Fireblocks has released its 2026 report, The Financial Grid, highlighting a critical gap in institutional adoption of digital asset infrastructure. While 88% of financial institutions have committed or plan to commit budget to digital asset initiatives this year, only 16% have successfully reached full-scale production. This discrepancy underscores a fundamental industry challenge: strong conviction to invest exists, but execution remains constrained by technical and governance hurdles. The report identifies custody architecture and wallet governance as the primary bottlenecks preventing institutions from moving into production. These foundational decisions determine not only how digital assets are secured, but also which business models institutions can support and how quickly they can scale operations.
Fireblocks was founded in 2018 by Michael Shaulov, Idan Ofrat, and Pavel Berengoltz, emerging from the need to secure the movement and storage of digital assets in a rapidly growing but vulnerable ecosystem. Shaulov, previously co-founder of Lacoon Mobile Security, launched the company after observing the impact of high-profile exchange breaches. The platform has since evolved into a core infrastructure layer for digital finance, now supporting over 95 major banks and thousands of financial institutions globally. According to the report, adoption pressure is coming from both external and internal sources. Around 43% of institutions cite competition from fintechs and digital-native platforms as a key driver, while 76% identify other banks as a primary source of demand. This indicates a shift toward inter-bank use cases such as real-time settlement, collateral optimization, and cross-border payments, where digital asset infrastructure is becoming increasingly necessary.
A notable shift is also occurring within compliance and risk functions. Traditionally viewed as barriers to innovation, these departments are now driving adoption. The report shows that 96% of institutions expect a favorable regulatory environment, and in many cases, compliance teams are actively leading digital asset initiatives. This reflects a broader industry transition where regulatory clarity is beginning to act as an enabler rather than a constraint. Despite growing investment, only 15% of institutions currently consider their custody and wallet infrastructure to be production-ready. Fireblocks argues that this is not a capital issue, but a strategic sequencing challenge. Institutions that fail to establish the correct infrastructure early may face significant operational limitations and costly retrofits in areas such as regulatory reporting, which is currently underestimated by many players.
Fireblocks positions its platform as a foundational layer for what it describes as the “Financial Grid,” an infrastructure designed to support 24/7 settlement, tokenized assets, and real-time global payments. By combining multi-party computation (MPC) security with a high-speed settlement network, the company aims to move institutions from experimentation into production at scale. Fireblocks currently serves over 1,800 financial institutions and has facilitated more than $4 trillion in digital asset transfers. Its long-term vision is to provide the secure backbone for a fully digital-native financial system, where traditional and digital assets operate within a unified, always-on infrastructure.
