Crypto’s institutional chapter is no longer about belief or experimentation - it is about dependency. That is the underlying message emerging from new research by PwC, which argues that large financial institutions have integrated blockchain-based systems so deeply that rolling them back would now be disruptive to everyday operations.
In PwC’s view, crypto has crossed a structural threshold: it is no longer something institutions can simply walk away from.
Key Takeaways
PwC says crypto is now embedded in core financial operations and can’t easily be unwound.
Stablecoins are moving money behind the scenes across payments and settlements.
Institutions are shifting from pilots to full-scale deployment.
Finance is already running on crypto rails
Rather than framing crypto as a market or an asset class, PwC treats it as infrastructure. The firm says banks, asset managers, and payment companies are increasingly using blockchain tools to move cash, settle transactions, and manage liquidity – often without customers even realizing it.
Stablecoins and tokenized cash equivalents now sit inside treasury workflows, internal transfers, and cross-border payment flows. These systems do not replace traditional finance on the surface; they run underneath it. That makes them harder to spot, but also far harder to remove once they become operationally critical.
PwC’s core argument is simple: institutions can exit a trade, but they cannot easily rip out systems that are embedded in their balance-sheet management and payment plumbing.
The industry debate has shifted
This perspective is no longer limited to consultants. Executives operating inside the system are increasingly saying the same thing. At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Jeremy Allaire, head of Circle, described a clear transition underway across global banking.
According to Allaire, the discussion inside institutions has moved on from “should we use stablecoins?” to “how fast can we deploy them?” He pointed to steady, compounding growth as banks push stablecoins beyond pilot programs and into live production environments, particularly for payments and settlements.
What makes this shift notable is where the activity is happening. Stablecoin volumes are increasingly flowing through established networks such as Visa and Mastercard, blurring the line between traditional card rails and blockchain-based money movement.
Blockchains move out of the lab
This operational turn is also reflected in long-term investment research. ARK Invest has reached a similar conclusion in its Big Ideas 2026 outlook, describing public blockchains as entering a deployment phase rather than an experimental one.
ARK argues that stablecoins and digital wallets now function as connective tissue between legacy finance and onchain systems. Instead of forcing institutions to choose sides, these tools allow banks and payment firms to migrate activity onto blockchain rails incrementally, driven by efficiency rather than ideology.
As a result, blockchain usage is expanding not through disruption, but through quiet integration.
Why this matters
Taken together, these signals point to a critical inflection point. Crypto’s institutional role is no longer about market cycles or speculative demand. It is about core financial functions that institutions rely on daily.
That changes the regulatory and strategic conversation entirely. If crypto systems are already embedded in payments, settlements, and treasury operations, the question is no longer whether they belong in finance. The real issue becomes how regulators, banks, and policymakers manage infrastructure that is already intertwined with the global financial system.
In that sense, PwC’s warning is less about the future and more about the present. Crypto may already be too integrated to unwind – not because institutions are committed to it philosophically, but because too much of modern finance is starting to depend on it.
