The technology underlying digital assets will evolve into the “foundational infrastructure layer” of the financial services industry by 2026, according to a new report from rating agency Moody's.
In its 2026 Digital Finance Outlook, Moody's predicts: blockchainBased technologies will increasingly impact traditional financial companies' capital allocation and market operations this year.
affirm that stable coin Noting that tokenized assets will be adopted for payments and liquidity management in 2025, the report goes on to highlight this year's expected trends in the evolution and adoption of digital assets.
This includes using blockchain and other new technologies to foster an “integrated digital ecosystem” in which previously disparate sectors such as transition finance, private credit and emerging markets become more integrated.
“Digital financial platforms currently host tokenized U.S. Treasuries and structured credit products,” the report states. “Next year will see further acceleration in the use of new technologies and significant efficiency gains, but operational, regulatory and cyber risks will remain.”
The report also predicts increased use of tokenized issuance and programmable payments to increase efficiency, helping financial institutions accelerate liquidity turnover (converting assets into cash), while reducing reconciliation efforts and other costs.
Co-author Cristiano Ventricelli, vice president and senior analyst for digital assets at Moody's, reiterates that technologies are evolving: stable cointokenization and blockchain We are attempting to 'interconnect' previously separate financial sectors.
“Several institutions are moving towards adopting stablecoins for cross-border payments and liquidity management, bridging digital and traditional finance,” he said. decryption. “Meanwhile, asset tokenization is gaining momentum, making it easier and more cost-effective to issue and trade assets, opening up new opportunities in markets that were previously difficult to access.”
Overall, Ventricelli suggested that blockchain-based technology is already streamlining traditional financial processes and will be the impetus for more financial institutions and service companies to deploy their own solutions.
He predicted, “As these innovations mature, markets will increasingly compete for the strength and maturity of infrastructure layers that are not only secure and efficient, but also interoperable, enable seamless integration with existing financial systems, and narrow the gap between old and new financial models.”
Fragmentation of regulations
While the report declares that digital finance has entered a “new phase” in 2026, Ventricelli acknowledged that some key challenges could slow progress.
“One of the biggest factors is the lack of harmonized regulation across countries. This has led to infrastructure fragmentation and institutions to be cautious about introducing new digital products at scale,” he explained.
While some regions, particularly the EU with the MiCA regulation, have achieved regulatory harmonization, other regions are more fragmented and different systems are less likely to work together.
He added that for Ventricelli, this increases operational risk and reduces the liquidity of digital assets, while increased adoption could increase the risk of cyberattacks, at least in the short term.
There is little doubt that mainstream financial adoption of blockchain-based technology is growing, as evidenced by recent ETF filings and launches, such as CoinShares' annual report revealing that digital funds attracted more than $47 billion in investments last year.
However, Moody's argues that if these trends are to continue and grow, strong infrastructure and broad participation are needed.
“Without clear cross-border cooperation and regulatory clarity, these benefits may not be fully realized and the overall growth of digital finance may be limited,” Ventricelli said.
