Stablecoins and tokenised cash are emerging as critical infrastructure for the next phase of institutional digital asset adoption, as traditional financial institutions move beyond experimentation towards commercial use cases.
That was a key takeaway from The Next Decade of Capital Markets, the opening panel discussion at the Capital Pioneer Digital Assets Summit.
Panellists agreed that the institutionalisation of tokenised markets will take time, but that the direction of travel is increasingly clear. Adoption will depend not only on overcoming technical and regulatory barriers, but on demonstrating compelling commercial use cases that can win institutional buy-in.
Nitin Gaur, senior advisor, financial institutions at Nethermind, highlighted the importance of developing the foundations to support greater scalability, including “resilient infrastructure” for tokenised markets.
Geoff Kendrick, global head of digital assets research at Standard Chartered, said banks also have a strong strategic incentive to engage with the technology. Part of that motivation is defensive: “If you don’t get in front of new technology… then you’re quite likely to get run over.”
Ronan Donohue, founder and managing director of Q4 Capital Advisors, said progress was moving faster than he had expected: “I think it’s moving a bit quicker than I expected it to.”
Risk management will also need to evolve alongside the technology. Andrew O’Neill, managing director and analytical lead on digital assets at S&P Global, noted that on-chain markets can allow risks to emerge much faster than conventional reporting cycles.
“Suddenly, we have to be able to monitor risk and react to risk in real time,” he said.
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This article was written by Rhotic Media‘s James Hetherington.
