Moody’s Predicts Digital Finance to Become Core Infrastructure by 2026
Digital Finance Will Evolve Into ‘Foundational Infrastructure Layer’ in 2026: Moody’s
The technology underpinning digital assets is set to become a “foundational infrastructure layer” for the financial services industry in 2026, according to new commentary from credit rating agency Moody’s.
Moody’s said the shift is being driven in part by the growing role of stablecoins and tokenized deposits, positioning digital finance less as a standalone market and more as embedded plumbing within mainstream financial operations.
In that framing, digital finance is expected to increasingly influence how firms manage core activities, including capital allocation and market operations. The emphasis is on operational integration—how transactions are executed, how value moves, and how cash-like instruments are represented—rather than on speculative trading dynamics.
The broader significance is that, when digital-asset technology becomes infrastructure, it tends to move closer to back-office and settlement functions where reliability, governance, and compatibility with existing systems matter. In Moody’s view, stablecoins and tokenized deposits are among the tools pushing that evolution by providing digital representations of money that can be used within financial workflows.
