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Tokenized Stocks Provider Dinari Announces Layer-1 Blockchain, Building “Onchain DTCC”
We sat down with Dinari co-founder Gabriel Otte to unpack how their new layer-1 differs from tokenization chains like Converge and Ondo Chain and why compliance shuts out competitors like xStocks.
Fiodar Yuzhyk & Maximilian Vargas
August 15, 2025
We’re building layer-1s again. This time, the battlefield is stablecoin payments.
After newcomers like Plasma, Stable, and Codex entered the ring earlier this year, two giants just joined the fight: Stripe is quietly building a payment L1 called Tempo, and Circle just unveiled Arc, a new chain for USDC settlement (more on that below).
The message is clear: Everybody is rushing to control the critical layers of tomorrow’s payment stack. Guess the big winner will be the one sitting on top, connecting and orchestrating them all.
Today, we’ll also talk about:
Dinari set to launch layer-1 for tokenized stocks — interview
Coinbase Asset Management makes the case for 5% in bitcoin
HIGH SIGNAL NEWS
Circle publishes first earnings as a public company. While costs related to the company’s IPO contributed to a $482 million loss in Q2, it reported a 53% year-over-year revenue increase to $658 million, primarily driven by growth in USDC supply. Beyond that, Circle revealed its own layer-1 network, Arc. More on that below.📈
Coinbase officially closes $2.9 billion acquisition of Deribit. The deal comes on the heels of a record month for Deribit, with July trading volumes exceeding $185 billion and the derivative’s exchange current open interest at roughly $60 billion.🤝
a16z, DeFi Education Fund push SEC for DeFi app safe harbor. The two groups have petitioned the SEC to exempt websites and apps that simply provide access to DeFi projects from broker-dealer registration, arguing that only platforms posing risks like commingling client and firm assets should fall under the Exchange Act’s rules.📃
Gemini unveils new onchain products. In addition to the self-custodial Gemini Wallet, the crypto exchange introduced the Gemini Onchain Dashboard, which enables users to access onchain applications and invest in yield-generating vaults.👛
ONCHAIN CAPITAL MARKETS
Tokenized Stocks Provider Dinari Announces Layer-1 Blockchain, Building “Onchain DTCC”
Layer-1 for tokenized stocks: Yesterday, Dinari — the U.S.-based provider of tokenized public securities — unveiled plans for the Dinari Financial Network, a new layer-1 blockchain designed as a coordination and settlement layer for securities issued across multiple chains. At launch, governance will be handled by a consortium of institutions including Gemini, custodian BitGo, and asset manager VanEck.
Why it matters: The announcement comes as the SEC’s new “Project Crypto” aims to modernize U.S. securities laws and explicitly permit onchain trading of traditional assets such as stocks and bonds. It also lands amid a wave of tokenized stock rollouts from platforms like Kraken, Bybit, and Robinhood.
About Dinari: With roughly $70 million in TVL, Dinari is one of the largest providers of tokenized equities. Its fully backed dShares — onchain versions of over 100 U.S. stocks and ETFs — trade on Arbitrum, Ethereum, and Base, giving brokers, fintechs, and neobanks a compliant way to offer U.S. equities in markets traditional brokerage rails can’t reach.
Regulatory pole position: In June, Dinari became the first to secure a U.S. broker-dealer license for tokenized stocks, clearing the way for U.S. investors to trade equities onchain legally.
Interview: We sat down with Dinari co-founder Gabriel Otte to unpack how their new layer-1 differs from tokenization chains like Converge and Ondo Chain, why compliance shuts out competitors like xStocks, and what exciting announcements are coming in the next few weeks.
________________
On the idea behind building their own layer-1:
“We want to solve a very specific problem: liquidity fragmentation. Our dShares are already live on multiple blockchains like Arbitrum, Ethereum, and Base. The issue is that once a token is minted to a specific chain, its liquidity stays there. Buyers and sellers on different chains can’t easily connect.
Our new L1 fixes this by acting as the coordination layer between all these networks. It tracks where every dShare is and can match a buyer on one chain with a seller on another, moving the asset between them automatically. So if you’re buying Apple on Base, you can be matched instantly with someone selling Apple on Arbitrum.”
On how it differs from other tokenization-focused chains like Securitize’s Converge or Ondo Chain:
“We’re not chasing TVL or transaction fee revenue. We’re not trying to pull assets into our own ecosystem. Our blockchain is gas-free and designed as a public good.
It’s based on our belief that core market infrastructure, from the NYSE to the DTCC, should be open and accessible to everyone who plays by the rules. We provide the compliant settlement, clearing, and depository layer for tokenized securities, no matter which chain they live on.”
On the incentives for validators:
“Validators won’t run it to make money; they’ll run it because it’s in everyone’s interest for capital markets to have reliable, decentralized rails. Over time, we will likely launch a pure governance token to decentralize the network.”
On compliance-first growth and competitors like xStocks:
“We can’t work with other providers of tokenized stocks. They’re not compliant. We have been blessed by the SEC. We’re an SEC-registered, FINRA-registered broker-dealer and a transfer agent of the SEC. None of those other guys can claim that.
Players like xStocks are doing things no lawyer would call legal, and that means their model can’t scale to trillions in capital markets. We’re focused on building infrastructure others can plug into without compromising on compliance.”
On go-to-market, commercialization, and value proposition:
“We’re a backend infrastructure provider. Our integrations live inside fintech apps, exchanges, and wallets — crypto-native or traditional.
