have been approved and 4 of them are effective. Another 4 crypto entities have been granted state bank charters in Wyoming. Payward, the owner of Kraken, was granted a limited-purpose Fed master account through the Kansas City Fed.

These banking licenses are key enablers for corpchains. If the cash leg can clear through regulated stablecoin issuers or limited-purpose chartered entities with privileged Fed connectivity, corporations can run blockchain settlement systems without relying on the traditional deposit layer or the correspondent banking system. Private networks can manage identity, permissions, privacy, and governance while still settling in compliant dollars that move faster and sit closer to the Fed’s core infrastructure.

The result: corporate adoption of blockchains for settlement + regulated reserve institutions (GENIUS) + direct integration with Fed rails. Collectively, we believe corporate blockchains could create $60B+ in revenue by 2030.

Corpchain Valuation Snapshot

Quantitative snapshot: economic value hosted on each chain today, current annual fee capture, and estimated market value of the operator.

Source: VanEck Research as of 4/14/2026. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results. Not intended as a recommendation to buy or sell any securities named herein.

Note: Valuations were based on comps and assumptions about blockchain’s impact on revenues within the next 2-3 years.

Why Corporations Aren’t Embracing Public Chains

If enforcement eases but market structure clarity lags, the perceived “wild west” problem for crypto won’t disappear. Public blockchains carry real risks for regulated users: service disruptions, potential interaction with prohibited parties, and volatile blockspace pricing. As such, it gets harder for public companies to justify relying on open networks for regulated value. The lack of a clear market structure bill makes this worse as companies are uncertain about the legal definitions of activity types or how to treat various crypto tokens.

So instead of adopting open-source chains (and “giving up the tolls”), many firms are building corpchains that let them:

• Control validators and counterparty participation
• Prevent asset leakage
• Offer privacy, compliance, and auditability
• Capture value
• Guarantee deterministic performance and costs

The result: corpchains offer strong value propositions to regulated, corporate clients that also deliver significant bottom-line impact for corpchain builders. This does not mean public chains do not have a place, but it suggests that they need to assert their contributions to the emerging, regulated digital assets regime or they will be left behind. The substantial valuations of public chains such as Ethereum and Solana are premised on a future in which serious financial activity takes place on these blockchains. If corpchains absorb the majority of this projected financial activity, public-chain valuations may need to de-rate considerably.

Corpchain Qualitative Scorecard

Qualitative scorecard: each chain’s institutional adoption, use case focus, regulatory clarity, revenue model, and overall standing.

Source: VanEck Research, Canton, Provenance, JPM as of 3/30/2026. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results. Not intended as a recommendation to buy or sell any securities named herein.

(The key differentiator isn’t “blockchain or not.” It’s: who controls validators, who gets the economics, and whether ownership finality lives onchain or remains an offchain entitlement.)

Implications if the CLARITY Act Is Passed

1. Alt-token prices may mean-revert higher, but this may prove short-lived as investors recognize most value does not accrue to crypto projects. Equities of companies adopting blockchain technology may instead see multiple re-ratings. If CLARITY allows for compliant financial products, some activity can migrate back to open networks where it’s economically rational.
2. Even with CLARITY, corpchains may have already won the “regulated value” lane because they’re pairing legal/compliance posture with direct rail access. The OCC’s conditional trust-charter approvals for major digital-asset firms reinforce that direction of travel.

What to Watch Next

• Stablecoin scale growth: Stablecoin supply is ~$310B with +23% CAGR since 2022; accelerated to +29% CAGR over the last year.
• Tokenized security pilots graduating to production, especially DTCC/Canton Network programs.
• The first truly meaningful onchain equity event such as an IPO being entirely on blockchain.
• More “skinny” Fed access precedents after Payward and the limits placed on Payward’s master account by the Fed.

How VanEck Is Positioned

We have not responded to this cycle by throwing single-token spaghetti at the wall. Instead, we've been deliberate: launching a small number of differentiated exposures and adding staking where appropriate, while pivoting our most flexible mandates away from tokens in 4Q2024 and toward crypto-linked equities as the corpchain thesis gained traction.

Our active strategies designed for this environment can own both tokens and equities, but have been meaningfully overweight equities, reflecting where we believe value is accruing. In parallel, our venture efforts are focused on early-stage companies building the infrastructure to enable tokenization and onchain settlement at scale.

We don't pretend to know how this ultimately resolves. If the CLARITY Act passes or open public blockchains begin to demonstrate durable economic advantages in regulated finance, we will adapt. But absent market-structure clarity, we remain tilted toward the equities enabling the corpchain future rather than the tokens that may not capture its economics.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a corporate blockchain?

A corporate blockchain (or “corpchain”) is a permissioned distributed ledger operated by or for regulated institutions such as banks, exchanges, or fintechs. Unlike public blockchains like Ethereum or Solana, corpchains feature controlled validator sets, privacy, compliance tooling, and direct value capture for the operator. Examples include Canton, Provenance, Kinexys (JPMorgan), Tempo, Circle Arc, Fnality, and Base.

How does the GENIUS Act affect stablecoins?

The GENIUS Act creates a federal framework for payment stablecoins with 100% reserve backing, required disclosures and attestations, and full Bank Secrecy Act and anti-money laundering compliance. It effectively codifies regulated stablecoin issuers as “narrow-bank-like” entities that hold only safe, liquid reserves. As of early 2026, stablecoin supply sits at roughly $310B, with Visa processing $3.5B annualized in USDC payments and Fiserv distributing FIUSD through more than 10,000 financial institutions.

Why are financial institutions building their own blockchains instead of using Ethereum or Solana?

Institutions build corpchains to control validators, prevent asset leakage, ensure privacy and compliance, capture fee economics, and guarantee deterministic performance. Public blockchains struggle with governance, service guarantees, blockspace volatility, and potential interaction with prohibited parties, which makes them difficult to justify for regulated value transfer. More than 21 crypto entities have applied for state or national banking charters since 2020, reinforcing the trend toward compliant, institution-run infrastructure.

Links to third party websites are provided as a convenience and the inclusion of such links does not imply any endorsement, approval, investigation, verification or monitoring by us of any content or information contained within or accessible from the linked sites. By clicking on the link to a non-VanEck webpage, you acknowledge that you are entering a third-party website subject to its own terms and conditions. VanEck disclaims responsibility for content, legality of access or suitability of the third-party websites.

To receive more Digital Assets insights, sign up in our subscription center.