1. Superior auditability and regulatory access
On open networks, every transaction is permanently recorded and independently verifiable. Regulators do not need to request access from a private network operator: they can observe directly. Auditors can verify without relying on what a private network’s controllers choose to disclose.
This reverses the common compliance problem. Open networks do not escape regulatory oversight: they allow more comprehensive monitoring than closed systems. The question is not whether regulators can see what is happening. The question is whether they are limited to seeing only what a private operator allows.
For institutions subject to review, this distinction has practical implications. Independent verifiability is a feature, not a bug.
2. Competitive neutrality
Private blockchains create access control by design: that’s their goal. But access control in fintech raises questions that legal and compliance teams should consider carefully.
Who decides which institutions can access the network? Under what conditions? What happens when the interests of the consortium diverge from those of the institutions that rely on their chain? What if the network manager became a competitor?
Open networks structurally circumvent these concerns. When no party controls access, no party can exercise that control.
For institutions implementing critical financial operations, reliance on a competitor’s technology (or a consortium in which competitors have influence) creates risks that merit board and regulatory attention.
3. Operational resilience
October 20, 2025 objectively demonstrated the operational case. Distributed validator networks, in which multiple independent organizations run nodes across different vendors and geographies, continued to function when centralized systems failed.
Networks with distributed validators maintained normal operations during the AWS outage. Networks dependent on single sequencers or concentrated cloud providers have degraded or failed.
For financial operations that must run continuously, architectural resilience is not optional. The standard is not “usually available”. This is the 99.99% uptime required by serious financial operations, achieved through a distributed architecture and not by hoping your cloud provider doesn’t have a bad day.
