Executives at Ondo Finance, Robinhood-owned Bitstamp and Babylon Labs say Wall Street’s long-anticipated migration into cryptocurrency is no longer a theory. However, institutional adoption remains slower and more fragmented than many in the industry once expected.
Executives describe the financial industry’s growing adoption of blockchain rails, tokenized securities and crypto-native income products in “Are the Wall Street Herds Still Coming?” 2026 Miami Consensus Conference Panel.
“I think it’s clear that Wall Street is moving toward cryptocurrencies,” Ondo President Ian De Bode said, pointing to recent collaborations with Broadridge and the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC) to tokenize securities and enable blockchain-based shareholder voting.
Robinhood’s Nicola White said conversations with banks have changed dramatically in the past two years. “We no longer talk about what blockchain is,” she said. “The question now is, how do we help them build?”
Panelists highlighted that cryptocurrency infrastructure has improved over traditional finance in terms of settlement speed and market access. De Bode noted that Ondo’s tokenized Treasury product allows investors to mint and redeem positions over the weekend while earning daily returns, an ability that remains largely unattainable in traditional currency markets.
“That in itself, as a value prop, is exciting for a lot of people at TradFi,” he said.
Nonetheless, speakers acknowledged that institutional adoption remains limited by traditional financial infrastructure and regulation. White said banks continue to develop crypto products cautiously while waiting for clearer regulatory guidance.
“None of the traditional financial Wall Street firms we spoke to said they weren’t considering it,” she said.
Boris Alergant of Babylon Labs believes that institutions are increasingly focusing on capital efficiency and not just Bitcoin price appreciation. He said Babylon’s Bitcoin-backed lending product is designed to allow investors to borrow against native Bitcoin holdings without having to relinquish custody through a wrapped asset or centralized intermediary.
The group also highlighted the growing divide between the regulated U.S. market and the offshore crypto ecosystem. Debord said permissionless innovation in decentralized finance is likely to continue to flourish outside the United States even as banks adopt more controlled blockchain-based systems domestically.
“I don’t think everything that happens overseas will find a home in the United States,” he said.
Despite their differences, panelists generally agreed that the two systems will eventually converge as institutional capital and cryptocurrency-native liquidity deepen.
