Valued at $28.93billion in 2024 and set to hit $49.18billion in 2025, according to The Business Research Company, the blockchain market is thriving. While this growth is in part due to the success of the crypto industry, the blockchain industry is not dependent on crypto. In light of this, this May we are looking to spotlight blockchain’s use cases and where the tech is going next.
According to the consultancy firm, Triple-A, global crypto ownership rates are closing in on seven per cent with over 560 million users worldwide. Digital assets make up a huge part of blockchain’s use cases, but not all of it. Organisations are constantly on the lookout for new innovative ways to utilise the technology. To kickstart our monthly focus, we look at some of the latest blockchain use cases in financial services.
Tokenising trade assets
For Anastasia McAlpine, head of product management – trade and supply chain finance at Finastra, the financial software solutions provider, there are two major ways in which blockchain is being used to address market needs.
“Blockchain technology is enabling a deeper integration between physical and financial supply chain flows. More recent examples include tokenisation of trade assets, which, for example, underpins some of the deep-tier supply chain finance solutions. The tokenised invoices can be financed more effectively, reaching deeper into the supply chains where the cashflow support is needed the most, by predominantly micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME) suppliers.
“Trade finance securitisation is another example of how blockchain technology can help in addressing market needs. Trade finance assets, such as letters of credit, are pooled using blockchain technology into securities that can be more easily sold to a wider range of investors, improving liquidity in the market.
“As part of our Trade and Supply Chain Finance ecosystem of partners, Finastra already collaborates with the leading fintech blockchain-based solutions and networks. For example, Enigio uses a public distributed ledger technology offering a cryptographic notary service enabling creation and management of fully digital original documents. Another example is CargoX, a fintech specialising in the digital transfer of trade documents.
“All of these examples support the digitisation of trade documentation and digitalisation of trade flows, bringing significant innovations to trade finance, addressing traditional pain points like operational and cost efficiencies, transparency and security.”
Not just an asset, but a part of the infrastructure
Blockchain’s most notable success story is cryptocurrencies, however, its capabilities are not limited to solely identifying and recording financial assets. Charles St.Louis, CEO at DELV, the decentralised finance (DeFi) organisation, explores how firms are starting to explore more use cases.
“We’re beginning to see the early stages of blockchains being used not just as financial assets, but as core financial infrastructure. It’s a long-awaited shift for those who’ve been building for years, and it mirrors the arc of the early internet—dismissed at first as a toy or fad, then evolving into the backbone of modern communication and business.
“In the past year, we’ve seen a surge in both lending and borrowing activity, as well as the growth of tokenised real-world assets like treasury bills, emerging as programmable building blocks for a new class of financial applications. And these aren’t just digital wrappers; they enable real-time settlement, automated compliance, global access, and more.
“The broader trend is a move away from closed, institutionally gated systems toward open, composable ones, where financial innovation starts to look more like software development than traditional finance. Once these infrastructure layers are in place, the next phase is product development and real distribution, bringing us closer to broader retail adoption and day-to-day utility.”
The back-end work is done – now it is time for the services
Mike Hudack, co-founder and CEO of Sling Money, the blockchain paytech, explains how for blockchain’s use cases to really reach their true potential, they need a lot of infrastructure to be put in place. Now that this has been done, he shares his excitement for the industry: “Blockchains are being used for critical financial infrastructure.
“We’re seeing settlement systems between financial institutions, tokenised money market funds, instantaneous and cheap cross-border payments, and even stablecoin-based weekend settlements.
“The infrastructure works, and a lot of the hardest work has been done, so the changes are going to come fast and furious now. You’re going to see micropayments become possible for the first time ever, and you’ll see all of the things that happen when the cost of transacting drops to zero and the speed of transacting moves sub-second… the pace of innovation will be shockingly rapid after a long period of building.
“And this is all about the technology. Users don’t really care. We’re already reaching the point where users don’t even realise they’re interacting with blockchain.
“We think that, in the next ten years, we’ll increasingly be in a world where money simply doesn’t leave the blockchain. The money will be on-chain and it will stay on-chain. We won’t think as much about “on ramps” and “off ramps” as we do now — we’ll just be on a single global ledger.”
Stablecoins are booming
For Sebastian Widmann, head of strategy at Komainu, a regulated digital asset custodian and service provider, stablecoins are the best use case. He says: “Whilst there have been significant developments and innovation around use cases for blockchain, the main use cases that have found product-market fit in financial services are around stablecoins, and tokenisation. Stablecoin adoption has significantly grown, with most major institutions now supporting or launching their own stablecoin infrastructure.
“We have also seen large players like BlackRock launch tokenised money market funds through their BUIDL token, as yield-bearing stablecoin. We anticipate this trend to accelerate as global regulatory regimes adapt.
Echoing similar views, Josip Rupena, CEO of Milo, the crypto real estate financing firm, said: “Stablecoins have achieved mass adoption, allowing individuals worldwide to hold a dollar-denominated digital asset without needing a US bank account.
“Companies like Tether and Circle have issued over $200billion in stablecoins, backed by US Treasury assets. This gives people in countries facing currency volatility and inflation a way to access a more resilient store of value and a medium of exchange tied to the strength of the US dollar. It is reshaping global payments and financial access in ways that were not possible before.
“At Milo, we have embraced this shift by building financial solutions that connect digital assets to real-world opportunities, helping clients leverage the stability of blockchain-based products in everyday life.
