Franklin Templeton CEO Jenny Johnson told a hard truth: Wall Street is afraid of blockchain because it threatens their profits.

Hearing this today, it sounds especially harsh. Bitcoin just dropped below $66k, while global stock markets are hitting new highs amid the AI boom.
Funds are flowing from the crypto market into U.S. stocks' AI sectors, which is already obvious. But Johnson is not talking about short-term fund shifts, rather a deeper structural conflict: the transparency, disintermediation, and programmability of blockchain directly threaten traditional financial rent models.
Wall Street’s profit pools—custody, clearing, market making, cross-border payments—are all built on information asymmetry and middleman fees.
Stablecoins and DeFi are breaking down these walls.
Joint regulation of stablecoins by New York and European authorities, and Mastercard expanding on-chain settlements, are traditional players trying to fit new technology into old frameworks.
But Johnson fears that once users get used to frictionless on-chain settlements, there’s no going back.
The risk is that Wall Street’s fears may not accelerate change but could instead lead to stricter regulatory clampdowns.
The UK’s FCA warning Premier League clubs to stay away from unauthorized crypto sponsorships is a signal.
The crypto market now faces both the siphoning effect of AI and the compliance squeeze from traditional finance.
In the short term, funds are fleeing; in the long term, profit moat is being eroded.
The real game isn’t in candlestick charts but in regulatory conference rooms and balance sheets.
$btc #defi #Stablecoins #链上数据 #AI