69% of Institutions Are Prioritizing Digital Asset Trading: EY and Coinbase Say the Planning Phase Is Over

A survey of 351 institutional firms conducted by EY-Parthenon and Coinbase shows 69% prioritizing digital asset trading capabilities over the next two years, 68% focused on custody, and 67% on asset tokenization, with the three leading priorities separated by just two percentage points and all clustering above two thirds of respondents.

What the Survey Data Shows

The seven-category breakdown reveals a clear two-tier structure in how institutions are approaching digital asset capability development. The top three priorities, trading at 69%, custody at 68%, and asset tokenization at 67%, form a tightly clustered group that represents the foundational infrastructure layer. Building the ability to trade, secure, and tokenize digital assets are the three capabilities without which none of the others are possible.

The second tier drops significantly. Stablecoin-denominated trading sits at 38%, staking and yield management at 34%, DeFi connectivity at 21%, and lending at 14%. The gap between the top three and the next category is 29 percentage points. That gap reflects the difference between infrastructure that institutions consider essential and capabilities they view as optional or early-stage for their current planning horizon.

The 89% custody priority finding from the Ripple survey covered in earlier reporting this week aligns with the EY-Coinbase data. Two independent surveys of institutional participants, conducted separately and published in the same week, both identify custody as a top-tier priority. When data from different methodologies converges on the same conclusion, the signal is more reliable than either source alone.

What the Clustering at the Top Means

Trading, custody, and tokenization at 69%, 68%, and 67% respectively are not three separate priorities. They are one integrated build. An institution cannot trade digital assets without custody infrastructure to hold them. It cannot tokenize assets without the trading infrastructure to create liquid markets for the tokenized products. The three capabilities are architecturally interdependent, and the survey data reflects that interdependence. Institutions are not choosing between them. They are building all three simultaneously.

The tokenization figure is the most forward-looking of the three. Trading and custody capabilities exist and can be purchased or licensed from established providers today. Asset tokenization at scale requires new infrastructure, new legal frameworks, and new market conventions that are still being built. The 67% prioritization rate for tokenization reflects institutions making two-year planning commitments to a capability that the market is still defining in real time.

As covered across this week’s reporting, the institutional tokenization infrastructure is developing rapidly. Amundi launched a tokenized mutual fund on Base. The SEC approved tokenized equity trading on Nasdaq. The T-REX Network launched a compliance-native ledger on Polygon. Coinbase launched a tokenized Bitcoin yield fund. Each of those developments reduces the infrastructure risk for institutions planning tokenization capabilities over the next two years.

The Lower Tier and What It Signals

The 38% stablecoin-denominated trading priority is lower than the top three but still represents more than a third of surveyed institutions. That figure will likely increase as the Senate stablecoin bill, which reached an agreement in principle on the yield question this week, moves toward a final vote and provides the regulatory clarity that institutions need before building stablecoin-denominated trading infrastructure at scale.

DeFi connectivity at 21% and lending at 14% reflect the furthest edges of institutional appetite in the current environment. Those numbers are not zero. More than one in five surveyed institutions is actively prioritizing DeFi connectivity over the next two years. That is a meaningful adoption signal for a category that was considered purely retail-facing two years ago. It is also the category furthest from the regulatory clarity that the top three priorities now enjoy following the SEC and CFTC joint guidance issued this week.

The EY-Parthenon and Coinbase framing is direct. Institutions are entering execution mode. The planning discussions that dominated institutional crypto conversations in 2024 and 2025 are being replaced by capability development roadmaps with specific two-year targets. The survey is a snapshot of where that execution is being directed.

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