Stablecoins, tokens and 24/7 trading: What TradFi has adopted from crypto

​Stablecoins, tokenization, round-the-clock trading, and programmable settlement were long considered defining features of the crypto economy. Now banks, payment networks, and the world's largest asset managers are adopting the same principles. Which innovations have become part of traditional finance, and why has this happened?

Over the past decade, the crypto industry has developed its own version of almost every element of financial infrastructure: a digital dollar, markets that never close, tokenized assets, and automated trade execution through code.

Many of these concepts existed long before digital assets, but the crypto industry turned them into widely used, functioning products and demonstrated how they perform in a round-the-clock system serving millions of users. As the market matured, its most successful innovations began moving into the very system they were once supposed to challenge: traditional finance.

The dollar moves onto the blockchain

Stablecoins initially emerged to solve a problem within the crypto market. Traders needed an asset pegged to the dollar that could move between exchanges at any time without requiring a bank transfer.

USDT and later USDC brought this version of the dollar onto the blockchain. They can be transferred at night, on weekends, or between platforms in different countries without waiting for banks to open.