Ethena Labs, Securitize unveil 'Converge' network roadmap

Ethena Labs, the developer of the USDe synthetic dollar (USDe), and financial technology company Securitize, released a preliminary roadmap for their upcoming Converge network, a high-throughput blockchain focused on real-world assets and decentralized finance (DeFi).

According to the announcement, a testnet will be live in the coming weeks, with a mainnet launch later in 2025.

Converge will feature a 100 milliseconds (ms) native block time, with plans to reduce block times to 50ms by Q4 2025. The developers also plan to achieve at least one gigagas of potential throughput during 2025. Gigagas is a measure of billions of gas units processed by a blockchain network in one second.

Ethena and Securitize are launching the network to support permissioned real-world tokenized applications and permissionless DeFi applications as the line between traditional and decentralized finance continues to blur.

Related: Ethena Labs exits German market following agreement with BaFin

Traditional financial institutions are increasingly using decentralized finance protocols and interacting with tokenized real-world assets like stablecoins and tokenized bonds.

The merging of TradFi and DeFi has drawn mixed reactions from the crypto community, with some saying it was inevitable that the two worlds came together, and others warning of institutional capture.

In a Jan. 21 interview, Franklin Templeton CEO Jenny Johnson told Bloomberg that US President Donald Trump would integrate crypto and traditional finance by establishing clear regulations.

“We need to have some sort of regulatory clarity so that you could bring these together because, fundamentally, it will drive out costs, and there is great innovation that the technology enables,” Johnson said.

Shibtoshi, the founder of the SilentSwap privacy-preserving trading platform, recently told Cointelegraph that some institutions are currently hesitant to adopt decentralized finance solutions.

The DeFi founder said that a lack of privacy, legal liability issues, and unclear regulations have stymied institutional adoption, but added that the tools to address these concerns already exist.

"Institutions have realized the benefits of a securely decentralized system. As early as 2021, reports said nearly one in three institutional investors in crypto were already using DeFi," Shibtoshi told Cointelegraph.

Magazine: DeFi will rise again after memecoins die down: Sasha Ivanov, X Hall of Flame