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 LayerSubramanian 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, tokenized 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."The logic, as she describes it, 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 conversation arrives as traditional brokers face mounting pressure from crypto-native platforms pushing into equities. FinanceMagnates.com has previously reported on how tokenized stocks are building a parallel 24/7 market for equities, a trend that is narrowing the product gap between retail CFD brokers and crypto exchanges.The Invisible Wallet and Who Owns the ClientPara'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 customizable."The contrast she draws is with consumer-facing wallets like MetaMask, which she acknowledges is "becoming almost like a Revolut for crypto." Para, she argues, is building the opposite: infrastructure that never surfaces to the end user.Portability and the End of the Captive ClientOne 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 clear. A parallel argument has come from the DeFi side of the market: the CEO of onchain perpetuals platform Ostium previously told FinanceMagnates.com 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 FrameworkFor 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 products from Paxos and Tether alongside traditional CFD equivalents, while Interactive Brokers has moved to let clients hold and trade crypto without liquidating their existing positions. The infrastructure question Subramanian describes is already being answered, whether individual brokers acknowledge it or not, by the pace of their own competitors' product decisions.Regulation, MPC, and the Custody Dividing LinePara 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, she says, still defines the rules; Para simply provides the infrastructure those rules run on.The SEC's earlier position this year, drawing a clearer line between genuine asset ownership and synthetic exposure, adds another dimension to the custody conversation. "As regulators draw a clearer distinction between genuine ownership and synthetic exposure, custody will increasingly become a competitive differentiator," Subramanian said. When tokenized stocks, CFDs, and onchain equities all claim to offer the same exposure, she expects institutions, compliance teams, and retail users to start asking a simple question: "Do I actually own the asset, or do I just have a claim on someone else?"Devconnect and the End of the Onboarding ObjectionPara'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 that Finance Magnates has previously examined: the difficulty of integrating native crypto infrastructure into regulated brokerage products.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 RaceAsked 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 future of finance is clearly onchain; it's those who understand that who are best positioned to win, and those who don't who will be left behind." This article was written by Damian Chmiel at www.financemagnates.com.

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