Traditional Businesses And Crypto Adoption: What To Expect In 2026

In Brief

In 2025, traditional businesses shifted to integrating stablecoins and tokenized infrastructure as back-end payment and settlement tools, with 2026 adoption expected to focus on regulated, efficiency-driven use rather than holding volatile assets.

Traditional businesses have spent most of the past decade treating crypto as a reputational risk, a speculative asset, or just an experiment.

In 2025, that changed. It moved from “accept Bitcoin” to “use stablecoins,” and from “pilot a blockchain” to “integrate new rails that settle faster, run longer hours, and reduce cross-border friction.”

If 2026 brings more adoption from traditional companies, the evidence so far suggests it will be largely infrastructure adoption (crypto as a set of back-end payment and settlement tools) rather than a mass wave of public companies putting volatile tokens on their balance sheet.

The Big Shift

Payment networks and fintech platforms are increasingly positioning stablecoins as a way to move money with fewer constraints from banking hours and legacy correspondent systems.

Visa said this week it is expanding its stablecoin settlement pilot to the U.S., enabling U.S. issuers and acquirers to settle Visa obligations in USDC

Stripe, in the meantime, has been building stablecoin acceptance into its payments stack. In October, Stripe announced stablecoin payments for subscriptions, allowing customers to pay from crypto wallets while merchants settle in fiat through Stripe. Stripe’s current documentation and product materials describe stablecoin acceptance that can settle as fiat in a merchant’s Stripe balance.

PayPal has also been moving in this direction. In July 2025, PayPal announced “Pay with Crypto,” describing support for transactions across 100+ cryptocurrencies and instant conversion to stablecoin or fiat for merchants

All these taken together, these moves point to a specific type of “traditional adoption” that looks less like a merchant putting a Bitcoin logo on a checkout page, and more like payments companies letting businesses benefit from crypto rails while keeping treasury and accounting denominated in fiat.

What Regulation Changes in 2026

A lot of traditional adoption is gated by risk teams, auditors, and procurement. Regulatory timelines matter because they change whether a crypto integration is treated as an “edge case experiment” or a vendorable, documentable product.

In the EU, MiCA (Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation) entered into force in 2023, and applies in phases. ESMA notes the regulation entered into force in June 2023 and sits alongside a wider set of implementing measures. A legal brief summarizing the rollout describes stablecoin rules applying from June 30, 2024, and broader crypto-asset and service provider requirements applying from December 30, 2024.

That doesn’t mean “everything is solved.” It does mean more companies can point to a defined framework when they evaluate custody, stablecoin usage, and service providers, especially in compliance-heavy verticals like marketplaces, fintech, and cross-border commerce.

In the U.S., the GENIUS Act created a federal framework for “payment stablecoins,” with the official text published on Congress.gov. The White House fact sheet announcing its signing framed it as a regulatory step for digital assets. Regardless of how you feel about the messaging, the practical impact is that it gives compliance teams a clearer set of definitions to map to.

Where “Traditional Adoption” Is Most Likely to Show Up

The argument isn’t that stablecoins eliminate all costs. It’s that they can reduce certain frictions, especially when businesses can integrate them through large providers instead of running their own wallets.

Visa’s announcement is a good example of the “institutional wrapper.” Visa is describing USDC settlement inside its own rails, with named banking partners in the U.S. Stripe’s approach is similar: merchants can accept stablecoin payments without necessarily holding stablecoins on their balance sheet, because settlement can land as fiat in Stripe. PayPal also emphasized automatic conversion so merchants don’t have to take price exposure.

This is the adoption pattern that tends to scale: businesses get the “faster/always-on” benefits, while major intermediaries carry the operational burden of compliance, custody, and on/off-ramping.

Tokenization Is Moving From “Concept” to “Product”

Outside payments, 2025 has also brought a serious acceleration in tokenization of traditional financial instruments, especially money-market style products.

J.P. Morgan Asset Management announced this week the launch of its first tokenized money market fund, “My OnChain Net Yield Fund” (MONY), on a public blockchain, powered by its Kinexys Digital Assets platform.

This type of product is less about crypto culture and more about modernizing settlement and ownership transfer for familiar assets. J.P. Morgan’s own explainer describes tokenization as converting fund shares into digital tokens recorded on a blockchain, enabling functionality that traditional systems don’t support.

For traditional businesses, the “why” is simple: if tokenized cash equivalents become easier to access and integrate (and are offered through existing institutional relationships), it creates new options for treasury management and intraday liquidity.

But it’s also important not to overstate the short-term impact. These offerings are typically gated by investor eligibility, product restrictions, and jurisdictional rules

How Central Banks Are Treating Stablecoins

If there’s a tension running through 2026 expectations, it’s that the same stablecoins that improve cross-border money movement can also create policy and stability concerns.

The BIS, in its Annual Economic Report 2025, warned that stablecoins could pose financial stability risks as they grow, including tail risks related to the assets backing them.

The ECB has made similar points. In a Financial Stability Review “focus” box published in November 2025, the ECB said significant stablecoin growth could cause retail deposit outflows that reduce a key source of bank funding. And in a speech published just this week, ECB President Christine Lagarde described stablecoins as an alternative for cross-border payments while warning they come with risks for domestic currencies and financial systems, adding that dominance of dollar-based stablecoins could erode the international role of the euro.

This is important for “traditional adoption” because it decides what kind of stablecoin growth regulators will tolerate, and what kinds of requirements (reserves, disclosures, redemption rights, distribution controls) will be attached to mainstream usage.

It also connects to the broader policy push behind CBDCs. Reuters reported that the EU Council backed a negotiating stance for a digital euro with both online and offline functionality, with the ECB targeting a pilot in 2027 and deployment by 2029. Even if that timeline is outside 2026, the direction signals that European policymakers are not treating private stablecoins as a complete solution.

What Should You Do With This In 2026?

2026 will be less about “should we accept crypto?” and more about “which crypto-enabled rails reduce cost or time, without adding unacceptable risk?”

For companies evaluating adoption, the best-supported playbooks tend to start narrow:

Start With a Single Use Case Where the Upside Is Obvious

Cross-border supplier payments. Marketplace payouts. International contractor payroll. These are places where existing processes can be slow and fee-heavy, and where “settle faster” has measurable value.

Use Regulated Partners When Possible

The fastest path for many businesses is not building wallet infrastructure. It’s using payment networks and PSPs that already abstract custody, conversion, and compliance. Visa’s and Stripe’s positioning both show that enterprise preference.

Assume That Accounting and Taxes Will Be the Hard Part

Even when the transaction rail is easy, the control environment matters: vendor due diligence, incident response, reconciliation, counterparty risk, and auditability.

Treat “Tokenization” As a Structure

J.P. Morgan’s tokenized fund announcement is a reminder that a lot of short-term tokenization will happen in institutional channels first. Businesses should watch it like they’d watch payments modernization: as a potential new integration point, not as a consumer-facing campaign.