KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Major financial institutions are integrating traditional finance with DeFi, marking a significant shift in the financial landscape.
- Visa aims to standardize on-chain finance, potentially transforming DeFi yields into mainstream TradFi products.
- Société Générale’s partnership with Bitpanda and 1inch highlights the growing role of regulated stablecoins in DeFi.
- BlackRock and other institutions are expanding tokenized assets, enhancing TradFi’s engagement with DeFi.
In 2025, several major financial institutions either launched on-chain products for decentralized finance (DeFi) or announced plans to do so. This shift marks a significant move towards integrating traditional finance (TradFi) with DeFi infrastructure.
Visa, a leading card payment company, expressed its intention to assist institutions in providing liquidity to on-chain lending markets. This initiative, referred to as ‘on-chain finance,’ aims to standardize how banks and fintech companies connect to on-chain lending. If successful, Visa’s efforts could transform DeFi yields from a niche offering into a mainstream product for TradFi.
Stablecoins and Tokenization: Key Developments
Société Générale’s crypto arm, SG-FORGE, expanded its focus on regulated stablecoins with a goal to integrate them into DeFi. This was achieved through a partnership with Bitpanda, with 1inch facilitating liquidity for SG-FORGE’s stablecoins in collaboration with Flowdesk. The involvement of a major regulated bank in stablecoin issuance is significant as it reduces friction for institutions requiring clear issuer, custody, and compliance boundaries.
BlackRock continued to expand its tokenized Treasury fund ecosystem in 2025, initiating direct DeFi integration. In May, BlackRock’s tokenized Treasury product, via Securitize, launched its first direct DeFi protocol integration with Euler on Avalanche. Additionally, BlackRock and BNY Mellon were reportedly working on tokenized ‘digital share classes’ for BlackRock’s Treasury Trust money market fund. Tokenized Treasuries serve as a core building block for TradFi yield, offering programmable settlement and composable use-cases in DeFi venues.
TradFi’s Strategic Moves Towards DeFi
Fidelity Investments filed to register a blockchain-based, tokenized version of a U.S. dollar money market fund using Ethereum, with potential expansion to other chains. Although not DeFi by itself, this tokenized product can be used in DeFi as collateral or in on-chain yield strategies.
In November 2025, Amundi, Europe’s largest asset manager, issued its first tokenized share class of a money-market fund on Ethereum. This move utilized a hybrid distribution model and collaborated with CACEIS on infrastructure and 24/7 digital ordering. Tokenized assets can be moved, settled, and potentially used across on-chain venues more efficiently than traditional methods allow.
DBS, Franklin Templeton, and Ripple announced plans to offer trading and lending solutions using tokenized money-market funds on the XRP Ledger. This development represents a modular approach to TradFi yield, combining familiar assets with on-chain lending and trading capabilities.
In September 2025, HSBC and BNP Paribas joined the Canton Foundation, aligning with other TradFi institutions like Goldman Sachs in a push towards institutional tokenization. While Canton is not DeFi in the retail sense, it targets institutional on-chain markets, often serving as a precursor to public-chain DeFi liquidity engagement.
The year 2025 was not about TradFi becoming crypto-native but about launching ‘DeFi-ready’ building blocks. Institutions started with familiar assets, put them on-chain, and connected them to DeFi liquidity and execution. Despite technical readiness, regulatory clarity, risk management, and governance remain critical factors.
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Why This Matters: Impact, Industry Trends & Expert Insights
In 2025, major financial institutions made significant strides in integrating traditional finance (TradFi) with decentralized finance (DeFi), marking a pivotal shift towards on-chain products and services.
Recent industry reports indicate that the convergence and integration of TradFi and DeFi are gaining momentum, with traditional financial institutions increasingly partnering with digital asset platforms. This trend is evident in the recent moves by Visa, BlackRock, and Société Générale to integrate their services with DeFi infrastructure, as highlighted in the news article.
A Gate.com article highlights that TradFi and DeFi integration is seen as a defining trend, with industry leaders predicting a hybrid financial ecosystem driven by the tokenization of real-world assets and institutional adoption. This supports the significance of the financial institutions’ strategic moves towards DeFi, as discussed in the article.
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