• Carl Grimstad, CEO at Lydian


• 11.03.2026 12:30 pm
#DigitalAssets #CryptoRegulation

The signing of the GENIUS Act in July 2025 was widely hailed as the regulatory green light the digital assets sector had long awaited. Meanwhile, In the UK, the FCA’s legislative framework is now moving into its final consultation phase, signalling a clear path for digital assets to integrate with traditional finance.

Legal clarity is a necessary first step for institutional confidence, but it does not make digital assets ready for everyday use. For merchants, the last mile of adoption is still out of reach. What is needed is practical infrastructure that allows digital assets to move smoothly from wallets and exchanges into real-world payments. Without these systems in place, digital assets remain largely speculative, and businesses cannot easily use them for everyday commerce.

The multi-ledger reality

The finance industry is at a crossroads, divided between two very different trends. On one side, banks such as JPMorgan Chase, Lloyds, and NatWest are tokenising commercial assets to improve interbank efficiency and streamline treasury management. These systems run on permissioned, closed networks built for internal banking operations. 

On the other side, hundreds of millions of consumers worldwide are holding public digital assets in private wallets, aiming to use them for everyday transactions. The result is a fragmented ecosystem, where value exists across disconnected networks, each with its own rules and settlement processes. For merchants, this creates a major challenge. Businesses must navigate a tangle of incompatible systems, leaving them effectively cut off from the $4 trillion digital asset economy.

The orchestration gap

Success is not about slapping a Web3 label on old payment rails or digitising existing banking inefficiencies. What is needed is a standardised orchestration layer that acts as a universal translator, allowing the existing payment ecosystem to handle digital assets naturally and reliably.

The real challenge is building infrastructure that works the way people actually pay. Merchants can accept digital assets at the consumer level without requiring anyone to change their habits, providing an experience that mirrors traditional payments while remaining faster, safer and more cost-effective.

For digital assets to reach everyday use, this layer must be built to tackle the practical hurdles of foreign exchange and volatility. It will need to allow any digital asset from any wallet to settle instantly in local currency, removing the complexity that has stalled adoption. Once in place, it could turn digital assets from a speculative curiosity into a reliable tool for global commerce.

Greater financial inclusion

The use of digital assets for everyday transactions is expanding, and it is doing more than driving technological change. It is helping people gain access to financial services across the world. Around 1.4 billion people remain unbanked, with limited access to basic financial tools. In many emerging markets, digital assets are being adopted alongside traditional finance, providing new ways to send remittances, save, and make cross-border payments.

In the Philippines, around 15% of the population now holds digital assets, with stablecoins widely used for remittances and mobile payments. Nigeria ranks among the world’s most active crypto markets, where stablecoins are used for transfers, small payments, and business transactions. In Brazil, stablecoin adoption is growing for payments and cross-border transfers, although everyday retail use is still limited. Together, these examples show how digital assets are starting to complement traditional financial systems, bridging gaps in access and efficiency and illustrating their potential to become part of everyday life.

From speculation to spend

The proposed US Clarity Act and the UK FCA’s framework offer hope for greater policy certainty, but the focus now needs to move to the underlying payment rails. Regulation sets out what is allowed, but it is infrastructure that determines what is actually possible.

To move digital assets from a speculative asset class to an everyday checkout mechanism, we must build rails that work for everyone, everywhere. Only when infrastructure aligns with regulatory ambition will digital assets evolve from a financial curiosity into a standardised layer of the global economy.