In the evolving world of digital finance, Big Four consultancy EY has set its sights on what it sees as the next defining frontier: wallets.
EY principal Mark Nicholls said wallets are quickly becoming a key interface in the next era of financial services, and not just a vehicle for holding cryptocurrencies.
“The wallet is the strategy,” Nichols, co-head of the firm’s digital asset advisory practice, told CoinDesk. “Whoever owns the wallet, whoever provides the wallet wins the customer relationship.”
Nichols and his West Coast counterpart Rebecca Cavate see wallets as more than just infrastructure. He said that in a world where financial instruments from payments to private credit are increasingly moving on-chain, they are the gateway to store, transfer and manage tokenized value.
More than just custody: wallets are the center of tokenized finance
The view is vast. Far from being a niche utility for cryptocurrency enthusiasts, wallets are becoming the connective tissue of a broader tokenized financial system. Kavat, co-leader of Ernst & Young’s digital asset advisory practice, said wallets will soon become an integral part of retail investors, asset managers, treasurers and even commercial banks.
“They will be the access point for everything — payments, tokenized assets and stablecoins,” she said.
EY’s view positions wallets as the new bank accounts of the future, with services suitable not only for individuals but also for businesses and institutional investors that require complex integration with risk systems, compliance tools and real-time capital flows.
The implication is clear: whoever controls the wallet controls the relationship. For financial institutions that have already lost out to crypto-native platforms, this shift is existential.
Beyond Liquidity: The Real Promise of Tokenization
The broader shift toward tokenization is often framed as being for liquidity, but EY believes this narrative understates the true impact. “It’s not just a liquidity issue,” Nichols said. “Liquidity is not the most important thing, but the utility brought by on-chain finance.”
What EY sees is the emergence of blockchain as a real-time infrastructure for financial markets, allowing for programmable transaction chains and fundamentally reshaping how capital is managed. Of course, tokenization enables atomic settlement, but its real power lies in profit optimization and operational efficiency.
Nichols noted that companies could use stablecoins or tokenized assets to meet margin calls more frequently and more accurately. This in turn lowers initial margin requirements, freeing up capital for investment. “It’s about better risk adjustment and real-time capital management,” he said. “And the wallet becomes the gateway to achieve that.”
A decade in the field: EY’s deep crypto workbench
While some companies are racing to catch up, EY has been in the digital asset space for more than 12 years. Its early investments in crypto-native audit and compliance practices now span thousands of professionals, supporting everything from hedge fund tax filings to tokenized M&A advisory.
“We’ve worked with a variety of client groups — large banks, asset managers, exchanges, digital natives, infrastructure providers,” Nichols said. “And has been working in the digital asset ecosystem for over a decade.”
EY’s hedge fund audit practice was one of the first to embrace cryptocurrencies, and its advisory team helps companies prepare for public listings and complex regulatory environments. The company develops customized services for wallet monitoring, on-chain compliance, and token-native tax reporting. It also continues to advise traditional financial institutions on how to design secure, compliant digital asset strategies, particularly as they begin to develop or integrate wallet infrastructure.
A wallet for everyone: a segment-by-segment view
EY is well aware that wallets do not have one-size-fits-all needs. Consumers expect a seamless user experience and secure access to payments and cryptocurrencies. Businesses need to integrate with finance functions and regulatory compliance across jurisdictions. Institutional clients require secure custody, connectivity to decentralized finance (DeFi) and staking products, and embedded risk tools.
EY believes that self-custody will not become mainstream. The average user or organization doesn’t want to manage their own private keys. Instead, trusted wallet providers, banks, fintechs or specialist custodians will emerge; each tailoring their offerings to the niche they serve.
Then, configuring your wallet becomes a strategic imperative. Whether companies choose to build their own, acquire a provider, or form a partnership, wallets are the new front door to financial services. Companies that take action now will reduce customer acquisition costs in the future and have a stronger position in the digital asset ecosystem.
Regulation: a catalyst, not a barrier
One of the most enduring beliefs about tokenization is that regulation is a hindrance. But EY leaders disagree. “We have the regulatory framework in place in our core markets and, together with the wider industry, the passage of market structure legislation will help address remaining issues,” Nicholls said. “Securities are securities, commodities are commodities. Blockchain is technology.”
In the United States, the GENIUS Act and existing Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) exemptions provide pathways for compliant tokenized products. Across the globe, jurisdictions are racing to attract digital asset innovation through evolving licensing regimes. While coordination is still ongoing, the momentum is clear.
EY sees this moment as a call to maturity and an inflection point for infrastructure’s vision to catch up. “We’re past the experimental stage,” Kavat said. “The focus now is on secure, scalable implementation.”
Rethinking asset management from the ground up
Perhaps the impact of tokenization and wallet infrastructure is more profound than asset management. Currently, a typical fund requires a distribution network, investment team, custodian, fund manager and regulatory reporting channels. Through tokenization and smart contracts, much of the stack becomes programmable and potentially obsolete.
“Asset managers just want to build great portfolios,” Nichols said. “Blockchain allows them to do that without all the legacy friction.”
By tokenizing the fund’s underlying assets and embedding logic into smart contracts, asset managers can automate functions such as allocation, compliance and reporting. This opens the door to lower fees, wider investor access and new types of products, particularly in private credit and alternatives where cost has historically been a barrier.
“From the unbanked to the unbanked, we’re seeing more and more people gain access to assets that were previously inaccessible,” Kavat said. “This is powerful.”
The future of finance is on the chain
Whether it’s cryptocurrencies, payments or tokenized assets, wallets will become the gateway to a new financial reality. Companies that ignore this risk becoming obsolete. Those who embrace it will own the infrastructure and customer relationships at the heart of digital finance.
“The future of finance is on-chain,” Nichols said. “And the wallet is the center of it.”
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