QNT Surges 180% as Banks Launch Tokenized Deposit Trials via Quant

Article by Xiao Bing

Quant (QNT) rose approximately 180% over the past week, surging from around $60 to over $167, with 24-hour trading volume exceeding $600 million.

The catalyst is clear: On September 24, The Clearing House (TCH) announced it had selected Quant as its technology provider for the On-Chain Money Initiative. Two days later (September 26), seven major UK banks—including Barclays, HSBC, and Lloyds—completed the world’s first real customer payments using tokenized pound deposits on the Quant platform.

TCH processes over $2 trillion in daily clearing and settlement, operating the core payment networks of the U.S. banking system: RTP (Real-Time Payments) and CHIPS (Clearing House Interbank Payments System). Twenty-five major U.S. banks are participating in this initiative, with an expected launch in the first half of 2027.

Quant founder Gilbert Verdian has defined this partnership as "a decisive step in the global transition to programmable money."

To understand the logic behind QNT's surge, first understand Quant's positioning.

Quant does not operate its own blockchain. Its core product, Overledger, is an interoperability layer that enables different blockchains and legacy systems to communicate and transact with each other. In the context of tokenized bank deposits, Quant provides an "orchestration layer" that coordinates the clearing and settlement of tokenized deposits across different banking systems while maintaining compatibility with existing RTP and CHIPS payment rails.

The business value of this role lies in the fact that banks do not need to all migrate to the same blockchain—they can each choose their own technology stack, with Quant acting as the intermediary for translation and coordination. This is precisely why TCH chose Quant: it would be impractical to require all 25 participating banks to use the same blockchain.

The deployment in the UK has moved from proof of concept to production.

The transaction on September 26 involved a real mortgage refinancing scenario, with funds automatically released after confirmation of property ownership transfer. This marks the transition of tokenized deposits from a "testnet demo" to "real customers, real money."

Before deploying赛道assets, it’s essential to understand a key concept: tokenized deposits and stablecoins are not the same thing.

USDC and USDT are stablecoins issued by non-bank entities and backed by reserve assets such as government bonds and cash. Holders of USDC have a redemption right against the issuer, but USDC is not a bank deposit and is not covered by deposit insurance.

Tokenized deposits are bank liabilities issued by regulated commercial banks, recorded on the bank’s balance sheet, and protected by deposit insurance. Tokenizing a deposit means using blockchain to record and transfer this bank liability, without changing its legal nature: it remains a bank deposit.

For banks, tokenized deposits are more attractive than stablecoins because they do not cause deposit disintermediation—funds remain within the banking system, only changing their settlement method. This is why TCH (a bank-owned entity) has chosen to promote tokenized deposits rather than adopt stablecoins.

In addition to QNT, several other assets are directly or indirectly exposed to the "bank tokenized deposit infrastructure" sector.

Canton Network (CC): The Most Direct Comparable

Canton is a privacy-preserving institutional blockchain built by Digital Asset. Its participants include nearly a who’s who of Wall Street: DTCC, Goldman Sachs, BNY Mellon, Tradeweb, Deutsche Börse, HSBC, Broadridge, BNP Paribas, and Visa.

JPMorgan's JPMD tokenized deposits are already live on Canton (launched in January 2026). DTCC plans to tokenize U.S. Treasuries on Canton. Deutsche Börse’s digital securities settlement platform is also built on Canton.

The key difference between Canton and Quant: Quant creates an "interoperability layer" between different systems, while Canton builds a unified "institutional trading network." The former is a translator; the latter is a platform.

The current FDV of the CC token is approximately $5.5 billion, ranking around #24. Fees use a burn model: transaction fees are priced in USD, paid in CC, and burned upon payment. This means network usage directly reduces the CC supply. However, the total supply of CC is uncapped, with new tokens continuously issued as rewards to validators and application developers. Whether deflation can outpace issuance is the same arithmetic challenge faced by ZAMA.

Canto (CANTO): A low-market-cap NeoFinance narrative

Canto is an EVM-compatible L1 in the Cosmos ecosystem, positioned as "NeoFinance"—a public infrastructure for decentralized finance. Its core design features "free public primitives": a zero-fee DEX, a lending market forked from Compound v2, and the NOTE stablecoin.

Canto has introduced RWA tokenization through Fortunafi and Hashnote, bringing U.S. Treasury yields on-chain. Unlike Quant/Canton, which targets the banking system, Canto functions more as an RWA access layer designed for DeFi natives rather than an interbank clearing infrastructure.

CANTO has a small market cap (in the tens of millions of dollars), limited liquidity, and extremely high volatility. It is a high-beta small-cap asset in the RWA narrative and is not in the same risk category as QNT or CC.

Chainlink (LINK): Indirect beneficiary of the infrastructure layer

Chainlink provides Canton with Data Streams, Proof of Reserve, NAVLink, and CCIP. Chainlink Labs has become a super verifier for the Canton Global Synchronizer. In Swift’s tokenized assets settlement pilot, Chainlink is also a core technology provider.

LINK is not a pure "tokenized deposit" asset, but every step toward bringing banking infrastructure on-chain increases demand for oracles and cross-chain messaging. LINK is a "selling shovels" play in this space.

XRP and XLM: Established Payment Settlement Narratives

Ripple’s XRP and Stellar’s XLM have long positioned themselves as solutions for cross-border payment settlement. However, there are subtle differences in their positioning and tokenized deposit infrastructure: XRP/XLM lean toward being an alternative payment network to SWIFT, while Quant/Canton focus on adding a blockchain settlement layer atop banks’ existing systems. The former is a replacement; the latter is an upgrade.

With the SEC just granting an "innovation exemption" for tokenized stocks and TCH choosing Quant, the path favored by the banking system is becoming increasingly clear: upgrading banks with blockchain technology, rather than replacing banks with crypto networks. This direction benefits Quant/Canton, while implicitly pressuring the narratives around XRP/XLM.