ARK Invest refutes a16z’s view that traditional finance will adopt blockchain rather than DeFi: institutions will rely increasingly on DeFi infrastructure in the future

BlockBeats message, July 16 — Lorenzo Valente, Research Director at ARK Invest, posted a rebuttal to a16z crypto’s view that “traditional finance will adopt blockchain rather than DeFi,” arguing that institutions will increasingly rely on DeFi infrastructure in the future.

Valente said that public chains have already taken the lead in real-world development over private chain projects, and the growth of tokenized assets on open networks such as Ethereum is an example. He also believes that crypto-native companies such as Circle and Coinbase are better positioned than traditional financial institutions to build the next-generation financial infrastructure.

a16z crypto previously said that banks and asset management institutions will not directly adopt DeFi, but will choose blockchain technologies that meet existing compliance, governance, and operational requirements, including features such as tokenization and atomic settlement, while continuing to maintain permissioning systems and institutional control.

Sentora co-founder Jesus Rodriguez also raised objections to a16z’s viewpoint, arguing that institutions may adopt DeFi’s underlying infrastructure and then layer compliance, custody, and other enterprise-grade controls on top of it.