Overview
- Monica Long forecasts roughly half of Fortune 500 companies will formalize crypto strategies by year-end 2026, with corporate holdings potentially exceeding $1 trillion in digital assets.
- She cites stablecoins as the core for settlement, noting integrations by Visa and Stripe and a B2B transaction run-rate of about $76 billion in 2024 after starting below $100 million per month in early 2023.
- Long projects 5% to 10% of capital markets settlements could move onchain, highlighting collateral mobility as a leading early use case.
- Consolidation is expected to accelerate around custody after an estimated $8.6 billion in industry M&A during 2025, with more than half of the top 50 global banks anticipated to establish new custody partnerships this year.
- Ripple’s conditional OCC approval to pursue a national trust bank and its RLUSD stablecoin strategy are presented as part of the compliance-led infrastructure supporting institutional payments, alongside forecasts for blockchain–AI automation in treasury operations.