Abstract
Tokenized money is arriving in three forms that do not convert at par: tokenized bank deposits, wholesale central bank money, and stablecoins. The strategic question is not which format wins, but who owns the orchestration layer — the layer that decides, for each transaction, which money is used, which rail carries it, in what sequence, under whose compliance, and how the cash leg settles against the asset. This report maps nine models competing for that layer along two axes — whether a player issues money or only moves it, and whether it is public or private — from coordination-and-messaging layers and edge aggregators to settlement utilities, single-bank networks, stablecoin issuers, native payment networks, public base layers, mutualized utilities, and neutral coordination protocols. One pattern runs through all nine: each model's core strength is also its structural risk, so the likely outcome is not a single winner but a negotiated stack. The deepest risk is concentration — whoever wins concentration wins a chokepoint — which makes the contest over the orchestration layer a question of sovereignty as much as of commerce.
Executive summary
Tokenized money is arriving in three forms that do not convert at par with one another: tokenized bank deposits, wholesale central bank money, and stablecoins. Because these are different instruments carrying different risk, the strategic question is not which format wins. It is who owns the orchestration layer — the layer that decides, for each transaction, which money is used, which rail carries it, in what sequence, under whose compliance, and how the cash leg settles against the asset. Whoever owns that layer sets the standard the rest must clear across.
This report maps nine models competing for that layer. Two questions generate the map: whether a player issues the money or only moves it, and whether a player is public or private. The nine are the coordination and messaging layer, the edge aggregator, the settlement utility, the single-bank network, the stablecoin issuer, the native payment network, the public base layer, the mutualized utility, and the neutral coordination protocol. Named companies are examples of each model, not the model itself.
One pattern runs through all nine: every model's core strength is also its structural risk. No position is strong on every dimension, so the likely outcome is not a single winner but a negotiated stack in which each model holds the layer it is built for. The deepest risk is concentration — whoever wins concentration wins a chokepoint, and concentrated chokepoints are precisely what states have spent the recent period learning not to depend on. The contest over the orchestration layer is therefore a question of sovereignty as much as of commerce.