Ami Ben David says real opportunity for crypto is infrastructure (4:51)
As tokenized markets inch closer to mainstream adoption, one of the biggest hurdles invisible to most users is infrastructure.
According to Ami Ben David, founder and CEO of Ownera, the real opportunity isn’t just building new crypto applications; it’s helping banks and financial institutions connect to them at scale.
Ownera is a technology company that provides global interoperability network for tokenized assets.
Related: What is blockchain? Explained
Why can’t banks just plug in?
Though banks could, in theory, connect directly to blockchains, Ben David argues that’s not practical.
“We’re just basically building a way for the banks and financial institutions, exchanges, FMIs to connect to all of these platforms,” Ben David said.
Speaking to TheStreet Roundtable, he explained that the blockchain ecosystem is constantly evolving. New chains launch weekly, protocols upgrade frequently, and liquidity shifts rapidly.
For financial institutions, that instability is a problem.
“When you’re building an application for your users, you can’t do something that moves all the time,” he explained.
Banks need stable custody frameworks, clear regulatory boundaries, defined counterparties and strict controls over which assets can be traded on which chains.
Managing that across dozens of networks and applications is complex and resource-intensive.
His company’s role is to provide a managed platform that handles that complexity, creating a scalable, compliant bridge between traditional finance and blockchain-based systems.
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Crypto 'greenfield'
According to Ben David, crypto innovation has largely been “greenfield,” meaning entirely new products such as prediction markets and decentralized exchanges were built from scratch.
Institutional finance, by contrast, is “brownfield.”
Banks already run massive legacy systems that cannot simply be replaced overnight. New blockchain infrastructure must run in parallel and integrate with existing operations.
“The institutional market is more than 100 times bigger than crypto,” Ben David noted.
That scale requires interoperability across chains, applications and partners, without compromising regulatory clarity or operational security.
Rise of super apps
Ben David describes the next phase as a “critical buildup” toward tokenized markets reaching scale.
His platform connects to dozens of blockchains, in part through a partnership with LayerZero, and supports multiple applications that are already processing billions of dollars in trading volume.
He refers to these applications as “super apps,” capable of handling multiple asset types across multiple chains.
In his view, blockchain is simply the infrastructure layer. What matters is enabling banks to offer clients seamless access to crypto, tokenized securities, bonds and other digital assets, all within clearly defined regulatory boundaries.
The result is not a replacement of traditional finance, but a gradual integration.
And for institutions looking to move beyond experimentation, Ben David says the goal is to make blockchain connectivity easier and scalable.
Related: How blockchain interoperability can transform the digital landscape
