Most CFD brokers have never heard of Para. That, according to the company's founder and CEO Nitya Subramanian, is exactly the point, and exactly why they should be paying attention.
Singapore Summit: Meet the largest APAC brokers you know (and those you still don't!)
Para powers embedded wallets for over 10 million users across MetaMask and the Ethereum Foundation, and in February 2026 launched a REST API that lets regulated financial platforms bolt blockchain wallet functionality onto their existing products without changing their interface or asking clients to learn anything new.
Subramanian sat down with FinanceMagnates.com to make the case that the wallet layer is no longer a crypto industry concern, it is a retail brokerage one. The window for CFD brokers to treat onchain assets as optional is closing faster than most of them realize, and why she believes the industry's most-repeated objection, "our clients won't understand it," has already expired.
Stablecoins Pulled Brokers Toward the Wallet Layer
Subramanian traces the shift in Para's typical client profile to a broader change in how financial institutions now view stablecoins, tokenized assets, and onchain payments. "What's changed is that stablecoins, tokenised assets, and onchain payments have moved from experimental use-cases to core financial workflows," she said. "In the last year, a broader set of financial players has become aware of the need for digital asset infrastructure."
- ECB Warns Europe “Could Lose Monetary Sovereignty” to Dominant Stablecoins
- Nasdaq and Talos Partner on Tokenised Collateral Following SEC Nod
- SEC Approves Nasdaq Pilot Allowing Investors to Trade Tokenized Stocks
The logic runs directly through control. A financial institution can build its own blockchain, but if it wants to dictate how and when transactions happen, and who is executing them, it needs ownership of the wallet layer. "Once key players started to learn that, the retail brokerage story became a wallet infrastructure story," Subramanian said. "We knew this was on the horizon; we've been building for it for years."
The pressure on brokers is building from multiple directions. Finance Magnates has previously examined how tokenized stocks are building a parallel 24/7 market for equities, a trend that is steadily narrowing the product gap between retail CFD brokers and crypto exchanges. A broader overview of what tokenized stocks mean for retail trading platforms in 2025 shows just how quickly the infrastructure questions Subramanian describes have moved from theoretical to urgent.
The Invisible Wallet and Who Owns the Client
Para's model is built around the premise that wallets work best when users do not know they are there. Subramanian reaches for a payments analogy to explain why this matters for brokers. "When you tap a card, you don't think of 'Visa'. You think about the assets and goods you're exchanging, possibly the card you're using, and the relationship you have built with the merchant," she said. "That's how the wallet layer should work."
In her framing, the wallet layer should behave as settlement infrastructure that the broker or fintech deploys to own the customer relationship, while Para provides the tooling underneath. "The fintech, vendor, or brokerage can own the customer relationship. They own the experience, the brand, and the trust," she said. "Our job is to provide the tools to do so; make the exchange smooth, secure, and customisable." The contrast she draws is with consumer-facing wallets like MetaMask, which she acknowledges is "becoming almost like a Revolut for crypto."
That distinction between infrastructure provider and consumer destination sits at the heart of a wider industry debate. As Finance Magnates reported in a recent interview with MEXC's COO, the classic separation between CFD and crypto is starting to feel like an unnecessary distance, a view that reinforces Subramanian's argument that wallet infrastructure is increasingly relevant to any platform serving retail traders.
Portability and the End of the Captive Client
One of the more pointed questions facing retail brokers is what happens to the captive client relationship if wallets become portable financial identities, allowing users to move assets freely between platforms. Subramanian does not dispute that portability changes the dynamics. She argues it simply raises the competitive bar.
"Historically, a lot of financial relationships have been sticky because it's been hard for clients to move, but that's changing everywhere, not just in crypto," she said. "We've already seen this with neobanks and even earlier with credit cards." Her conclusion is direct: "The 'captive client relationship' may disappear, but that simply shifts the competition toward who can offer the best service."
For CFD brokers accustomed to retaining clients through switching friction rather than product quality, the implication is significant. eToro's move into 24/7 stock trading alongside ERC-20 tokenized equities on Ethereum is one concrete sign of how competitive pressure from crypto-native platforms is already reshaping what brokers must offer. A parallel argument has come from the DeFi side of the market: the CEO of Ostium previously told Finance Magnates that the global CFD broker market faces DeFi disruption within five years, a timeline that Subramanian's comments on infrastructure readiness appear to support.
