Crypto Goes Mainstream

(Originally published at Forbes.)

When businesses operate in transparent, predictable environments and have new markets to tap or efficiencies to extract, investment and game-changing innovations are sure to follow. That, in a nutshell, explains why we have witnessed a broad, mainstream embrace of cryptocurrencies and other blockchain technologies in 2025. 

Innovation is essential to economic growth; investment is the lifeblood of innovation; and policy clarity is crucial to identifying and estimating the value of the risks and rewards of investment. For years, legal uncertainty presented a very high barrier to institutional use of cryptocurrencies for financial transaction settlement. Firms could not reliably determine whether a token was a security, a commodity, or something else. Nor could they be sure which agency would enforce the rules. That ambiguity deterred “on-chain” innovation. 

But recent legislation signed into law and an energized Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that is dedicated to clarifying how securities laws apply to cryptocurrencies herald a new approach in Washington. That approach is playing a catalytic role, inspiring a significant number of announcements of large investments and cross-industry collaborations among technology companies and financial services firms.

Industry analyses indicate that use of tokenized cash and real-world assets is growing fast, as financial institutions seek efficiency, contract programmability, and new liquidity pools. Tokenized instruments can enable near-instantaneous financial settlement relative to the long tie-ups associated with the traditional settlement cycles.

At its core, settlement is about transferring value and updating records that reflect ownership. Traditional settlement relies on layers of intermediaries, batch processes, and often 24- to 72-hour windows to reconcile books across institutions — even longer when those transactions occur across borders. Blockchains and tokenized cash shorten that chain: tokens move peer-to-peer on a shared ledger, transactions settle nearly instantaneously, and smart contracts can automate conditional transfers. For businesses, that translates into lower counterparty risk, less capital tied up, and simpler reconciliation. For cross-border payments, tokenized liquidity can dramatically cut costs and time relative to legacy methods.

Stablecoins now represent a sizable pool of on-chain liquidity used for settlement and trading. Banks and custodians have launched custody products and tokenization services. Payment networks and financial utilities see tokenization initiatives as the only way to remain competitive. Even legacy providers are integrating – or signaling intent to integrate – blockchain settlement or tokenized currencies into their offerings, which is a persuasive indicator that the market views on-chain settlement as an economic imperative rather than a speculative fad.

Last week, investment management behemoths BlackRock and VanEck announced plans to tokenize some of their money market funds using Ripple Lab’s stablecoin (RluSD) as their on-chain digital currency. Through smart contracts devised and executed on a platform designed by financial technology firm Securitize, fund holders will be able to redeem fund assets for on-chain liquidity directly, creating what Ripple calls a 24/7 stablecoin off-ramp for tokenized treasuries.

This endeavor comes on the heels of a similar venture in which Franklin Templeton and Ripple are collaborating to help the financial service company’s fund investors better manage market volatility by providing tokenized trading to shift funds between stable coins and yield-generating assets, and to provide lending services for institutional investors. Meanwhile, citing the new favorable regulatory environment, Morgan Stanley recently announced plans to invest $100 million in Zero Hash, a crypto infrastructure provider, to build and launch a digital asset trading platform by 2026. 

What is becoming apparent is that tokenization will enable the financial system to extricate and monetize the assets that are laying fallow, buried in the inefficiencies of outdated settlement and custody rules. But it also will provide market participants with the opportunity to use tokens as on-chain collateral and make it economically feasible to break assets into much smaller pieces, broadening investor access to securities and credit.

Cryptocurrencies are finally moving from niche experiment to mainstream plumbing for financial settlement. After more than a decade of hype, boom-and-bust cycles, and regulatory whiplash, a set of coinciding forces — clearer rules from U.S. regulators, targeted legislation, growing institutional infrastructure, and real product demand for faster, cheaper cross-border settlement — have created a credible pathway for digital assets to be used for payment and settlement at scale.