Cari Network, a permissioned banking network led by former Gene Ludwig, has selected Matter Labs’s Prividium infrastructure to power a bank-governed tokenized deposit network for US regional and mid-sized lenders.
Built on ZKsync and anchored to Ethereum, the platform enables participating banks to issue and move tokenized deposits around the clock while keeping them on the balance sheet as traditional bank liabilities, according to a Tuesday release shared with Cointelegraph.
The announcement comes amid ongoing debates over regulatory frameworks, including the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act, as stablecoin issuers increasingly encroach on banks’ traditional roles in payments and deposit funding.
“Financial infrastructure is being redesigned in real time, and mid-sized banks are the ones being left behind,” Alex Gluchowski told Cointelegraph. He framed the network as a tool for banks to “lead that transition, rather than be displaced by it.”
Regional banks explore tokenized deposits for stablecoin-style payments
Five US banks — Huntington Bancshares, First Horizon, M&T Bank, KeyCorp, and Old National Bancorp — have been involved in designing and testing the network since February, Bloomberg reported. The broader model has also been backed by the Mid-Size Bank Coalition of America, which emphasizes that keeping deposits within regulated institutions is critical for small business lending and local economic activity.
Cari’s tokens represent existing customer deposits at participating banks and are intended to remain in a permissioned environment governed by bank risk and compliance frameworks, rather than circulating freely in decentralized finance (DeFi).
Prividium emphasizes privacy, control, and on-chain auditability
ZKsync says Prividium functions as a shared ledger, enabling instant settlement between verified counterparties while keeping personally identifiable information in each bank’s core systems. Transaction records and balances are separated from sensitive customer data, allowing banks to maintain privacy while enabling tamper-evident audits.
Despite ZKsync’s public network struggling with usage over the past year — with Nansen data showing a roughly 90% decline in transactions as airdrop-driven activity slowed in 2025 — the network has been pivoting toward institutional use cases like Cari. Its 2026 roadmap focuses on privacy, deterministic control, and native interoperability to meet the requirements of banks, enterprises, and government entities.
Gluchowski noted that the architecture was designed with US banking privacy and regulatory expectations in mind, including data protection, examiner access, and auditable trails. While some banks have explored issuing stablecoins or partnering with crypto issuers, Gluchowski described tokenized deposits as “complementary to stablecoins,” positioning them as “the payment tokens banks can use to move money in and out of their private infrastructure.”
