TradFi must use public blockchains, says FG Nexus CEO

Maja vujinovic, CEO at FG Nexus explains to us why the institutions are going to have access Ethereum or any other public chain.

Financial systems around the world are experiencing one of the biggest disruptions for decades. The blockchain is slowly being used to rebuild payments, settlements and custody. This transformation is being led by major institutions and not only crypto startups.

Maja Vujinovic CEO and cofounder of Ethereum (ETH) The next wave in finance has already arrived, according to Digital Assets FG Nexus. She explains in a captivating interview with Crypto.news how and why financial institutions are moving to blockchain.

You have stated before that TradFi, blockchain and crypto-news are going to increasingly merge. Why did you reach that conclusion?

Maja Vujinovic: I started getting involved in mobile payments in Africa in the early 2000s — really early, when we had just started texting. It was still a very new concept. A lot of companies who were serious about mobile payment were willing to talk with me.

The company was acquiring spectrum for broadband in the telecom industry, packaging it into a licence, selling it and disrupting monopolies on the continent. We also launched peer-to-peer payment. It was my very first exposure. Every time I went back to Europe or the US and told my friends about it, they didn’t get it — because they had a Visa and didn’t care.

For me, this was an indication that there is a need for it in the world. It was obvious that there was a great need for this, as I observed large corporations moving to Africa and Latin America in order to try it. I was shocked. “Wow, this is interesting, let me stay close to it.”

After that, I began to read the Bitcoin Whitepaper. Since then, I have never looked back. It clicked when I launched pilots using Ethereum smart contracts at GE. When you’re at GE — a massive company with serious customers, from aviation to healthcare — and you launch smart contracts and they stick, and serious people are interested, that was it.

It was then that everything became clear to me. Blockchain transforms every transaction, payment and deposit into an programmable financial tool. When corporates like GE and JPMorgan start realizing they can move cash, collateral, or data at the edge on a shared ledger — and we actually piloted that — I knew this was all going to merge.

JPMorgan has Onyx, Circle has USDC programmable rails, BlackRock has tokenized funds — it’s no longer about “crypto,” Now you can program your finance.

What do you believe the most significant changes will be as these companies implement these technologies? Will it just be efficiency — firms cutting costs behind the scenes — or are we going to see real structural changes in the market or for users?

It’s an excellent distinction. I’ll start with a broad overview. Consider how the blockchain can collapse that huge stack of settlement, clearing and payments into something like USDC. USDC can be used to carry a token that pays interest.

The payment of a bill could immediately trigger the couponing or margin calling. Treasury, FX and settlements can all be run through one rail. This is about efficiency: speed, cost and accessibility.

But for corporates — especially in industries like aviation or healthcare — they don’t always care about speed. Trust is important to them. And honestly, that applies across the board — retail and corporate alike.

The first step is to reduce costs and improve efficiency. Faster settlement, fewer middlemen, improved reconciliation are all good examples. However, the true shift lies in structural changes. You can create new markets once assets and transactions are programmable. New collateral types. Users can now interact in new ways with financial services.

Yes, you can save money. More than this, however, is the fact that it changes how money, as well as its handling, view, and transmission, are handled.

Could you please give me an example? What kind of new markets will be opened?

The corporate world is already undergoing some major change. Back when I was at GE, we were experimenting with on-chain treasury functions — and now it’s happening at scale. Imagine the ability for a multi-national to move cash instantly into tokenized bills. You don’t need a middleman and you can send money overnight. The liquidity is instant. That’s real.

We also used programmable payment systems for aircraft parts. A supplier payment could trigger the release of escrow, handle FX, and update the accounting system — all in one go. They’re not just ideas, but are now in production. It’s the same with collateral.

Tokenization and reuse of collateral can be done instantly by companies instead locking static assets. We discovered $5 billion of trapped cash due to invoice mistakes and disputes over settlements. That’s massive.

What about the retail sector?

In retail, the biggest changes are in ownership and access. They are now buying fractional assets like bonds or property. It was not possible before. Recently, I spoke in Lugano before a wealthy group of family offices. The number one question they asked was about how to purchase fractional bonds or real estate. There is a demand.

Also, there’s embedded yield. Imagine a stablecoin that you keep in your wallet and which automatically converts to T-bills tokenized every night. It’s passive, and you don’t have to do anything. The way that people are saving has changed.

