Fintech Giants Go All-In on Crypto: “2026 Is Going to Be Massive”
After years of cautious observation, major fintech companies are making decisive moves into cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. From payment giants to neobanks, the message is clear: digital assets are no longer experimentalâthey’re foundational infrastructure for the future of finance.
The Momentum Is Undeniable
“2026 is going to be massive,” declared Leonid Bashlykov, crypto head of product at Revolut, when discussing the neobank’s plans. This sentiment echoes across the fintech landscape as companies that once hesitated are now racing to integrate crypto capabilities.
Having muscled into digital assets during 2025, fintech firms operating at the intersection of crypto and traditional finance are strengthening their hold on the $3 trillion market. The shift represents more than opportunistic expansionâit’s a fundamental rethinking of financial infrastructure.
Stablecoins Process $9 Trillion Annually
Stablecoins processed $9 trillion in payments during 2025, an 87% increase from 2024. This explosive growth positions dollar-denominated cryptocurrencies as serious competition for traditional correspondent banking systems.
Small and medium businesses in emerging markets across Latin America and the Middle East/Africa are increasingly bypassing local currency volatility by settling B2B invoices directly in stablecoins over layer-2 blockchains. Settlement times drop from three days to three secondsâa transformational difference for international commerce.
The trend has profound implications for traditional banking infrastructure and foreign exchange markets. Businesses can conduct international transactions without touching the conventional financial system, reducing costs and increasing speed while maintaining dollar stability.
Regulatory Clarity Unlocks Investment
The GENIUS Act, establishing federal stablecoin regulation in July 2025, provided the framework the industry desperately needed. Under the law taking effect January 2027, only permitted entitiesâlicensed depository institutions like banks or credit unions, plus approved nonbanksâcan issue stablecoins.
Requirements include 1:1 backing of reserves in short-term treasuries or currency, compliance with KYC/AML rules, and monthly disclosure of reserve composition. Tether, which issues USDT (the largest stablecoin by market cap), plans to comply by issuing a new compliant stablecoin while bringing USDT into compliance over time.
Europe’s Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation, now fully applicable across member states, has similarly catalyzed institutional adoption. Financial institutions and fintech companies are pursuing tokenization opportunities with renewed vigor within clear regulatory boundaries.
PayPal’s Bold Reinvention
PayPal CEO Alex Chriss is aggressively integrating blockchain solutions across the $56 billion payment giant. Speaking to Fortune in December, Chriss explained the push comes as the 30-year-old company must reinvent itself for relevance in an ever-changing world.
“If you were to build the payments ecosystem from scratch today, it wouldn’t look like the way it does today,” Chriss stated. This perspective is driving wholesale rethinking of PayPal’s architecture around blockchain-native capabilities.
The company is betting that distributed ledger technology will become the foundation for next-generation payment railsâfaster, cheaper, and more transparent than existing systems.
Stripe Launches Tempo Blockchain
Stripe is expected to roll out Tempo, its highly anticipated layer 1 blockchain, in 2026 following December’s launch on public testnet. It’s a bold move for the $106 billion fintech firm, which revealed crypto ambitions in 2024 through a $1.1 billion acquisition of stablecoin startup Bridge.
Collaboration with venture capital firm Paradigm to launch Tempo puts Stripe in direct competition with layer 1s like Ethereum and Solana. While the mainnet launch date remains unconfirmed, Stripe is building partnerships to bolster the platform.
Current partners include Anthropic, Coupang, Deutsche Bank, DoorDash, Lead Bank, Mercury, Nubank, OpenAI, Revolut, Shopify, Standard Chartered, Visa, and Klarna. This roster of major financial institutions and technology companies signals serious industry interest in Stripe’s blockchain vision.
Klarna’s Dramatic Reversal
Perhaps the most striking pivot comes from Klarna, the $11 billion buy-now-pay-later company that firmly rejected cryptocurrency in 2022. CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski’s November announcement was refreshingly direct: “We were wrong on crypto and on Bitcoin, must rethink!”
Klarna is launching KlarnaUSD, a stablecoin currently in testing and scheduled for mainnet launch in 2026. It will roll out on Tempo, Stripe’s blockchain, creating interesting synergies between two major fintech players.
The reversal demonstrates how quickly industry consensus can shift when regulatory clarity emerges and use cases prove compelling.
Revolut Expands Crypto Team
The UK-headquartered neobank has 11 open positions related to crypto, including roles like crypto investigator and product marketing manager. The recruitment drive follows what Bashlykov described as a defining year that saw record hiring of top talent and securing a MiCA license.
