Hina Joshi, digital assets sales director, TP ICAP
2026 will see stablecoins graduate from experimental crypto tools to core institutional plumbing. Their ability to deliver 24/7 real-time value transfer will reshape how institutions manage liquidity and capital efficiency.
Corporates will increasingly recognise stablecoins’ transformational potential, and many will begin using them to move funds instantly across markets and time zones. Treasurers will optimise working capital in real time and accelerate trade settlement while reducing credit risk and FX friction.
Meanwhile, global banks are set to deepen their roles as issuers, custodians, liquidity providers and enablers of stablecoin based treasury and payment solutions. Recent US legislation, like the Genius Act, is also likely to catalyse a fresh wave of corporate issuers.
While dollar-denominated stablecoins will continue to dominate, the global regulatory response is accelerating. Many jurisdictions worldwide are re-evaluating their digital currency strategies and developing frameworks to support domestic stablecoins.
As this unfolds, the biggest challenge will be fragmentation in the stablecoin ecosystem caused by differing blockchains, multiple issuers, custodians and exchanges, and inconsistent regulations. The defining theme for 2026 will be addressing that fragmentation through unified, consistent global standards.
By the end of 2026, stablecoins will be embedded in institutional finance rather than confined to crypto use cases.
Jenna Wright, managing director of digital assets, LMAX Group
Next year could be the time when traditional finance and digital assets finally collide at scale.
Institutional participation is accelerating, regulatory guardrails are taking shape, and markets are shifting toward a digitised, always-on model. We’re past the experimentation phase: firms are now building disciplined allocation frameworks and demanding the same governance, auditability and risk controls they expect in traditional markets.
The real structural break is the rise of stablecoins as a core rail for cross-market fungibility. We are entering a major S-curve adoption phase. Stablecoin integration will accelerate capital markets activity, with those issued by banks and other major financial institutions likely to be the primary driver.
The market should expect a survival-of-the-fittest dynamic, narrowing institutional focus to a handful of regulated issuers.
As markets mature, the prospect of continuous capital markets, where assets are fungible and interchangeable, is becoming increasingly realistic. The adoption of stablecoins and tokenised money-market funds is creating genuine connectivity, reinforced by the first wave of institutional-grade tokenised infrastructure moving from pilots to production.
This evolution is accelerating digital asset uptake and setting the stage for a technology-driven, 24/7 financial system.
James Butterfill, head of research, CoinShares
The most important trend in 2026 will be the normalisation of digital assets as they become embedded in global financial infrastructure. After a decade of experimentation, crypto is no longer a parallel system, it is becoming the underlying plumbing.
The macro backdrop will still matter, with Bitcoin responding to shifts in real yields and the pace of Fed easing, but the decisive force of the next 12 months is structural adoption rather than liquidity alone.
Stablecoins will accelerate this shift as payment companies, banks and corporates roll out production-grade settlement rails. Tokenised Treasuries and money-market funds will expand at scale, transforming how yield-bearing products are distributed and settling value 24/7 across public blockchains.
Bitcoin will continue to institutionalise, benefiting from ETFs, options markets, and a global move toward a more multipolar currency system that increases demand for non-sovereign stores of value.
This convergence, public blockchains integrating with regulated market structure, marks the transition from crypto as an asset class to crypto as infrastructure.
Next year will be the year this becomes visible: not through hype cycles, but through financial products, payment flows and corporate balance sheets quietly migrating on-chain.
Martin Gaspar, senior crypto research associate, FalconX
As we move into 2026, the industry will benefit from a new level of regulatory clarity through practical market-structure frameworks, defined stablecoin policy, and clearer treatment of tokenised instruments.
A global push for standardised, cross-border rules will be a major catalyst for true market maturity.
One particularly noteworthy piece of legislation is the proposed market structure bill in the US. Among other things, the bill would allow digital assets to operate under defined market obligations – capital, risk controls, reporting, and custody standards that mirror that of traditional markets.
For institutional firms, the framework could materially reduce legal ambiguity and effectively transform crypto into an asset class that can be reliably integrated into existing trading, asset management, and lending use cases.
The story in 2026 is likely to be less about whether institutions enter digital assets and rather more about how they enter the market and the pace at which they can deploy. We’re going to see a greater number of traditional financial institutions formally step into the market.
An offshoot of this trendline will be growing sophistication of regulated products, such as ETFs, which will offer more complex strategies to allow institutions to move in size efficiently.
Brooks Dudley, head of digital assets sales, Marex
The recent launches of SGX’s perpetual futures product and Cboe’s continuous futures products signify a maturing of institutional crypto trading. The bulk of crypto derivatives volumes has historically been in perpetual futures, and so it makes sense that institutional demand is now bringing this product into a regulated framework. These product launches, as well as the upcoming launch of perpetual futures on CME in 2026, onshore access to continuous trading with the same transparency, operational standards, and risk management frameworks as traditional listed derivatives. We expect that this will further drive crypto derivatives volumes in the coming year.
Brandon Mulvihill, chief executive and co-founder, Crossover Markets
Over the next 12 months, crypto trading is poised to expedite a fungible market structure that separates custody, clearing, and execution, and which more closely mirrors established institutional asset classes. For the first time, a true inter-dealer ecosystem is emerging alongside the retail-originated, vertically integrated exchange model that has long defined digital assets. This shift is being propelled by sustained institutional participation, the entrance of prime brokers and custodians with strong balance sheets, and recent periods of market stress that highlighted the limitations of vertically integrated exchanges.
October’s dislocation event was particularly instructive: several major market makers observed that certain exchanges experienced outages and other performance issues, highlighting the demand for execution-only venues like CROSSx to serve a primary destination for price discover and risk transfer. This move, coupled by Amazon’s crash days later accelerated a “flight to resilience,” at pace not previously seen.
As more institutions adopt prime brokerage and clearing relationships, liquidity will increasingly migrate toward interoperable, execution-only platforms. The result is a more robust and transparent institutional market characterised by venue specialisation, improved risk segmentation, and a healthier distribution of liquidity across participants.
Ali Celiker, founder and co-chief executive of BPX Digital Securities Marketplace
As we enter 2026, the digital assets landscape is shifting from experimentation to execution. For the UK, this year marks a turning point. After a decade of incremental adoption by financial institutions, legislation and regulation are creating conditions for large-scale uptake of digital securities and digital money.
Measures such as the Digital Assets Bill, the Property (Digital Assets) framework, and the Bank of England/FCA Digital Securities Sandbox now provide a clear environment for issuing, trading, and settling tokenised securities. The UK’s regulatory approach to stablecoins, supported by wider market acceptance, is strengthening confidence in on-chain payment instruments. Government willingness to transact on-chain, shown through the Digital Gilt pilot, is accelerating engagement.
In 2026, asset managers, banks, and corporates will move from proofs of concept to real-value activity. Tokenised funds, digital gilts, and blockchain-settled repo transactions will form part of market infrastructure. The benefits are clear: improved accessibility, faster settlement, reduced operational risk, and enhanced transparency, supporting liquidity.
This year, we expect the UK to position itself as a leader in digital capital markets, moving from promise to practice and laying the foundation for a tokenised financial system.