DLT and digital projects:
What is the blueprint?
The breadth of this survey enables an in-depth view by region and segment which demonstrates significant variability.
Across the industry, public permissioned blockchains are now the preferred choice and larger ecosystems are forming as participants seek greater utility and asset mobility.
From a regional perspective, European jurisdictions remain the domiciles of choice, followed by the US. And despite its recent surge in investment and activity, it is unclear whether the US will become a dominant booking centre given the long-standing European expertise and regulatory maturity.
At a segment level, participants will continue to employ a mix of either fully private or fully public chains for specific use cases. In some circumstances that choice is also governed by economic self interest - which also turns up in an segment-focused exploration of how cash is being used within or to complete on chain transactions.
1. Network? Permissioned chains are mainstream now for 43% of firms...
A better alternative has finally emerged!
Another evolutionary trend in DLT is a sharp repositioning from private blockchains to public permissioned chains. Private chain use fell from 65% in 2024 to just 35% in 2025. The isolation of digital islands is one cause. Fractured liquidity simply isn’t practical in connected capital markets.
But there’s another reason that public permissioned blockchains have become the most viable option. Canton Network is widely credited with creating a more viable alternative for digital institutional capital markets, by showing that public chains can operate with granular permissions and strict privacy.
The growing Canton ecosystem proves that applications can operate at scale. On a daily basis, more participants are connecting and completing real-world, multi-step transactions across a host of permissioned applications.
Planned blockchain type for projects in 2025
2. …but network choices still depend on the intended benefit
One-size will still not fit all
Planned blockchain type for projects in 2025
(by project driver)
As trad-fi extends to the crypto market, it is increasingly reliant on public permissioned chains.
However, some use cases remain well-suited to purely private or public chains. Proving there is still much variability both on the type of chains, the benefit they bring and for who.
Private chains remain the ledger of choice for bank-to-bank activity and for certain activities between a bank and its institutional clients - particularly where banks have created their own stablecoins or blockchains, which allow them to capture and retain revenues and efficiencies across different business lines.
Whereas, public chains are best suited to reaching the new digital investor base, whether that’s with new products, wrappers or direct retail distribution.
3. Cash leg: Each segment has their own core drivers – and their own preferences
The power of economic interest
The segmentation narrative also applies to cash. While everyone would prefer central bank cash, market participants are making pragmatic choices based on their own business drivers until CBDCs become available. For banks and brokers, legal clarity is paramount, while market operators are looking at pre-funding requirements as well as clarity. Investors are more focused on smoothing and expanding transactions, prioritizing counterpart acceptability and programmability.
The need for certainty and broad acceptance is driving more than 25% of investors and banks and brokers to bank-issued stablecoins for the cash leg. Banks are also relying on their own internal stablecoins and tokenizing cash deposits, while market operators are turning first to tokenized payment systems.
While investors in particular see tokenized money market funds (TMMFs) as the answer, cracking the code on the mechanics of using TMMFs as cash has remained elusive until recently[1]. The sheer size of the USD7.1t pool means TMMFs will be widely used across the market once they become available. This would ultimately link treasury bills to retail flows, impacting treasury markets in ways that are inevitable yet hard to predict.
[1] LedgerInsights, July 23, 2025. Goldman Sachs and BNY announced ability to tokenize money market funds on Canton Network, using GS DAP®
Core criteria for digital cash adoption
(% of each segment citing each criteria)
4. Jurisdiction: The top 5 jurisdictions in the world are all in Europe
Europe remains the center of gravity
DLT jurisdictions
(% of projects in 2025)
Even with the surge in US activity, European booking centres remain the hub for DLT - from single markets to the multi-market EU.
Until this year, nearly all North American activity was booked through Europe. While new initiatives may be on-shored, 50% of projects are continuing in situ. Similarly, although APAC has significant activity in Hong Kong and Singapore, one-third of APAC projects are also run in Europe.
As with earlier market transformations, such as the growth of fund centres across the continent, European jurisdictions took an early lead in developing deep expertise and regulatory certainty. As such, they are likely to remain domiciles of choice for DLT projects.
5. Ecosystem growth
Liquidity is settling around a core number of venues
Liquidity is both the paramount use case and driving force behind the market convergence that’s taking place. More participants are convening on a limited number of venues, creating deeper liquidity pools and enabling more complex transactions.
These are centered on managing payments and cash alternatives (crypto, stablecoins and tokenized money market funds) and linked to the prioritization of financing.
More esoteric use cases - private equity and physical assets - have decreased in importance. This may be due to complexity, lack of demand, or relatively limited liquidity versus traditional assets. They might also deliver lesser benefits to the short-term revenue line, which is clearly a priority in 2025.
Participation is rising across individual projects and in evolving ecosystems, in a positive sign of broader DLT and digital asset adoption. As with any market innovation, individual efforts must connect to form larger and larger networks. DLT and digital assets are no different: in order for markets to transform. The digital ecosystem must ultimately match trad-fi markets in size, scale and scope.
Average project consortium size
(% of respondents citing each consortium size)
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