The Future of Financial Services Is Being Built on Crypto Rails

Aug. 27, 2026, 11:48 a.m. ET

For ten years, institutional traders told J.P. Morgan’s e-Trading Survey the same thing: access to liquidity was their biggest market structure concern. This year it wasn’t. Technology took the top spot, 22% to 21%.

The margin is one point. The shift behind it is larger. Moving money, holding it at a return, reaching markets, posting collateral — several core financial-system functions are increasingly being developed using infrastructure capable of continuous settlement. The desks closest to that machinery noticed first.

The Functions That Define a Financial System

A commercial bank was never a single product. It was a bundle of four functions including settlement, deposit-taking, market access, and collateral intermediation. Those services traditionally operated under one roof, supported by infrastructure that was costly, access-controlled, and generally limited to standard operating hours. Change the infrastructure and the bundle can be re-formed by anyone, in any order.

That re-forming is already underway. The World Economic Forum describes a systems phase in which settlement, custody and payments shift from batch processes to always-on rails. Kaiko frames the same change from the venue side, as four layers that feed one another. Trading liquidity may support yield products, while retained balances can move through wallets and cards. Institutional collateral may also settle through systems connected to those used for retail trading.