ARK pushes back against a16z’s ‘TradFi wants blockchain, not DeFi’ claim

ARK Invest’s director of research disputed a16z crypto’s thesis that traditional finance will adopt permissioned blockchain infrastructure instead of decentralized finance, saying institutions will increasingly rely on DeFi rails.

ARK Invest’s director of research pushed back against investor a16z crypto’s thesis that traditional finance will adopt blockchain through permissioned infrastructure rather than decentralized finance (DeFi).

Lorenzo Valente said in a Wednesday X post that public blockchains have already outperformed private blockchain initiatives, citing the growth of tokenized assets on Ethereum and other open networks.

He added that crypto-native firms such as Circle and Coinbase, rather than incumbent financial institutions, are best positioned to build the next generation of financial infrastructure.

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