Cari Network: Bringing Tokenized Deposits to the U.S. Banking System
What is Cari Network?
The Cari Network is a bank-governed network designed to bring tokenized deposits onchain.
Developed alongside leading U.S. regional banks including Huntington, First Horizon, M&T Bank, KeyBank, and Old National, the network enables financial institutions to issue and move digital representations of bank deposits over a shared blockchain infrastructure.
Tokenized deposits preserve the protections of traditional bank money while enabling real-time, programmable settlement across modern financial rails.
By connecting regulated banks, digital asset platforms, and commercial clients through a shared ledger, the Cari Network aims to modernize how money moves while keeping deposits firmly inside the regulated banking system.
Why ZKsync?
Cari selected Prividium™ to power the network's blockchain infrastructure.
Prividium™ is a private, permissioned Layer-2 platform built on the ZKsync technology stack and anchored to Ethereum for security and settlement integrity.
This architecture allows banks to operate confidential transaction environments while benefiting from Ethereum's global settlement layer. Sensitive transaction data remains private, while cryptographic proofs ensure integrity and finality.
For regulated financial institutions, this combination delivers what modern financial infrastructure requires: privacy, compliance, scalability, and interoperability with the broader digital asset ecosystem.
The Implementation
Bringing Bank Money Onchain
Tokenized deposits represent the next evolution of digital money.
Unlike stablecoins issued by non-bank entities, tokenized deposits are direct liabilities of regulated banks and remain integrated with existing banking systems and regulatory frameworks.
The Cari Network extends these deposits onto a shared blockchain ledger, enabling instant payments, programmable settlement, and 24/7 value transfer while maintaining the safeguards of the traditional banking system.
This allows banks to serve digital asset markets, modernize payment infrastructure, and compete in the emerging digital asset economy.
Built for Institutional Scale
The Cari Network is designed from the ground up for institutional adoption.
By running on Prividium™, the network provides the performance and operational controls required for real-world financial systems. Transactions execute privately while cryptographic proofs anchored to Ethereum guarantee integrity and settlement.
This architecture enables banks to bring deposits onchain while maintaining the governance, compliance, and operational safeguards required for modern financial infrastructure.
Launch your chain
Frequently asked questions
Everything you need to know about Cari Network.
Cari Network is a bank-governed tokenized deposits network built on Prividium™, a private, permissioned Layer-2 blockchain anchored to Ethereum. Developed with five founding U.S. regional bank partners — Huntington National Bank, First Horizon, M&T Bank, KeyBank, and Old National — the network enables regulated financial institutions to issue digital representations of bank deposits over shared blockchain infrastructure. Unlike stablecoins issued by non-bank entities, Cari Network deposits are direct liabilities of participating banks, preserving all regulatory protections of traditional bank money while enabling 24/7, programmable, real-time settlement. Cari Network's founding partners collectively hold over $8 trillion in assets across U.S. regional banking.
A tokenized deposit is a digital representation of a bank deposit issued directly on a blockchain by a regulated financial institution. The underlying fiat value remains on the bank's balance sheet as a direct liability — carrying the same regulatory protections, capital requirements, and deposit safeguards as traditional bank money. Unlike stablecoins, which are issued by non-bank entities and backed by external reserves, tokenized deposits are fully integrated with existing banking systems and regulatory frameworks. On Cari Network, tokenized deposits enable instant interbank transfers, programmable payment logic, and 24/7 settlement across modern financial rails.
Cari Network tokenized deposits and stablecoins both represent digital money, but they differ fundamentally in issuer, liability structure, and regulatory standing. Stablecoins are typically issued by non-bank entities — such as technology companies or crypto-native firms — and backed by reserves held outside the traditional banking system, creating counterparty risk and limited regulatory oversight. Cari Network tokenized deposits are issued directly by regulated U.S. banks as liabilities on their own balance sheets, subject to existing banking supervision, capital requirements, and federal deposit protections. This makes tokenized deposits appropriate for institutional treasury management, interbank settlement, and commercial payment workflows that require full regulatory certainty.
Cari Network selected Prividium™ because it is the only permissioned Layer-2 platform that combines institutional-grade transaction privacy with Ethereum-backed settlement integrity. Prividium™ enables member banks to execute transactions in a confidential environment — transaction details remain private within the permissioned network — while zero-knowledge cryptographic proofs anchor every settlement to Ethereum, guaranteeing finality without public data exposure. This architecture delivers the four requirements of regulated financial infrastructure: privacy, compliance-readiness, scalability, and interoperability with the broader digital asset ecosystem. No other blockchain architecture met all four requirements for Cari Network's bank-governed operating model.
Prividium™ uses zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs to enable private, verifiable settlement on a permissioned blockchain network. When a bank executes a transaction on Cari Network, the details — counterparty identities, transaction amounts, and asset types — remain confidential within the permissioned environment and are never published to a public ledger. A ZK proof is then generated and submitted to Ethereum, cryptographically confirming that the transaction occurred and is valid without revealing its contents. This design allows regulators, auditors, and authorized participants to verify settlement integrity on demand while ensuring that commercially sensitive financial data is never exposed to competitors or the public.
Cari Network launched with five founding U.S. regional bank partners: Huntington National Bank, First Horizon Bank, M&T Bank, KeyBank, and Old National Bank. Together, these institutions collectively hold over $8 trillion in assets across U.S. regional banking. The network is governed by its member banks, ensuring that product standards, compliance requirements, and operational rules are set by regulated financial institutions — not technology companies or non-bank intermediaries. This bank-governed structure is a defining feature of Cari Network.
Cari Network enables U.S. regional banks to move deposit money 24 hours a day, 7 days a week — including nights, weekends, and federal holidays when traditional ACH and Fedwire settlement rails are closed or restricted. Member banks can execute instant interbank transfers, automate payment logic through smart contracts, and settle transactions programmatically with digital asset platforms, commercial clients, and other network participants through a shared blockchain ledger. This allows regulated banks to compete in the digital asset economy, serve new commercial payment markets, and modernize payment infrastructure — without building proprietary blockchain technology or stepping outside existing regulatory frameworks.