Multi-Asset Expansion and the Single Account Framework
For CFD brokers weighing whether to add onchain assets to their stack, the question is not only regulatory but architectural. Running trading, payments, and tokenized assets on separate systems compounds complexity rapidly, Subramanian argues. The wallet layer, as she describes it, solves this by creating a unified account framework across asset classes.
"Multi-asset expansion will become complicated when each product runs on a separate system," she said. "However, when identity, custody, permissions, and settlement sit in one place, this doesn't need to be the case. When every transaction and every asset moves through the same permissioned wallet layer, adding new asset classes just extends the system rather than fragmenting it."
The backdrop here is concrete. Robinhood and eToro launched stock tokens in 2025, and CMC Markets has signaled a tokenized asset and DeFi hybrid offering. GCEX has added tokenized gold from Paxos and Tether alongside traditional CFD equivalents, while Interactive Brokers now lets clients hold and trade crypto without liquidating existing positions. The infrastructure question Subramanian describes is already being answered by the pace of competitors' product decisions, whether individual brokers acknowledge it or not.
Regulation, MPC, and the Custody Dividing Line
Para uses multi-party computation (MPC) for key management, which means the company itself cannot freeze user funds. For a regulated CFD broker operating under FCA or CySEC rules, the idea that no single party holds custody could sound either flexible or deeply uncomfortable, depending on the compliance team doing the reading.
Subramanian translates the technical structure into regulatory language. "Para's MPC model means the wallet is owned by the user, not by Para," she said. "What we provide instead is a policy and permissioning layer that regulated platforms can configure." Brokers can use that layer to apply transaction limits, destination restrictions, additional authentication requirements, and integrations with existing KYC and onchain monitoring tools. The regulated entity defines the rules; Para provides the infrastructure those rules run on.
The custody question is one the broader industry is grappling with from multiple angles. Finance Magnates has examined how digital asset custody technology is evolving to meet institutional standards, with the custody market forecast to grow from around $1 trillion to over $7 trillion by 2035. The SEC's earlier position this year, drawing a clearer line between genuine asset ownership and synthetic exposure, sharpens the stakes further. "As regulators draw a clearer distinction between genuine ownership and synthetic exposure, custody will increasingly become a competitive differentiator," Subramanian said.
A detailed look at RWA tokenisation requirements in practice illustrates exactly why the structural questions around custody, asset segregation, and bankruptcy-remote arrangements matter to any platform considering tokenized products.
Devconnect and the End of the Onboarding Objection
Para's work with the Ethereum Foundation at Devconnect 2025 is the piece of evidence Subramanian leans on hardest when addressing broker hesitation. Roughly 10,000 wallets were created at the event using only an email address, by attendees who had little or no prior crypto experience. The demonstration, in her view, removes the most persistent objection brokers have used to avoid adding onchain assets.
"When someone creates a wallet with just their email and never has to think about what's underneath, the experience becomes indistinguishable from opening a standard account anywhere," she said. "Seed phrases, gas fees, wallet addresses: none of that belongs in a retail brokerage flow." The REST API launched in February 2026 extends that logic to existing financial platforms, addressing a concern Finance Magnates has previously examined: why native crypto deposits are becoming critical infrastructure for retail brokers, not a niche add-on.
With 109 million wallets now using stablecoins, the argument that retail clients are not ready for onchain finance carries less weight than it once did.
Her conclusion is blunt: "The 'our clients won't understand it' objection is gone. Financial services can start building for the future now, whilst regulations catch up."
Who Wins the Wallet Layer Race
Asked whether legacy brokers retrofitting for onchain, or crypto exchanges expanding outward, are better positioned to capture the wallet infrastructure opportunity, Subramanian pushes back on the framing. "I don't think there's any distinction between a 300-year-old bank moving onchain and last week's Silicon Valley startup; the tools are already there for both," she said.
There is, however, a clear dividing line in her view: it runs between those who understand where financial infrastructure is heading and those who do not. The acceleration of real-world asset tokenisation across regulated markets suggests the infrastructure window is narrowing faster than many brokers have priced in. "The future of finance is clearly onchain," Subramanian said. "It's those who understand that who are best positioned to win, and those who don't who will be left behind."
