Giants Go On-Chain: How Wall Street, Regulators and Industry Giants Are Moving into Crypto

Introduction

Two Snapshots

The first snapshot was taken in 2017. BlackRock’s Larry Fink called bitcoin an “index of money laundering.” JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon called bitcoin a “fraud.” America’s bank regulators kept warning banks to stay away from the crypto industry. In 2023, Silvergate and Signature, the two banks most concentrated in serving the crypto industry, collapsed within a single week, and crypto companies in the United States could barely open a bank account.

The second snapshot was taken in the fall of 2026. BlackRock’s bitcoin ETF is the fastest-growing ETF in history, and BlackRock also manages $65 billion in reserves for stablecoin issuers. JPMorgan has put a deposit token on Ethereum. Morgan Stanley has launched its own bitcoin ETF. Schwab has started selling bitcoin. Visa settles in USDC at an annualized $25 billion. The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) has connected $114 trillion in assets under custody to a blockchain. Twenty-one international financial institutions are preparing to issue a stablecoin together.

Less than a decade separates the two snapshots. The real turn happened in just two years, 2025 and 2026.

Where the Turn Came From

Three forces drove this turn.

First, the rules changed. In July 2025, the United States signed its first federal stablecoin law, the GENIUS Act. That same year, the accounting rule weighing on banks’ custody business was rescinded, regulators withdrew the guidance that had discouraged banks from touching crypto, and the SEC approved generic listing standards for crypto ETFs. Only once the rules were clear would the compliance departments of large institutions give the green light. The EU, Hong Kong, Japan, the UK and Singapore also finished writing their own rules over these two years.

Second, stablecoins grew up. Stablecoins worldwide total about $297 billion, more than 99% of it pegged to the dollar. Behind them sit hundreds of billions of dollars in short-term Treasuries and cash reserves, generating more than $10 billion in interest every year. This is real money, a “float,” and whoever captures it gains a steady business.

Third, the giants saw a threat. Stablecoins could pull deposits out of banks. Tokenization could bypass exchanges and custodians. On-chain payments could bypass correspondent banks and card networks. Rather than wait for someone else to take their business, the giants decided to move first.

Put the three forces together and you get the subject of this book: the giants going on-chain.

The Book’s Core Judgment

Many people read the changes of these two years as “traditional finance embracing crypto.” This book takes a different view:

The giants did not embrace crypto. They plugged crypto into their own pipes. The clearer the rules, the bigger the advantage for large institutions that have licenses, balance sheets and distribution.

The book returns again and again to three patterns. I call them “the Three Laws of Giants Going On-Chain”:

1. Wrappers get cheap; pipes hold the value. Bitcoin ETF fees fell by 90% in two years. What is really valuable is reserve management, settlement and custody.
2. Issuing a coin is hardest; accepting one is easiest. Most coins issued by giants with licenses and users of their own never take off. Those that don’t issue, and simply accept coins, grow faster.
3. The fight over interest decides the map. The line that says stablecoins may not pay interest determines where banks, asset managers, payment companies and issuers each end up.

How to Read This Book

The book has twelve chapters, organized by “who is stepping in”:

• Chapters 1–2, the rules: America’s change of course, and the regulatory map around the world.
• Chapters 3–4, asset managers: the ETF is only the front door; why tokenized funds are sold only to institutions.
• Chapters 5–6, banks: how deposit tokens defend the balance sheet; why banks band together to issue coins.
• Chapters 7–8, markets: how DTCC, the exchanges and CME are connecting their infrastructure to the chain; why every broker has started selling crypto.
• Chapters 9–10, payments and industry: card networks put stablecoins into their back end; why tech and retail giants don’t issue coins.
• Chapter 11, treasuries: why the premium on Strategy and the bitcoin treasury companies disappeared.
• Chapter 12, conclusion: who wins, who loses, and how ordinary people should read it all.

Every chapter opens with a specific event, offers a judgment framework you can name, performs a “post-mortem” on a real case, and ends with three questions you can put to use right away. Each chapter can be read on its own, but read in order, you will see the same thread running all the way through.

About the Data

This book was written in early November 2026. Most of its data runs to late October or early November 2026. On-chain data was pulled on the day from public sources such as DefiLlama, CoinGecko and RWA.xyz; company data comes from financial reports, press releases and regulatory filings. Each chapter lists its sources at the end; the few items that rest only on secondary sources are flagged there too.

The crypto industry moves fast. The specific numbers in this book will go out of date, but I hope its judgment frameworks will not. The next time you see a giant announce that it is “going on-chain,” start with three questions: Is it earning a wrapper fee or a pipe fee? Is it issuing a coin or accepting one? And who ends up with the interest?

This book does not predict coin prices and does not recommend any asset. What it wants to help you see clearly is this: in the merging of traditional finance and the crypto world, how money and power are being redistributed.

Data and Sources

All figures in this introduction come from later chapters; see the end of each chapter for sources. Fink’s 2017 “index of money laundering” and Dimon’s 2017 “fraud” remarks are widely reported public statements.