**Monument Bank** is a UK lending institution regulated by the Bank of England (BoE), which announced its intention to tokenize retail deposits of up to £250 million ($335 million) on the privacy-focused Cardano sidechain Midnight (NIGHT). The sidechain is based on Cardano's native token ADA (ADA).
This move marks the first instance of a UK-regulated bank tokenizing retail deposits on a public blockchain while maintaining deposit insurance protection.
Deposits continue to earn interest, fully backed by British pounds, and protected by the UK's Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS).
Monument Bank has set a three-phase rollout plan. The first phase will start with deposit tokenization, followed by the addition of tokenized investment products, and finally the introduction of blockchain-based loans secured by the held assets.
First regulatory bank deployment on a public chain
Monument Bank, managing deposits worth about £7 billion from 100,000 customers, primarily targets 'mass-affluent' customers with investable assets ranging from £50,000 to £5 million. Transaction data is designed to be visible only to the bank and customers through Midnight's Zero-Knowledge Proof infrastructure.
**Charles Hoskinson** described this deal as “one of the largest deals we’ve ever done,” predicting that it could attract “hundreds of millions to billions of dollars” in total value locked (TVL) into Midnight.
The mainnet of this sidechain is expected to launch by the end of March 2026.
Monument Technology, a subsidiary of the parent company, plans to expand this tokenized deposit infrastructure through its Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) platform, allowing other financial institutions to adopt the model.
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ADA, down 91% from its peak in 2021
Cardano's token ADA is trading at around $0.25 as of March 28, having fallen more than 91% from its all-time high of about $3.10 recorded in September 2021.
The total value locked (TVL) in Cardano-based DeFi protocols is around $146 million, which is still relatively small compared to Ethereum's $76 billion and Solana's $8.7 billion.
Despite the news of institutional banking adoption, Cardano continues to face ongoing technical weakness. Even after Monument's announcement, the token price remains well below the high of about $0.40 recorded in November 2025.
Midnight operates as a partner chain to Cardano, designed to leverage the security of the base layer while implementing privacy-preserving applications through zero-knowledge technology.
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