This year will test blockchain’s real-world viability, shifting the conversation from bold predictions to whether long-held assumptions about adoption, regulation and operations can hold up inside traditional financial institutions. Institutional adoption will expand in breadth rather than risk, with modest digital-asset allocations, gradual progress in tokenization starting with simple instruments, and enterprise finance favoring regulated, permissioned blockchain systems. Regulation will become the main competitive filter, as stablecoins eclipse CBDCs in relevance and licensed, compliant players emerge as winners while unregulated participants fall behind. The defining question for 2026 is not whether blockchain technology is viable, but which of the long-held assumptions about its adoption, regulation and financial plumbing can survive contact with the operational realities of banks, asset managers and corporate treasuries.
As hype cycles give way to systems thinking, blockchain is increasingly framed not as a speculative disruptor but as infrastructure, something that lives inside portfolios, workflows and balance sheets. Today, institutional allocations to digital assets tend to hover around 1% to 2%. That number may not surge dramatically in 2026, but what’s changing is the tone of the dialogue. Infrastructure is maturing.
Custody frameworks are clearer. Risk models, accounting treatment and internal approvals are becoming normalized. It’s not just the hoodies anymore,” she said. “The suits and ties have arrived. The same tension between promise and readiness defines the long-running prediction that tokenization of real-world assets will finally scale.
What was missing in the past was cash on chain,” Rugg said. That gap is now narrowing as stablecoins and tokenized deposits enable assets and settlement to live on the same rails. True delivery-versus-payment and near-instant settlement are now technically feasible. But feasibility does not equal simplicity.
Real-time settlement faces challenges due to decades of batch-based processes embedded in treasury systems, ERPs and internal controls. Rugg said she expects adoption to begin with simpler instruments. Tokenized money market funds sit just above cash on the complexity curve and benefit from familiarity among asset managers and treasurers. More complex assets will follow slowly.
Asset managers may be moving ahead, but corporate adoption will hinge on retooling systems built for end-of-day reconciliation, not always-on liquidity. In that sense, tokenization’s breakthrough is less about blockchain capability than about organizational change. That realism extends to the prediction that decentralized finance will go enterprise. Rugg said she is skeptical that permissionless DeFi protocols, in their purest form, will be embraced by highly regulated institutions anytime soon. Blockchain-based finance is not a rebrand, but a re-architecture, she said. Moving from batch processing to 24/7 networks represents a fundamental shift in financial plumbing. In safety-and-soundness-driven industries, that kind of change rarely happens without regulatory guardrails. Enterprise adoption, then, is more likely to take the form of permissioned systems, controlled access and regulated environments that borrow selectively from DeFi’s mechanics rather than its ideology.
What is clear for 2026 is that regulation itself is shifting from fear to foundation. The conversation is moving away from enforcement headlines and toward sustainability. Who can operate profitably, safely and at scale under new policy rules? I think regulation is going to become a framework, not just the backdrop,” Rugg said. Webster drew parallels to FinTech’s earlier evolution, where companies that invested early in compliance often emerged stronger. Regulation, in that sense, becomes a competitive filter. You’ll see licensed entities succeed, while unlicensed exchanges struggle,” Rugg said, adding that absorbing compliance costs while maintaining viable margins will separate winners from the rest.
Still, government-issued CBDCs may be one blockchain prediction that is teetering on the edge of losing momentum, particularly as private-sector stablecoins advance. It’s been very quiet,” Rugg said. “Stablecoins have kind of taken over the narrative. Most central banks were built for batch settlement,” Rugg said. “They weren’t designed to be 24/7. Whether CBDCs meaningfully reemerge in 2026 remains uncertain. The reality is going to be messy—uneven adoption, fragmented regulation and lots of trial and error,” Rugg said. “But it won’t feel like an outlier anymore. The technology is here. It’s the integration, the business model, regulation and risk, as Webster said, that still needs to catch up.
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