QNT’s latest jump seems tied to one pretty direct catalyst: tokenized bank deposits are getting a lot closer to actual live financial use.
TechFlowPost reported that Quant (QNT) surged roughly 300% over the past week, breaking above $270, while 24-hour trading volume went past $600 million. On Sept. 24, The Clearing House (TCH) said it had picked Quant as the technology provider for its On-Chain Money Initiative. Then, on Sept. 26, seven major U.K. banks — including Barclays, HSBC and Lloyds — carried out what the report called the world’s first real customer payment transactions using tokenized pound deposits through the Quant platform.
TCH clears and settles more than $2 trillion every day. It also runs core payment rails inside the U.S. banking system, including RTP and CHIPS. The report says 25 major U.S. banks are part of the initiative, and it is expected to go live in the first half of 2027.
Quant founder Gilbert Verdian called the partnership “a decisive step in the global shift toward programmable money.”
Quant is not a blockchain operator. It sits between systems.
The report says QNT’s rally makes more sense once you understand what Quant actually is. Quant does not operate its own blockchain. Its main product, Overledger, is an interoperability layer built so different blockchains and legacy systems can communicate and transact with each other.
In tokenized deposit workflows, Quant works as an orchestration layer. It coordinates clearing and settlement across different bank systems while staying compatible with existing payment infrastructure like RTP and CHIPS.
That matters. Banks do not all have to move onto the same chain. Each institution can keep its own tech stack, and Quant handles the translation and coordination in the middle. The report says that was a main reason TCH chose Quant: a network with 25 banks was never likely to push every participant onto a single blockchain.
And the U.K. rollout has already gone past the proof-of-concept stage, the article says. The Sept. 26 transaction used a real mortgage refinancing case, with funds released automatically after confirmation of the property title transfer. The report frames that as a move away from testnet-like demos and toward real money moving for real customers.
Tokenized deposits are not the same thing as stablecoins
Before comparing assets, the report draws a hard line between tokenized deposits and stablecoins.
USDC and USDT are stablecoins. They are generally issued by non-bank entities and backed by reserve assets such as Treasurys and cash. Holders have a redemption claim on the issuer, but the tokens themselves are not bank deposits and do not carry deposit insurance coverage.
Tokenized deposits are different. They are bank liabilities issued by regulated commercial banks, they stay on banks’ balance sheets, and they are covered by deposit insurance. Tokenizing a deposit means recording and transferring that bank liability on blockchain rails without changing its legal nature. It is still a bank deposit.
The report says banks may like tokenized deposits more than stablecoins because they do not cause deposit disintermediation. The funds remain inside the banking system; only the settlement method changes. That, the article says, is also why TCH — an institution owned by banks — is pushing tokenized deposits instead of adopting stablecoins.
Which assets are exposed to the theme?
Canton Network (CC): the closest comparable
Canton Network, built by Digital Asset, is described as a privacy-focused institutional blockchain. The participant list cited in the report includes DTCC, Goldman Sachs, BNY Mellon, Tradeweb, Deutsche Börse, HSBC, Broadridge, BNP Paribas and Visa.
The article says JPMorgan’s JPMD tokenized deposit is already live on Canton, having launched in January 2026. DTCC plans to use Canton for U.S. Treasury tokenization, and Deutsche Börse’s digital securities settlement platform is also built on the network.
The difference from Quant is simple. Quant offers interoperability across different systems. Canton offers a single institutional transaction network. One acts more like a translator. The other acts more like the venue.
On valuation and token design, the report puts CC’s fully diluted valuation at about $5.5 billion, with a ranking around No. 24. Fees use a burn model: transaction fees are priced in dollars, paid in CC, and then burned. So network usage directly cuts token supply. But there is another side. Total supply is not capped, and issuance continues through rewards for validators and application developers. The article says the big question is whether deflation can outrun issuance — the same math problem it says ZAMA faces too.
Canto (CANTO): a small-cap, high-beta RWA narrative
Canto is an EVM-compatible Layer 1 in the Cosmos ecosystem. It is positioned as “NeoFinance,” meaning public infrastructure for decentralized finance. Its design is built around “Free Public Infrastructure,” including a zero-fee DEX, a lending market based on a Compound v2 fork, and the NOTE stablecoin.
According to the report, Canto has brought RWA tokenization on-chain through Fortunafi and Hashnote, adding access to U.S. Treasury yield. But the article says its positioning is different from Quant and Canton. Canto looks more like an RWA access layer for DeFi-native users than a bank-to-bank settlement rail.
The report also says CANTO’s market capitalization sits in the tens of millions of dollars, with limited liquidity and very high volatility. In the article’s framing, it is a high-beta small-cap RWA token, not an asset in the same risk bracket as QNT or CC.
Chainlink (LINK): an indirect infrastructure beneficiary
LINK is not framed as a pure tokenized-deposits trade. Still, the article says it has clear exposure at the infrastructure layer. Chainlink provides Data Streams, Proof of Reserve, NAVLink and CCIP for Canton, and Chainlink Labs has become a super validator for the Canton Global Synchronizer.
The report also says Chainlink is a core technology provider in Swift’s tokenized asset settlement pilot. So the logic is pretty direct: every step banks take toward moving infrastructure on-chain raises demand for oracle services and cross-chain messaging. In that view, LINK is the picks-and-shovels asset for the sector.
XRP and XLM: the older payments thesis versus the bank-upgrade thesis
The article also points to Ripple’s XRP and Stellar’s XLM, both long associated with cross-border payment and settlement narratives. But it says there is a small but important difference between those assets and the tokenized deposit infrastructure story.
In the report’s framing, XRP and XLM lean more toward becoming payment networks that replace SWIFT. Quant and Canton, by contrast, lean more toward adding blockchain settlement capabilities to existing bank systems. One path is substitution. The other is an upgrade.
With the SEC having just granted what the article calls an “innovation exemption” for tokenized stocks, and with TCH selecting Quant, the report says the direction preferred by the banking system is getting easier to read: use blockchain technology to upgrade banks, not replace them with crypto networks. On that reading, the article sees the backdrop as more favorable for Quant and Canton, while putting quiet pressure on the narratives around XRP and XLM.