**[ARK Invest Rebuts a16z's View: Traditional Finance May Rely on DeFi Infrastructure in the Future, Not Closed Blockchains]** Odaily Planet Daily News – ARK Invest's Director of Research, Lorenzo Valente, recently publicly refuted a16z Crypto's perspective that "traditional finance needs blockchain, not DeFi," arguing that financial institutions are more likely to build on open DeFi infrastructure in the future. Public blockchains have already demonstrated advantages over private blockchain solutions, as evidenced by the growth of tokenized assets on open networks like Ethereum, showcasing the stronger network effects and scalability potential of public blockchains. Lorenzo Valente pointed out that the builders of the next generation of financial infrastructure may not be traditional financial institutions but rather crypto-native companies such as Circle and Coinbase. Previously, a16z Crypto had proposed a different view, suggesting that traditional financial institutions are not truly embracing DeFi but are selectively adopting blockchain technologies that align with existing compliance, governance, and operational requirements. Banks and asset management firms are expected to construct "programmable financial infrastructure" in the future, leveraging blockchain's core capabilities such as tokenization and atomic settlement, while maintaining permissioned management and institutional control. Sentora co-founder Jesus Rodriguez also disagreed with this view, asserting that financial institutions may ultimately adopt DeFi's underlying infrastructure, layering compliance, custody, and enterprise-grade control mechanisms on top of it. As the tokenization of real-world assets (RWA), on-chain settlement, and institutional-grade financial applications rapidly evolve, the debate over the future dominance of "open DeFi architecture" versus "permissioned blockchain systems" is heating up. (Cointelegraph)