Metal, a settlement network for tokenized financial products, has completed a seed funding round led by Airwallex and Capital49, with the exact amount undisclosed. As part of the investment, Airwallex has joined Metal as its first design partner, signaling deeper collaboration in building settlement infrastructure for tokenized financial instruments.
Metal: A New Settlement Layer Bridging Traditional Finance and Tokenized Assets
Metal positions itself as a settlement network for tokenized financial products, aiming to create an efficient clearing channel between traditional financial institutions and crypto-native projects. By leveraging tokenization technology, Metal converts traditional financial assets such as equities, bonds, and foreign exchange into programmable on-chain digital certificates, utilizing blockchain's atomic settlement capabilities to significantly shorten the traditional T+2/T+3 settlement cycles. This model is particularly suitable for high-frequency capital flow scenarios such as cross-border payments, forex trading, and derivatives clearing, potentially reducing intermediary costs counterparty risks.
Although funding details are limited, the strategic intent behind Airwallex's lead investment is noteworthy. Airwallex is a global payment infrastructure company valued at over $5 billion, covering more than 60 countries and supporting over 100 currencies. By investing in Metal, Airwallex is clearly extending its reach into the tokenized asset settlement space, aiming to integrate stablecoins, tokenized securities, and other novel financial instruments into its payment network.
Jack Zhang's U-Turn: From Skeptic to Investor
The investment has sparked industry discussion largely due to Airwallex founder Jack Zhang's previous public skepticism toward crypto technology. According to earlier reports by Foresight News, Jack Zhang posted on social media in June 2025: "Investors keep asking me about stablecoins and how they reduce foreign exchange fees. If you send money from USD to EUR, and the recipient still receives EUR in their bank, I don't see how stablecoins can reduce fees — the cost of converting stablecoins to the recipient's currency is far higher than the interbank forex market. Crypto is a field I have never understood. In the past 15 years, I have never seen any use case for crypto technology."
That sentiment was widely interpreted as a typical 'cold shoulder' from traditional payment executives toward crypto. Yet less than a year later, Airwallex is now leading a funding round for a tokenized settlement network and becoming a design partner — a clear pivot. The reasoning may lie in Metal's approach: instead of simply issuing stablecoins or crypto assets, Metal aims to improve traditional settlement processes using blockchain technology. This aligns with what Jack Zhang previously saw as "no use case" — reducing cross-border settlement friction, without forcing end users to hold volatile assets. Metal's solution avoids the expensive stablecoin-to-fiat conversion path and focuses on direct settlement of tokenized assets among financial institutions, which may resonate more with Airwallex's real-world business understanding.
Industry Signal: Traditional Payment Giants Accelerate Crypto Infrastructure Play
Another noteworthy aspect of Metal's seed round is that Airwallex is not just providing capital but also embedding itself as a design partner. This model means Metal's settlement network will integrate directly with Airwallex's existing payment platform, offering tokenized financial product settlement capabilities to Airwallex's merchant and enterprise clients. If the collaboration succeeds, part of the hundreds of billions of dollars in cross-border payment volume that Airwallex processes annually could migrate onto Metal's on-chain network, providing real-world use cases for large-scale tokenized asset adoption.
Meanwhile, Capital49's participation underscores traditional venture capital's growing interest in tokenized infrastructure. Capital49 is the strategic investment arm of Capital Group, focused on fintech and digital assets, with prior investments in Circle, Ripple, and others. Their entry further validates that tokenized settlement networks are becoming the next hotspot for capital.