"Institutional demand for digital assets surges after the GENIUS Act…tokenization and AI commerce are the next phase"

Despite volatility in the digital asset (cryptocurrency) market, assessments say demand from institutional investors is instead expanding.

According to digital-asset media outlet CoinDesk on the 15th, Steven McIntosh, chief investment officer (CIO) of Sui Group Holdings, said at the 'Consensus 2026' event in Hong Kong that "last year was a turning point for institutional adoption," adding that "the expansion of Digital Asset Treasuries (DAT) and the success of spot Bitcoin ETFs demonstrate this." In particular, he said the interface between traditional finance and blockchain is rapidly widening, centered on tokenization and stablecoins.

He stressed that "after the GENIUS Act, institutions' awareness and demand increased significantly," adding that "interest has risen in the potential that crypto can deliver, especially in the tokenization and stablecoin areas."

While recent market sentiment has been subdued, he said the structural shift is clear. McIntosh said, "Even though overall sentiment is low, the market’s structural scale is larger than ever," adding that "options volumes are at record highs, and major trading firms such as Citadel and Jane Street have entered the crypto market." He added that "the world’s largest financial institutions are investing in infrastructure and talent as they move to secure market share."

Evan Cheng, chief executive officer (CEO) of Mysten Labs, pointed to 'convergence' as the next stage. "Traditional finance takes T+1 or longer for settlement, but DeFi is T+0," he said, adding that "in terms of settlement, DeFi has a better structure." He continued, "Once you acquire an asset, you can immediately use it as collateral to borrow," adding that "a structure becomes possible where DeFi strategies are layered on top of traditional assets." He said tokenization is the key mechanism that accelerates such convergence.

Both sides cited infrastructure competitiveness as Sui’s differentiator. McIntosh said, "Sui is a network built by former Facebook engineers based on their experience with the Libra project," adding that "with low latency and high throughput, it can support new demand such as tokenized finance and the 'AI agent economy.'"

The outlet reported, "The market is focusing on the fact that institutional inflows are expanding around infrastructure investment and structural adoption, separate from short-term price moves."