For partners, our pitch is simple: cheaper, faster, and able to reach markets where traditional stock trading can’t go. That’s because in many countries, regulations stop local currency from being converted into U.S. dollars, which means people there can’t buy U.S. stocks through normal brokerage channels. Because we accept stablecoins as payment, we can work around those currency restrictions and give people access to U.S. equities without requiring a local bank account or dollar on-ramp.”
On what to expect in the next months:
“I can’t share everything just yet, but the next few weeks are going to be very exciting. Our U.S. launch — the first ever tokenized stock offering inside the U.S. — is just around the corner. Lending and borrowing against tokenized stocks is also just weeks away. And you’ll hear about partnerships that’s not just in crypto.”
STABLECOINS
Circle Unveils Arc Layer-1, Pushes Into Payments and Stablecoin Finance
A new chain for stablecoins: Following the release of its Q2 earnings on Tuesday, the world’s second-largest stablecoin issuer Circle unveiled Arc, a new layer-1 network purpose-built for “stablecoin finance”.
Why it matters: After introducing the Circle Payments Network (CPN) in May — a coordination protocol connecting financial institutions to settle cross-border payments in USDC — Arc marks the company’s next, larger push into payments. The goal: capture more value from USDC payment flows and expand the business beyond a pure issuance-based model.
Part of a broader trend: Circle isn't alone in betting on stablecoin-focused infrastructure. In recent months, rival Tether already has financed two upcoming stablecoin blockchains, Plasma and Stable, while fintech giant Stripe is reportedly building its own payments-focused blockchain called "Tempo," with Paradigm co-founder Matt Huang set to lead the venture.
Why another blockchain? Circle says the decision to launch a standalone layer-1 stems from financial institutions' concerns about public blockchains, like unpredictable gas fees, lack of privacy, and insufficient support for integrations. Arc is designed to address these pain points, while being tightly integrated with Circle's existing product suite and offering additional institutional-grade features:
USDC as native gas: Transaction fees are paid in USDC, removing the need to hold volatile assets like ETH — a concern that, according to Circle, many institutions and enterprises have raised.
Permissioned validators: Unlike public blockchains, Arc restricts validation of the network to a limited set of reputable and vetted institutions. Despite this, Arc calls itself an "open network", suggesting that deploying applications on the network might be tied to less restrictions.
Performance: Initial benchmarks show the network will be able to process up to 10,000 transactions per second with sub-100 millisecond finality, making it as performant as existing high-throughput chains like Solana and Sui.
Privacy & compliance: Beyond performance, Arc also wants to provide its institutional clients the necessary confidentiality. That’s why transaction amounts on Arc will be encrypted, while receiving and sending addresses remain visible. Still, to ensure compliance, so-called "view keys" can grant authorized parties like auditors or regulators read-only access to specific transaction data.
"An institution always retains full visibility into the transactions conducted by its own customers [...], which is essential for regulatory obligations like transaction monitoring and the Travel Rule," the network's litepaper states.
Built-in FX engine: Further down the line, the network will also feature a foreign exchange system that combines onchain settlement with offchain price discovery. There, institutions will be able to request offchain pricing from market makers, with trades settling onchain via payment-versus-payment mechanisms that eliminate counterparty risks.
What's next: Arc will enter private testnet in the coming weeks, with a public testnet expected this fall. Circle’s Chief Product & Technology Officer Nikhil Chandhok said that going forward, the network is intended to expand well beyond stablecoins and ultimately establish itself as "the home for all forms of digital money and tokenized value: [...] from emerging stableswap protocols to tokenized equities, commodities, and real estate."
Axel Cateland is the Founder and CEO of Kulipa, a crypto payment card issuer for wallet providers. Previously, he was Head of Banking at the spend management platform Spendesk and a VP at Mastercard, where he oversaw the payment giant’s expansion in the digital payments market.
The stablecoin issuance model, like Circle’s, which relies on yield from deposits, is under pressure from growing demands to share part of that yield and remains highly exposed to interest rate swings. For example, a 100 bps cut would trim gross revenue by roughly 25%, forcing ~40% growth in USDC supply just to offset the loss.
This is why there’s a need to develop adjacent services that can generate additional revenue, something Circle has been pursuing for several months with the launch of its own payment network and now its own L1 blockchain.
However, the decision to build an L1 is questionable for several reasons: it puts Circle in direct competition with partners such as Coinbase’s Base L2, and it also raises broader questions about the use of decentralized networks like Ethereum, where most USDC currently circulates.
In my view, the added value is still far from clear. A broader expansion into stablecoin-based financial services, offering a bank-like suite of products — RWA, credit, and white-label stablecoin issuance — might have been a more compelling path.
Transak | $16 million | Strategic : On- and offramp provider.
Mesh | $9.5 million | Undisclosed : Infrastructure provider that enables seamless crypto transfers across different platforms (exchanges, wallets, fintechs) and powers PayPal's "Pay with Crypto" feature.
Euphoria | $7.5 million | Seed : Mobile-first crypto derivatives trading platform built on MegaETH.
A conversation with Anthony Bassili, President of Coinbase Asset Management, which on Tuesday published its “Get Off Zero” paper outlining five ways institutional investors can get off zero allocation in crypto:
What do you think of today's briefing? |
Disclaimer: The information provided in the Crypto Briefing by Blockstories does not constitute investment advice. Accordingly, we assume no liability for any investment decisions made based on the content presented herein.
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