Written by @AdrianoFeria
Translation: Blockchain in Vernacular
The story behind Deutsche Bank’s recent announcement of adopting Ethereum Layer2 is not just that it has begun to embrace Ethereum, but more importantly, this move is part of Singapore’s “Project Guardian” initiative.
While the media has generally focused on Ethereum’s technology, it is rarely mentioned that Project Guardian unites policymakers and major industry players to jointly shape the direction of tokenization and the digital asset market. This means that Deutsche Bank’s involvement in Ethereum L2 is not an isolated attempt, but part of a global push for secure and compliant blockchain solutions to enter the core of traditional finance.
In Project Guardian, there are mainly two working groups:
First is the policymakers group, including the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the Bank of France, and even the International Monetary Fund (IMF), who are responsible for setting standards and legal frameworks to ensure that digital asset systems are transparent, trustworthy, and compliant on a global scale.
The second is the industry participants group, which includes 27 financial giants such as Deutsche Bank, HSBC, S&P Global, Moody's, OCBC Bank, Fidelity, DBS Bank, JPMorgan Chase, Citibank, UBS, Standard Chartered, Franklin Templeton, T. Rowe Price, and BNY Mellon. This group provides funding, infrastructure, and technical support to translate these policy frameworks into actual market solutions.
These two groups are collaboratively developing a blueprint for large-scale blockchain applications that are compliant with future regulations.
It is worth noting that the regulatory compliance requirements needed by these institutions cannot be met by any single Layer1 blockchain. For institutions that require strict regulation and interoperability, the choice is either to build a private permissioned Layer1 chain or to use the Ethereum L2 ecosystem.
The Ethereum L2 framework has many advantages, which I detailed in my recent article (Ethereum Settlement Summit), including Ethereum's reliable trust, powerful development tools, the ability to flexibly adjust performance and data availability to meet enterprise needs, and the opportunity to access the world's largest and most liquid crypto economy, which currently supports over $120 billion in stablecoin circulation (accounting for over 60% of the global crypto market's stablecoin supply).
Now Deutsche Bank is joining this global collaboration, and more members of Project Guardian are expected to follow suit. We can foresee that these institutions will launch Ethereum-based L2 solutions and stablecoins, which will further solidify Ethereum's position as the compliance settlement layer for the world's largest financial and technology enterprises.
In other words, it may seem on the surface that a company is connecting to Ethereum, but in reality, this is a signal indicating that a global ecosystem composed of policymakers and industry leaders is focusing on Ethereum L2 infrastructure and sees it as the best path forward for the future.
