Traditional financial firms are rapidly embracing crypto, marking a turning point for an industry that once viewed digital assets as a threat. “Nearly all traditional financial services companies are gonna offer crypto, bitcoin, ethereum to their customers,” David Ripley, the co-CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, told Axios on Tuesday. Ripley called this “a big story of 2026.”
The long-running rivalry between Wall Street and crypto is disappearing, with banks and brokerages responding to demand from retail investors, institutions and wealthy clients. A collision of mega-trends — AI, stablecoins, tokenization and extended-hours trading — is pushing financial markets in the same direction, according to Ripley.
Ripley noted that the rise of stablecoins has shown investors are willing to own blockchain-based versions of traditional assets. He expects publicly traded stocks to be next, suggesting a broader shift toward tokenized securities. Investing is becoming more accessible to average Americans, with more assets available to trade and fewer limits on when they can trade them.
If this trend accelerates, traditional intermediaries could face margin compression as crypto-native platforms compete for the same customers. Yet regulatory uncertainty remains a wildcard, and not all financial institutions have moved beyond pilot programs. The pace of adoption will depend on how quickly regulators clarify rules around custody, trading and tokenization.
The convergence of AI, stablecoins and extended-hours trading creates new operational risks that firms will need to manage carefully. Ripley’s prediction that publicly traded stocks will eventually be tokenized raises questions about market structure and investor protection.