Every year, trillions of dollars cross borders through systems built in the 1970s.
SWIFT messages crawl through correspondent banks, settlements take days, and somewhere in that chain, fees quietly eat into the transfer.
Crypto was supposed to fix all of this. Instead, it spent a decade perfecting digital art sales and yield farming.
Two systems, both functional, neither talking to the other. And Keeta is building the conversation.
We talked to the Keeta’s CEO, Ty Schenk, and found out what it actually takes to build it.
Ty Schenk stands out in the crypto community because of his profound tech expertise. Before Keeta, he built backend systems for Turo and co-founded the early zero-fee crypto platform BrainBlocks.
That established track record gives him a sharply practical perspective on what it takes to actually scale cross-border transactions.
TradFi & Crypto: What's Working and What's Still Broken
Both sides have a blind spot.
Traditional finance looks at crypto and sees anonymity, volatility, and regulatory grey zones.
Crypto looks at TradFi and assumes banks are physically moving money around the globe which feels slow, expensive, but at least tangible.
However, neither picture is accurate.
"Existing solutions have fallen short in many categories, including technical abilities, regulatory compliance, and privacy features. With Keeta, banks can conduct the same transactions that they currently do, but with much higher performance." — Ty Schenk
Here's what's actually happening on the TradFi side:
- Banks don't move money. They update ledger entries.
- A cross-border transfer is mostly a chain of messages between intermediaries.
- Each intermediary adds time, cost, and reconciliation overhead.
"Ledger", "chain" - sounds pretty crypto, right? Well, that's not a coincidence, it's actually the common ground.
Here's what crypto offers:
- Global value transfer on a shared settlement layer.
- No fragmented intermediaries. No multi-day reconciliation.
- Near-instant finality.
"It enables global value transfer on a shared settlement network without relying on multiple fragmented intermediaries and reconciliation layers. That is truly incredible. For TradFi, funds aren't moved around as much as many people assume. TradFi largely operates on a ledger-based solution that changes numbers in the ledger instead of actually moving physical money. Keeta, and crypto as a whole, can complete the same messaging and ledger changes, but in an instant instead of taking several days. This frees up billions of dollars and significantly improves upon the performance of existing solutions like SWIFT." — Ty Schenk
The technology was always capable. The problem was access, and, specifically, regulated access. Public crypto networks largely lacked native compliance tooling that regulated institutions could plug into directly.
Permissioned chains like Hyperledger or R3 Corda filled part of that gap, but kept TradFi and the broader crypto ecosystem separate.
Keeta's bet is on a different model: one shared network with compliance controls built in, instead of a walled-off institutional lane.
How TradFi and Crypto Can Run on the Same Rails
"Same rails" may sound like a metaphor but it’s actually an accurate description of what is being built.
Keeta is a single network that works identically for every participant: a DeFi protocol or a regulated bank alike.
The key is Keeta's certificate system.
"The network natively supports digital identity certificates, enabling accounts to hold identifiers such as name, location, occupation, etc. For Web3 applications, they may choose to interact with any account, regardless of whether they hold certificates or not. For TradFi, they can choose to only interact with accounts that have specific certificates, like ones required for KYC verification or AML screening. These two solutions are both utilizing Keeta, but one is in a regulated environment, and one is not. In addition, it also provides companies and institutions with an all-in-one solution. If a Web3 entity wishes to offer regulated services, they can do so with the same integration, and vice versa with unregulated solutions for institutions.” — Ty Schenk
Why this matters: regulated institutions don't need a separate "institutional blockchain." They just need compliance controls built into the existing one, and Keeta does that natively.
Real-World Use Cases for TradFi-Crypto Integration
Let's talk about the actual things being built.
Cross-border payments
This is Keeta's primary target, and the most obvious place where existing infrastructure fails.
Right now, sending money across borders means:
- Multiple correspondent banks in the chain
- Settlement times measured in days
- Fees at every step
- Currency conversion handled through a separate FX layer - automated, but still an additional step with its own costs and counterparties
Keeta's goal is straightforward:
"Our end goal is to enable any fiat currency, from any country, to be sent to any other country and instantly exchanged for the local currency. Trillions of dollars have been moved using outdated systems, and we plan to solve that problem." — Ty Schenk
Tokenization of equities and commodities
The second major use case is asset trading. It has the same problem as payments: old infrastructure.
Traditional equity and commodity markets usually are closed outside business hours, slow to settle and geographically fragmented.
Keeta unlocks 24/7 access to these assets and instant trading across borders.
"Similar to cross-border payments, the trading of these assets is largely supported by outdated technology. Keeta unlocks a system that enables 24/7 access to these assets and instant trading across the globe." — Ty Schenk
The common thread: both use cases exist today, operate on legacy systems, and don't require anyone to "believe in crypto" to benefit from the upgrade.
Why One Universal Network Changes Everything
The deeper problem Keeta is solving goes beyond payments.
Their answer is to be the connective layer, the glue that makes all existing networks interoperable.
"In five years, we anticipate the overall adoption of crypto to be obvious in hindsight. While there is currently controversy over whether it is needed or not, the benefits will become obvious as money moves much faster and capital is freed up. We've seen many different systems, like domestic payment rails, be built in siloed environments without the ability to communicate with one another, resulting in fragmentation across the global economy. The same problem has arisen with crypto networks. If an asset is held on one system or network, it is impossible to directly transfer it to another. With Keeta, any two assets, from any two systems, can be easily exchanged for one another and sent freely between accounts. Keeta isn't just another crypto project. It is the missing link that enables all existing Web3 and TradFi systems to communicate with one another seamlessly." — Ty Schenk
Will this feel obvious in five years? Probably. Most infrastructure shifts do once they've already happened. Faster money movement, freed-up capital, and a single network that speaks every financial language.
Right now it sounds ambitious and that's usually how it starts.
