Blockchain technology is moving into a new phase in financial services as early applications win converts, new applications create opportunities for wider adoption, and new regulations clear up uncertainty that had kept some major players on the sidelines.
Data from the fifth annual Broadridge Digital Transformation & Next-Gen Technology study show that nearly three-quarters (71%) of financial service firms are making major investments in blockchain and distributed ledger technologies (DLT) this year—up from 59% in 2024. Almost half (48%) of study participants agree there will be significant adoption of blockchain/general ledger in capital markets over the next several years.
These findings point to a surge of investment and use in blockchain and distributed ledger technology. In my view, this surge does not represent a sudden or unexpected spike in growth. Rather, a dramatic increase in investment and adoption would reflect a natural progression for a technology that has been evolving and maturing for more than a decade.
As part of that natural progression, three elements are coming together in 2025 that could accelerate the development and adoption of blockchain technology in capital markets and across financial services more broadly:
1.Track-record: Some of the earliest DLT-powered applications are now running at scale, and their successful track record is giving financial service firms confidence in the underlying technology;
2.Tokenization and Other Innovation: The emergence of tokenization as a viable vehicle over the past two years is creating new opportunities for companies and individuals to get involved;
3.Regulatory Clarity: Rule-makers in Europe and the United States are creating rules that eliminate some of the regulatory risk and uncertainty that kept many financial services firms on the sidelines.
Track record
Just five short years ago, most companies saw blockchain as a novel and unproven technology that had not been vetted for use in critical industries like financial services. Since then, several major DLT-powered platforms have achieved considerable success, attracting trillions of dollars in transaction volume without any serious setbacks. One of the most important examples is Broadridge’s Distributed Ledger Repo (DLR) platform, a blockchain-enabled solution that allows users to execute, and settle repo transactions digitally.
Since its pilot launch in 2021, average daily volumes on DLR have grown over 800%, processing more than $280 billion in average daily repo transactions during the month of August 2025 ($5.9T). The experience of watching a platform backed by an established financial services technology provider and used by many of the biggest names in the market to safely and seamlessly execute transactions at this scale has alleviated many of the industry’s doubts and concerns about blockchain/DLT, and given individual financial services firms more confidence to adopt and invest in the technology.
Tokenization and other innovation
The crypto world is never static. For more than a decade, creative individuals and companies have worked to improve underlying technology and apply blockchain and DLT technology to new use cases. While some of those might seem silly—like certain meme coins and fringe NFTs—others are in the process of transforming core functions and industries like payments, banking and capital markets.
The most important of these transformative innovations is tokenization, or the creation of digital representations of physical assets that can trade freely on blockchain platforms. Tokenization has already gained a foothold in over-the-counter markets like real estate, corporate bonds and even art, in which the conversion to digital assets can unlock precious liquidity. But the most impactful application by far has come in the form of stablecoins, digital currencies that maintain a consistent value by being pegged to some other external asset.
By backing stablecoins with holdings of U.S. Treasuries, issuers have essentially created a form of digital cash. Some of the largest banks and companies around the world are issuing billions of dollars’ worth of stablecoins that they use in treasury and cash management across international operations, eliminating the need for bank transactions and savings huge amounts in costs and fees.
It’s not only companies who are using stablecoins to move money around the world. Stablecoins are also on the verge of revolutionizing the global remittance market, in which individuals working abroad transfer funds to family back home. By come counts, these remittance payments are now closing in on $1 trillion per year. Traditionally, fees took a big cut out of these transfers—sometimes more than 6%. Stablecoins can bring those fees down to close to a penny per transaction, and make transferred funds available to the recipient instantly, as opposed to waiting for a traditional settlement process that often takes days.
The boom in stablecoins has occurred largely in the past 12 to 24 months. This rapid development and permeation illustrates how quickly a transformative blockchain application can take root. As the industry continues to innovate, there will be more and more opportunities for companies in capital markets, financial services and other industries to get involved.
Regulatory clarity
Since the debut of bitcoin in 2009, governments and regulators have struggled with the issue of how to treat crypto. A lack of regulatory clarity and differing interpretations by regulators across jurisdictions has been one of the main obstacles to institutional and large corporate participation. It’s important to note that the lack of a reliable regulatory framework did not impede the industry’s evolution—crypto has been growing, evolving and innovating despite uncertain and in cases skeptical treatment from regulators.
However, over the past several years, the emergence of a more consistent regulatory framework has started to alleviate lingering doubts. In 2023 and 2024, the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) Phases I and II established a comprehensive legal framework for crypto assets in the EU. In 2025 the GENIUS Act did much the same for the United States, and lawmakers are now debating potentially even more sweeping legislation in the form of the proposed CLARITY Act. Those steps, along with the arrival of what is perceived to be a “crypto-friendly” presidential administration in the United States, are reducing the regulatory risks and doubts traditionally associated with crypto, potentially opening the door to faster uptake and growth and an acceleration of the integration of crypto into “De-Fi” markets.
A new phase
It’s important to remember that all these positive trends are coming together at a time when blockchain technology’s penetration of capital markets, trade and transaction workflows, and investment portfolios remains extremely low. For example, despite the huge growth in transaction volumes on Broadridge’s DLR, the platform captures only a tiny sliver of the overall repo market and is still used by a relatively small number of market players. That single example illustrates the massive runway for growth ahead of blockchain/DLT in capital markets and financial services as the technology moves into the next phase of its evolution.
Read the article on Ledger Insights.
This Article was originally published on September 22, 2025.