Revolut’s aggressive expansion reflects confidence that crypto capabilities will differentiate neobanks in increasingly competitive markets. The company is positioning crypto not as ancillary feature but as core offering.
Robinhood’s Crypto Acceleration
“We’re taking that momentum into 2026 by building a faster, smarter, and more connected future for every investor,” said Johann Kerbrat, Robinhood’s crypto lead. The $109 billion company has nine open crypto roles listed.
First priority: unlocking fee-tier support for its crypto trading API in the U.S. Robinhood is also expected to launch its own prediction market after acquiring LedgerX in November, potentially displacing Kalshi from a product it helped establish.
Institutional Balance Sheet Adoption
Bitcoin has become a mainstream corporate asset, used both as long-term treasury allocation and as collateral. At least 172 publicly traded companies held Bitcoin in Q3 2025, up 40% quarter-over-quarter. In aggregate, these companies hold about one million BTCâroughly 5% of circulating supply.
The rise of digital-asset treasury companies represents another adoption vector. These firms treat crypto accumulation as core operating strategy rather than sidecar treasury allocation, providing investors alternative exposure without custody complexity.
The Tokenization Wave Begins
Asset tokenizationâconverting ownership rights over real estate, art, commodities, and bonds into digital tokens on blockchain systemsâis transitioning from pilot programs to production deployments.
In 2025, tokenized real-world assets reached approximately $24 billion in total value. According to Yahoo Finance analysis, the RWA tokenization market could reach $16 trillion by 2030. Debt instrumentsâcorporate bonds, government bonds, short-term securitiesâaccount for large shares of early tokenization, reflecting institutional comfort with familiar asset classes adapting to digital formats.
Big banks and asset managers are getting involved. BlackRock CEO Larry Fink has been particularly vocal about tokenization’s potential to democratize access to assets previously available only to institutions or high-net-worth individuals.
China’s e-CNY Milestone
China’s e-CNY became the world’s first interest-bearing central bank digital currency on January 1, 2026. While Western central banks remain cautious, the experiment demonstrates how monetary policy tools can integrate with digital infrastructure.
The European Central Bank’s digital euro pilots could begin in 2027, signaling that major economies are seriously exploring state-issued digital currencies even as they regulate private cryptocurrencies.
Infrastructure Investment Accelerates
Coinbase’s $2.9 billion acquisition of Deribit signals serious infrastructure investment by major players. Rather than speculation on individual cryptocurrencies, capital is flowing into platforms, custody solutions, and trading infrastructure that enable institutional participation.
Circle, Figure, and other blockchain-native companies launched successful IPOs, establishing valuation benchmarks and returning capital to limited partners. These offerings demonstrate that mature crypto infrastructure companies can perform like fintech or payments companies in public markets.
The Consumer App Opportunity
The next wave of consumer crypto apps will emerge at the intersection of fast transactions, invisible complexity, and autonomous capabilities. In 2026, breakout consumer applications won’t market themselves as “crypto”âthey’ll feel like modern fintech, with agents, stablecoin settlement, and provenance running quietly under the hood.
User experience improvements are making blockchain-based applications indistinguishable from traditional fintech apps. As UX barriers fall, blockchain adoption can accelerate among users who neither know nor care about underlying technologyâthey just want services that work better than alternatives.
Challenges Remain
Despite momentum, significant challenges persist. Volatility in crypto prices during late 2025 created wait-and-see mentality among some investors. Climate tech advocates argue that energy-intensive proof-of-work systems remain problematic even as proof-of-stake alternatives gain traction.
Security concerns continue. High-profile hacks and exploits remind users that blockchain’s immutability means mistakes are permanent. Education around self-custody, private key management, and security best practices remains essential.
The Fintech Transformation
The movement of major fintech companies into crypto represents more than incremental feature additions. It’s recognition that blockchain technology offers fundamental improvements over legacy financial infrastructure in specific use cases.
Instant settlement, transparency, programmability, and global accessibility make blockchain compelling for cross-border payments, tokenized assets, and transparent audit trails. The question isn’t whether fintech integrates cryptoâit’s how quickly and how comprehensively.
For consumers and businesses, the integration promises faster, cheaper, and more accessible financial services. For traditional financial institutions, it represents competitive pressure to modernize or risk displacement.
2026 appears poised to validate Bashlykov’s prediction: it’s going to be massive. The foundations are laid, regulatory frameworks exist, and major players are committed. The crypto-fintech convergence is no longer comingâit’s here.