Swift blockchain ledger goes live, at least 19 banks to join by year-end

Swift's shift from messaging to a live settlement ledger reframes the cooperative as infrastructure rather than plumbing, and the banks signing on are effectively validating tokenized deposits as a bank-run alternative to stablecoins for cross-border flow. The design choice that matters is the five-currency scope: it keeps the ledger inside the existing correspondent and FX system rather than opening it to open-network assets. Whether participation broadens beyond the first cohort, and whether non-bank institutions get comparable access, is the open question.