Franklin Templeton "2026: DeFi and Traditional Finance Will Begin to Converge in Earnest"

Asset manager Franklin Templeton said it expects the synchronization between the virtual asset (cryptocurrency) market and traditional finance to accelerate from next year.

On the 11th (Korean time), according to Binance, Christopher Jensen, Franklin Templeton research director, said in an interview, "Institutional entry into the crypto asset market has actually begun," and "2025 was a turning point when traditional finance and decentralized finance (DeFi) began to intersect in earnest."

Director Jensen emphasized, "This time institutions are actually coming in," and "institutions that had remained at the pilot stage for years are now starting actual investments, including pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, and university endowments." He added, "Previously, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and exchange-traded products (ETPs) were the only entry points, but now interest is expanding to on-chain assets, stablecoin liquidity pools, and tokenized credit products."

He particularly evaluated stablecoins positively. Director Jensen said, "Stablecoins are the first killer app of virtual assets," and "the emergence of a digital dollar that crosses borders with sub-1-second, sub-1-cent fees is a paradigm shift, and stablecoins are the base currency of all tokenized finance, the link between DeFi and real-asset finance."

He then said, "In the future, an individual's digital wallet will contain stablecoins, government bonds, real estate, and NFTs together," and "2026 will be a time when blockchain and Wall Street converge into a single digital economy."