Blockchain’s Second Act: Institutions Take the Lead
This week, the narrative shifted from speculative pilots to foundational strategy. The world’s largest financial institutions are no longer just exploring DLT—they are actively building the rails for its future, while regulators race to draw the map.
1. The Institutional Anchor Shifts
The most significant signal came from a consortium of ten global banks, including giants like Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, UBS, and BNP Paribas. They announced a joint initiative to explore issuing stablecoins pegged to G7 currencies, with a heavy emphasis on compliance and risk management.
This move is mirrored globally as central banks accelerate their own plans:
- In India: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) confirmed it will launch a pilot for deposit tokenisation, integrating it with its wholesale CBDC architecture to create new rails for liquidity.
- In Europe: The Eurosystem selected members for its “Pontes” market contact group, advancing its plan to settle DLT transactions using central bank money.
However, a report from AFME provides a crucial reality check: while infrastructure pilots make headlines, DLT-based fixed-income issuance actually saw a 44% annualized decline in the first three quarters of 2025. This suggests real-world adoption in capital markets remains uneven.
2. Use Cases Beyond Banks: New Infrastructure Models
While finance integrates, other sectors are innovating on top of DLT.
- Telecommunications: The 6GENABLERS-DLT initiative proposes a permissioned marketplace for trading 6G infrastructure assets (like RAN, edge, and cloud capacity), enabling resource flexibility in next-gen networks.
- AI & IoT: Ongoing research continues to explore integrating blockchain with federated learning. This provides trust and decentralization for training AI models across devices, a key for smart cities and autonomous systems.
- Capital Markets Framework: A comprehensive report from GFMA (and other Joint Trades associations) outlines how tokenization is reshaping securities issuance, collateral, and fund operations, identifying key priorities like interoperability and legal clarity.
3. The Regulatory Map Is Being Redrawn
With institutional adoption comes regulatory urgency. This week saw major moves in both the U.S. and Europe.
- United States:
- Stablecoin Clarity: The passage of the GENIUS Act sets a new federal standard for stablecoins, mandating 1:1 backing, audits, and dual oversight.
- ETP Pathways: The SEC approved new generic listing standards for crypto and commodity-based ETPs, simplifying the path to market for spot-crypto products.
- Investor Warnings: The CFTC issued advisory warnings about crypto scam trends during World Investor Week, urging investor vigilance.
- Europe:
- ESMA’s Power Shift: ESMA is preparing to tighten its oversight of crypto exchanges and capital markets, a move that could shift competence away from national regulators and further integrate EU markets under MiCA.
4. Friction Points and Industry Pushback
This rapid integration is not without conflict. Three key friction points emerged:
- Tokenized Stock Risks: Regulators are sounding alarms over the rise of “pegged stock tokens,” noting many do not embed traditional investor rights, raising transparency and custody issues.
- DeFi vs. Regulation: Proposed Democratic crypto bills are drawing sharp criticism from DeFi actors, who argue the rules would overregulate and stifle decentralized innovation.
- Basel Standard Pushback: A coalition of major trade associations called for a pause on the Basel SCO60 crypto exposure standard, arguing the draft is overly punitive and risks pushing innovation offshore.
In Short: From Experiment to Essential
This week reinforces the trend: DLT is moving from the fringe to core financial infrastructure. While significant barriers remain—from legal clarity to market design—the direction is clear. As a Broadridge survey shows, firms are increasingly deploying DLT not just for experiments, but for new, real-world product lines.