Bank of America’s recent personnel changes in digital assets have drawn fresh attention across crypto markets, especially around the bank’s plans for stablecoins, tokenized deposits, custody and crypto settlement.
A post on X from Polygon Labs team member @Nxtlvl said Bank of America had appointed senior leaders to speed up digital assets and AI across its global markets unit, adding that the platform under development would cover stablecoins, tokenized deposits, custody and crypto settlement.
That comment followed July 17 reporting by Reuters and Bloomberg on an internal memo. According to those reports, Bank of America gave Sonali Theisen, head of global FICC electronic trading, additional responsibility for designing, building and governing the bank’s global digital-asset platform. Kevin Milsom was named head of AI transformation for the platform. Adam Dixon remains head of digital-asset transformation, with responsibility for tokenized deposits, crypto settlement and custody.
Where the "$6 trillion" claim came from
The management changes were one part of the discussion. The bigger spark on social media was a claim tied to trillions of dollars in bank deposits.
On July 15, Korean crypto commentary account @CliporaGo wrote that Bank of America’s CEO had clearly said $6 trillion in bank deposits could move into stablecoins. The post circulated widely, but it left out an important condition and misstated the timing.
Brian Moynihan’s original remark came on the bank’s fourth-quarter earnings call on January 14 this year. He said deposits could migrate only if stablecoins were allowed to pay interest. The GENIUS Act does not allow that feature.
The figure itself traces back further. In April 2025, the U.S. Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee, or TBAC, estimated that roughly $6.6 trillion in transactional bank deposits could face long-term risk of moving into stablecoins.
Moynihan had already been open about the bank’s interest in the business. In February 2025, at the Economic Club of Washington breakfast, he said, “If they make that legal, we will go into that business.” At the time, stablecoin legislation had not yet been enacted.
These developments arrived during a weak stretch for the crypto market. On July 20, bitcoin traded around $65,000, down more than $50,000 from a year earlier.
Rules are delayed, but banks are still building
The GENIUS Act was signed on July 18, 2025, and gave regulators one year to finalize implementation rules. That deadline passed on July 18, 2026. Regulators had released 10 proposed rules, but none had been finalized, pushing the law’s effective date back to January 18, 2027.
In the same week that regulators missed the deadline, Bank of America moved ahead with its new digital-asset leadership structure.
Other large banks are not waiting for the final rulebook either. JPMorgan’s JPMD tokenized deposit is already running on Coinbase’s Base network. Citi’s Token Services offers round-the-clock tokenized dollar clearing. JPMorgan, Citi, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and HSBC are also working through The Clearing House on a shared tokenized-deposit network with a target launch in the first half of 2027.
Institutional adoption is advancing, but skepticism remains
On the On The Margin podcast, Transak CEO Sami Start said, “Retail crypto trading definitely feels a bit like a crypto winter right now, but stablecoin adoption is unrelated to that. Institutions are adopting stablecoins for real-world use cases, and that’s why we’re seeing growth.”
Not everyone sees Bank of America’s appointments as a turning point. Alessandro Hatami, managing partner at Pacemakers.io, told Bloomberg that banks have been announcing blockchain projects for a decade and that rivalry among banks makes shared infrastructure difficult to deliver in practice.
Jordan McKee, head of fintech research at S&P Global Market Intelligence, said in an April CoinDesk report that most financial institutions are still in an “early and cautious” phase on stablecoin strategy.
The stablecoin market itself has also been relatively flat. DefiLlama data shows total supply near $300 billion, about $10 billion below its May peak. Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC account for more than 80% of that supply.
Neo, CEO of onchain neobank UR, said on the same podcast, “In both Web3 and Web2 today, everyone is taking shortcuts. You issue a card with USDC and suddenly you’re a new bank, with easy spending and a slick image. But at the core structure level, nothing has really changed.”
January 18, 2027 is the next key date
Bullish forecasts are still coming in. Artemis Analytics said stablecoin settlement volume onchain reached $33 trillion in 2025, up 72% year over year. Bloomberg Intelligence projected payment flows could exceed $50 trillion by 2030. 21Shares said the stablecoin market could pass $1 trillion by the end of 2026.
The next date to watch is January 18, 2027. Whether regulators finish the rulemaking process or not, the GENIUS Act will take effect then. Nicole Sandler, chief ecosystem officer at tokenized-money settlement startup Ubyx, told Bloomberg in July, “The competitive threat is now clear and measurable.”
From executive reshuffles at Bank of America to shared infrastructure projects among major lenders, the banking industry’s stablecoin and tokenized-deposit buildout is moving ahead. Social-media posts may amplify the story, but the internal preparations inside large banks are becoming easier to trace.