Ex-Signature Bank chair launches blockchain-powered instant overseas payments service

Scott Shay watched Signature Bank collapse in March 2023 during the regional banking crisis. Now the former chairman is back with a very different kind of bank, one built on blockchain rails and designed to move dollars across borders instantly.

N3XT, the Wyoming-chartered Special Purpose Depository Institution that Shay co-founded and publicly launched in December 2025, received regulatory approval on August 17, 2026 to facilitate international transactions via its digital token. The approval transforms what was a domestic instant-payments platform into a potential competitor to SWIFT, the messaging network that underpins most cross-border bank transfers today.

A full-reserve bank on a private blockchain

It operates as a full-reserve institution, meaning every dollar deposited is backed 1:1 by liquid assets, specifically cash and short-term US Treasuries. No fractional lending. No duration risk. No Silicon Valley Bank-style mismatch where long-dated bonds crater the balance sheet when rates spike.

The bank publishes daily disclosures of its reserve holdings. For context, most US banks report their balance sheets quarterly.

Under the hood, N3XT runs on a private blockchain that supports programmable transactions through smart contracts. The platform enables instant USD business-to-business payments around the clock, seven days a week.

N3XT’s target clientele spans digital assets firms, shipping and logistics companies, and foreign exchange operations.

Wyoming’s quiet regulatory experiment

N3XT operates under the Special Purpose Depository Institution charter that Wyoming established in 2019. The SPDI framework was specifically designed to accommodate businesses dealing in digital assets while maintaining bank-like regulatory oversight.

Custodia Bank, led by former Morgan Stanley managing director Caitlin Long, was another high-profile entity that pursued the Wyoming SPDI route. But Custodia’s path was rockier: the Federal Reserve denied its application for a master account in 2023, effectively limiting its ability to connect directly to the US payments system.

Shay himself brings a complicated legacy to the venture. Signature Bank, which he co-founded in 2001, grew into a major crypto-friendly institution before regulators seized it during the March 2023 banking turmoil. Shay and others argued the bank was solvent and that regulators acted prematurely, partly motivated by hostility toward crypto-adjacent banking. The FDIC later sold Signature’s deposits to New York Community Bancorp, and the crypto-related accounts were deliberately excluded from the deal.

What this means for cross-border payments

N3XT is positioning itself not as a SWIFT killer but as a complement to existing stablecoin systems. Stablecoins like USDC and USDT already enable near-instant dollar transfers globally, but they operate in a regulatory gray zone for institutional use. N3XT’s value proposition is that it offers similar speed and programmability but within a KYC-verified, regulated banking wrapper that compliance departments can actually sign off on.

By mitigating counterparty risk through its full-reserve model and offering programmable payment logic via smart contracts, N3XT is targeting institutions that want blockchain efficiency but need regulatory certainty, including corporate treasuries, trading desks, and supply chain finance operations.

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