BitGo and ZKsync Partner to Power Bank Adoption of Tokenized Deposits
BitGo and ZKsync partner to deliver secure, compliant infrastructure enabling banks to issue and settle tokenized deposits with privacy-preserving technology.
ZKsync Blog > The Bank Stack of Ethereum...
Published Feb 23, 2026
The Bank Stack of Ethereum
Financial infrastructure is being rebuilt.
Banks aren’t debating whether blockchain matters. They’re deciding what architecture will run settlement, liquidity, and balance sheets. The pressure is structural: fragmented rails, rising compliance costs, security risks and onchain money that settles instantly and globally. ZKsync and Phylax present the Bank Stack: a full‑stack architecture anchored on Ethereum and powered by Prividium, with institutional safeguards that are enforceable in production. Ethereum is the root of trust. Prividium is the private execution layer. Phylax adds deterministic controls for operational safety in instant‑settlement systems.
The Bank Stack is not a product. It is an institutional architecture for onchain finance.
It consists of three integrated planes:
- Blockchain Platform: Ethereum + Prividium for private execution, compliance primitives, and interoperability
- Money & assets: tokenized deposits, stablecoins, and RWAs issued natively on Prividiums
- Services & governance: identity, custody, policy enforcement, circuit breakers, reporting, and operational controls
⛓️ Blockchain Platform
Prividium as the Institutional Transaction Layer
At the foundation is Prividium: a private, compliant, ZK‑powered blockchain anchored to Ethereum.
Prividiums enable Institutions run confidential transaction environments while inheriting Ethereum’s security, settlement guarantees, and global interoperability. Execution and data stay private; succinct ZK proofs posted to Ethereum provide integrity and finality.
What this unlocks:
- Private execution without public data exposure
- Ethereum‑anchored finality with cryptographic integrity
- Institutional throughput and predictable performance
- Fast deployment without bespoke infrastructure rebuilds
Native Compliance & Policy Primitives
Prividiums embed compliance readiness into the infrastructure surface:
- Permissioned participation via institutional identity and access controls
- KYC/AML enforcement implemented directly in asset and workflow logic
- Auditability and reporting designed as properties of the system, not bolt‑on monitoring
This shifts compliance from “operational burden” to “architectural guarantee.”
Native Interoperability
Institutional networks can’t be islands.
ZKsync’s L1 interop solution makes it possible for any ZK Chain to tap into Ethereum natively without giving up its own governance, privacy or execution environment. Prividiums become the first architecture where Institutions get private systems and seamless access to public-market liquidity.
Institutional‑grade Safety & Circuit Breakers
Instant settlement compresses the time to detect and contain loss. If downside is perceived as unbounded, institutions either demand a large risk premium or don’t participate at all.
Phylax adds execution‑time controls to the Bank Stack by enabling applications and operators to pre‑commit assertions (invariants, limits, and policy gates) and enforce them during sequencing / block building. Transactions that would violate asserted safety conditions are excluded before execution, so that catastrophic states are prevented rather than detected after settlement.
Phylax enables:
- Assertion‑based invariant enforcement in the transaction path
- Circuit breakers that halt or gate anomalous flows deterministically
- On‑prem / customer‑managed deployment colocated with block production (no critical‑path SaaS dependency; no custody of keys or funds)
- Private assertions when controls must remain confidential inside an institution
- Verifiable posture + drift + incident evidence that risk teams, underwriters, and regulators can use for governance, eligibility, and coverage workflows
Together, Prividiums and Phylax provide cryptographic integrity and bounded operational risk.
🪙 Money and Assets
Onchain Money Primitives
The monetary foundation should be native to the network:
- Tokenized deposits: bank‑issued tokens representing insured deposits in core systems
- Fiat‑backed stablecoins: issued by regulated entities against reserves
- Tokenized cash equivalents: MMFs and short‑term debt that can behave like yield‑bearing money
These primitives are designed to compose with identity/policy controls and institutional UX (including fee abstraction where appropriate).
RWAs and issuance rails
On top of money, the Bank Stack supports RWAs:
- Tokenized securities (bonds, equities), funds and pooled vehicles, and other collateralized instruments
This requires issuers and tokenization platforms that provide standardized smart‑contract frameworks and lifecycle tooling (corporate actions, distributions, redemptions), sharing identity/compliance infrastructure so new products launch with minimal friction.
⚙️ Services and Governance
Identity, Policy & KYC
The Bank Stack includes a native identity and policy layer:
- Enterprise SSO (Okta, Keycloak, OIDC compatible) + Ethereum wallet signing
- A shared policy engine applications can call without handling raw PII
- This enables “Single‑KYC” experiences where permitted users unlock eligible applications and assets
Where policy must be enforceable (not merely observable), assertions can be applied in block production so restricted activity cannot finalize while a policy is active.
Custody & Key Management
Institutions need custody that matches existing controls:
- MPC or HSM‑backed wallets
- Multi‑person approvals, limits, segregation of duties
- Integration with audit, risk, and insurance workflows
Platforms like Fireblocks already integrate with Prividium, so banks can re‑use existing policy stacks for new networks instead of rebuilding from scratch.
On‑/Off‑Ramps & Attestations
Bridging on‑chain activity to traditional systems requires:
- Fiat ↔ on‑chain flows via payment rails and core banking systems
- Webhooks support makes it easy for offchain systems to track onchain events to trigger different workflows
- Standard mint/burn flows for deposit tokens and stablecoins tied to these attestations
DeFi & Financial Primitives
The Bank Stack can support institutional primitives at launch:
- Lending and credit lines against tokenized collateral
- Liquidity vaults / sweep strategies into cash equivalents
- Spot swaps and FX via permissioned venues where required
All of these compose with identity, policy, and risk limits.
Insurance, Reporting & Operations
Institutional adoption depends on bounded tail risk and auditability:
- Circuit breakers and controls that limit maximum loss during incidents
- Audit‑grade logs and exports into existing risk/finance systems
- Clear governance over upgrades and emergency actions, with operational procedures for production deployments
🏦Ethereum, Prividiums & The Bank Stack
Ethereum provides global settlement. Prividium provides private institutional execution. Phylax provides deterministic controls for safety and enforceable guardrails where required.
Together, they unlock:
- Instant settlement of institutional flows
- Private execution with public verifiability
- Native issuance of institutional money and assets
- Interoperable liquidity across institutional networks
- Operational controls that bound worst‑case loss and produce evidence institutions can govern against
The Bank Stack represents the shift from fragmented infrastructure to shared, programmable finance built on Ethereum, executed privately on Prividium, and operated with production‑grade safeguards.
At ZKsync and Phylax, we are confident this architecture will define the next era of Institutional Finance and we are building toward that future today.
✏️Co-authored by ZKsync and Phylax
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