Even the most basic of commerce has become smarter. You could buy a car, and the payment instantly splits — part goes to the seller, part to the manufacturer, part to the tax authority. No intermediaries. No delays. Clean programmable financial.

Globally, I am most excited that people can access the same instruments as corporations. You’re collapsing the gap between Wall Street and Main Street — and that’s powerful.

This technology appears to eliminate whole layers of intermediaries, with each of them handling just a small slice of capital flows. You may see a lower barrier of entry for fintechs. Or, will the size favor market consolidation?

This frame is the right one. In my conversations with family offices I call it a “schizophrenic” world. The two dynamics occur simultaneously.

This does lower the barriers for newcomers. It’s something I have seen first-hand. Today, a fintech can directly connect to tokenized cash networks or collateral networks via APIs. Fintechs don’t require a complete bank stack. They also don’t have to rely on decades-old legacy infrastructure, or close relationships with clearinghouses. It’s here and open. The edge is where innovation will be exploding.

The same efficiency gains that enable small players to compete also fuel consolidation of the infrastructure layer. As value moves on-chain the scale is not determined by how many middlemen there are, but rather trust, regulations, and liquidity.

So, while you’ll see thousands of new front-end fintechs popping up with sleek interfaces, they’ll all be settling through a handful of global, regulated programmable networks — like Ethereum, Avalanche, or whatever the dominant public or hybrid chains become.

Yes, it is true that both are happening: More fragmentation along the edge and more consolidation on the rails. It will also play out differently depending upon the jurisdiction and use case.

Do you think that the settlement layer will be built using public blockchains such as Ethereum or private infrastructure led by banks?

Right? The crypto-purists are going to come at me and the bankers, if you say something else, will just roll their eyeballs. Here’s my real belief: It won’t come down to either/or. The future is going to be hybrid.

Ethereum and other public chains that are not trusted will be the foundation of this layer. Transparency, composability and global interoperability are all found in this layer. If you’re looking for a global financial system that can be programmed, then this is what you need.

But you’ll also have permissioned chains and bank-led subnets — think of Avalanche subnets or tokenized bank ledgers — handling regulated assets like cash, compliance, and identity. The two will not remain separated forever. In the future, they’ll be more and more integrated into public chains. It’s not that they are trying to bridge, it’s because they need to. This is where innovation and liquid cash are.

My view is that we’re heading towards a hybrid system where permissioned and public networks will interoperate. They won’t win if they wall themselves up. It will be necessary to use open systems.

You mentioned regulation — what are the changes we still need to really unlock all of this?

We still lack a legal definition of tokenized assets, and ownership based on ledgers. Without this clarity, firms are hesitant to shift significant portions of their balance sheets onto the chain. I get calls from private credit firms all the time — they want to tokenize deals, but the regulatory uncertainty holds them back.

We also need rules around settlement finality and ledger interoperability — especially between permissioned systems and public blockchains. We’ll be working in silos if we don’t sort this out. The whole concept of modularity will fall apart.

The other big issue is to level the playing fields for banks and non-banks. We need defined frameworks for custody, KYC, AML, and access to the financial system — like what Waller was suggesting. Fintechs should be able to know what audits and licenses are required if they want to develop in the fintech space. For now, it is all grey.

Then there is the issue of regulation. No one wants to tokenize anything, and there is no guidance regarding secondary markets or bi-sided liquidity. So we get these isolated tokenized assets with no volume or price discovery — it’s not real until there’s an actual marketplace.

Risk frameworks are also available for programmable financial systems. Smart contracts, DeFi rails, tokenized treasuries — they all introduce operational risk. If a smartcontract fails or is exploited, who’s responsible? Who oversees the flow and security of funds from the treasury on chain? This is a major concern for institutions.

Do you have any support for the type of “sandbox“ The approach for which U.S. regulatory agencies have begun to argue? Do you think that’s the way to go?

Yes, absolutely — I saw the value of it firsthand at GE. They are great for experimenting safely. It’s important to test out what fails, what succeeds, and what you can learn from mistakes. However, they cannot be the ultimate state.

You can’t keep on in pilot mode for ever. Sandboxes are just step one — you also need clear pathways out of them, with licenses and rules for scaling. Innovation will stagnate if you don’t.

This is why I appreciate what Singapore and Switzerland have done. The places are not afraid to try new things, but also start to develop proper regulatory pathways beyond the sandbox.

