Vivek Raman, co‑founder and CEO of Etherealize, criticized Wall Street’s growing interest in closed blockchains with limited access in an interview with CoinDesk. In his view, consortium networks fragment liquidity and return the industry to isolated systems that blockchain technology was originally supposed to free the financial sector from. Raman described the new wave of such projects as a “race to the bottom,” highlighting their fundamental flaws.

The head of Etherealize pointed to two key problems with closed networks. First, such networks do not interact with each other, which creates fragmentation. Second, they undermine two main advantages of blockchain technology: the interoperability of different systems and the concentration of liquidity in a single space. Raman insists that it is more logical to build privacy and access restrictions on top of public infrastructure at the level of applications or second‑layer solutions, rather than creating separate closed networks. He drew an analogy with web technologies, comparing Ethereum to the HTTP protocol as the basic foundation, and the additional layers with limited access to HTTPS.

Etherealize is promoting Ethereum as an open base layer for institutional players. As examples of the latest wave of closed solutions, Raman cited Canton Network from Digital Asset, the Arc project from Circle, and Tempo from Stripe. He called these initiatives “version 2.0 consortium chains” and recalled previous attempts to create closed ecosystems that did not gain widespread development. We are talking about the interbank initiative R3 and the Hyperledger corporate ecosystem, which have been actively promoted since 2016, but failed to achieve their set goals.

Raman expressed strong conviction in the need for a global open infrastructure without permissions as a basic level for financial applications. According to him, only this approach ensures genuine interoperability and the efficient use of liquidity. Back in June of this year, the head of Etherealize claimed that traditional financial organizations have begun to actively implement Ethereum‑based solutions in their real business processes.

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The material has been prepared solely for informational and educational purposes and does not constitute financial advice or a recommendation.