Digital Finance Will Evolve Into ‘Foundational Infrastructure Layer’ in 2026: Moody’s

The technology underlying digital assets will evolve into a “foundational infrastructure layer” for the financial services industry in 2026, according to a new report from rating agency Moody’s.

Writing in its 2026 Digital Finance Outlook, Moody’s predicts that blockchain-based tech will have a growing impact this year on the capital allocation and market operations of traditional financial firms.

Affirming that stablecoins and tokenized assets attracted adoption in payments and liquidity management in 2025, the report goes on to highlight this year’s likely trends in the evolution and adoption of digital assets.

This includes the use of blockchains and other new tech to foster a “unified digital ecosystem” in which formerly disparate sectors—such as transition finance, private credit and emerging markets—will become more integrated.

“Digital finance platforms now host tokenized US Treasurys and structured credit products,” the report says. “Use of the new technology will pick up further in the coming year, and will highlight efficiency gains, although operational, regulatory, and cyber risks remain.”

The report also forecasts the increasing use of tokenized issuance and programmable settlement in order to provide efficiency gains, helping financial institutions to accelerate liquidity turnover (converting assets into cash), while also reducing reconciliation work and lowering other costs.

Co-author Cristiano Ventricelli, VP-Senior Analyst of Digital Assets at Moody’s, reiterates that evolving technologies such as stablecoins, tokenization and blockchains are going to “interconnect” areas of finance that were once separate.

“Several institutions are positioning to adopt stablecoins for cross-border payments and liquidity management, helping to bridge digital and traditional finance,” he told Decrypt. “Meanwhile, asset tokenization is gaining traction, making it easier and more cost-effective to issue and trade assets, and opening up new opportunities in markets that were previously hard to access.”

Overall, Ventricelli suggested that blockchain-based technology is already streamlining traditional financial processes, something which will provide impetus for more financial institutions and service firms to roll out their own solutions.

He predicted, “As these innovations mature, the markets will increasingly compete on the strength and maturity of their infrastructure layers that are not only secure and efficient but also highly interoperable, allowing for seamless integration with existing financial systems and narrowing the gap between old and new finance models.”

Regulatory fragmentation

While the report declares that digital finance has entered “a new phase” as we enter 2026, Ventricelli also accepts that progress could be slowed down by several key challenges.

“One of the biggest is the lack of harmonized regulations across countries, which leads to fragmented infrastructure and makes institutions cautious about adopting new digital products at scale,” he explained.

While some areas–most notably the EU with its MiCA regulation–have been harmonising on regulation, fragmentation elsewhere makes it less likely that different systems will be able to work together.

And for Ventricelli, this increases operational risks and makes digital assets less liquid, while he adds that rising adoption may, at least in the shorter term, increase the risk of cyberattacks.

There’s little doubt that mainstream financial adoption of blockchain-based technology is growing, as evidenced by recent ETF filings and launches, for example, with CoinShares’ annual report revealing that digital funds attracted over $47 billion in investment last year.

But if such trends are to continue and broaden, Moody’s argues that strong infrastructure and broad participation is required.

Ventricelli said, “Without clear cross-border cooperation and regulatory clarity, these advantages may not be fully realized, and the overall growth of digital finance could be limited.”