Bitcoin is something you mentioned before. Ethereum has recently surpassed Bitcoin as a percentage of supply that is held by Treasury firms. It’s quite striking considering that the market cap differences aren’t very large. Why do think Ethereum is attracting more attention from the Treasury sector?

Bitcoin was the catalyst for my entry into this world. But I’m staying because of programmable finance — and that’s what Ethereum enables.

Ethereum appeals to companies for many reasons. First, it’s yield-bearing. You can earn returns by staking ETH, making it a different asset than Bitcoin. Ethereum, secondly, is programable. It’s not just a store of value — it’s a platform. The exposure you get to stablecoins is great. But also to the real assets. All that is compatible or runs on Ethereum.

For traditional finance people — especially those thinking in terms of optionality — that makes Ethereum incredibly compelling. The traditional finance people see Ethereum as the basis of digital financial systems, on which they can not only build, but also actively participate.

Ether’s team did a fantastic job in building trust with Wall Street. Joe Lubin has been cultivating institutions and building relationships for years.

So while Bitcoin is still seen as digital gold — and it serves that role well — Ethereum is seen more as a dynamic part of the future financial stack. It’s for this reason that you see treasuries allocating more funds to ETH. The treasuries want to be able to take part in the growth.

Some segments of the traditional financial industry are very enthusiastic about stablecoins and tokenization. Are you worried that this technology could threaten their profit margins and cause them to push back?

I’m not sure. I’ve definitely seen some pushback — especially from banks here in Switzerland. Also pension funds. In some circles, you can’t mention digital assets without someone calling them a scam. The resistance to digital assets is very real.

However, I think the resistance has also changed. Now, we are seeing a more absorption of the technology than an outright rejection. Banks know stablecoins and tokenization threaten their margins — especially on the payment side. They also realize that they cannot stop it. The train left the station.

They adapt instead of fighting it. They are launching pilots. Stablecoins are being integrated. The are exploring the idea of tokenized deposits. Others are partnering up with stablecoin providers.

So yes, there’s a battle — but there’s also a merger of DNA happening. Every day I witness it in FG Nexus. There are people merging from TradFi with deep crypto. There’s a lot of chaos, but things are happening.

And here’s the kicker — if a bank wants to launch a stablecoin today, they’ll need deep liquidity to make it work. What’s the source of that liquidity? DeFi is where it’s at. DeFi’s not TradFi. Then they will have to eventually go to TradFi.

When it comes to the adoption of stablecoins, we’ve observed this kind of shift in governments. Japan in particular seems to have responded to USDT’s and USDC’s dominance. What are the implications of this rise in dollar-backed stablecoins for other sovereign currencies and their currency?

Yeah, Japan’s a great example — just recently, they officially launched a framework for stablecoins after seeing how quickly USDT and USDC were gaining traction. It’s becoming apparent that the governments realize they may lose some control over their currency system if not proactive.

Not all countries will be against it. Some will embrace dollar stablecoins because they want that stability — especially if their own currency is volatile or inflation-prone. Some, such as Japan will defend their currency sovereignty. The net result is that we’re moving toward a hybrid global ecosystem — not just one where the dollar dominates, but where private dollar coins and public fiat-backed stablecoins coexist and interoperate.

The balance of power has been shifting slowly. These private dollar coins — especially those with global liquidity like USDC — are influencing local economies. The coins can be used for saving, sending money overseas, or doing business. The story is no longer confined to the United States.

It’s just the beginning. Just because people aren’t connecting the dots. The U.S. regulation drama has distracted everyone from the global developments.

Some countries will continue to resist — like Switzerland, for example, where they’re very protective of the Swiss franc. Others will be quick to move. In the future, we’ll see many digital currencies that are national in nature alongside stablecoins. CBDCs and stablecoins will not be a thing. It’ll be CBDCs and stablecoins and DeFi liquidity pools — all interacting.

What are the main trends we will see in the near future?

AI agents, interoperability of blockchains. The biggest trend is in energy. Yes. Everything depends on it: water production, national security, cryptography, artificial intelligence, and even AI. This is the foundation of all digital and physical systems we use.

I think we’re going to start hearing a lot more about the intersection of energy, AI, and blockchain — and not just in terms of ESG or mining narratives. What I’m talking about is deeper discussions on infrastructure, sovereignty and who controls rails.

Right now we’re distracted by noise — market moves, ETF approvals, lawsuits — but the real structural conversations are just beginning. The energy sector will play a major role in these conversations.