Summary
Institutional crypto adoption is moving faster than U.S. legislation. Even if the CLARITY Act remains delayed, asset managers cannot afford to postpone digital asset preparation. Firms need unified data, scalable operations, automated reconciliation, and infrastructure capable of supporting crypto alongside traditional investments as regulators and markets continue evolving.
After the Senate failed to pass the procedural vote, Kalshi dropped their odds of the CLARITY Act passing in 2026 to 8%, with odds of only 15% by October of 2027.i In a polarized Washington D.C., it is not unreasonable to think that the bill may never make it to the president’s desk. Is institutional crypto dead? The headlines are dire.
However, as we noted in our last article, the SEC is an executive branch agency independent in policymaking, and there is a cadre of industry and political forces putting their collective weight behind digital assets. Buy-side digital asset operations must be ready when the SEC and CFTC advance their guardrails, such as the Regulation Crypto Assets, already in progress.vi Firms that want to compete for lucrative new digital asset business lines need not push their crypto regulatory readiness initiatives to 2027 or 2028.
The SEC and CFTC are even more determined now to move institutional crypto forward. On Sept. 14, SEC chief Paul Atkins reaffirmed his agency’s commitment to greenlighting tokenization and blockchain-based finance regardless of the vote’s outcome. He also noted that his agency is working to streamline and modernize antiquated transfer agent rules and a future proposal to “clarify the custody of crypto assets for investment advisers and regulated funds.”vii
On Sept. 16, Cryptos R Us reported that CFTC Chair Mike Selig said, "The CFTC is locked in and ready to ship its rules for the new frontier of finance."viii The only drawback to relying on regulatory agencies’ rulemaking is that it is written in pencil, not ink. The CFTC or SEC can revise those rules much more easily than Congress could repeal a law.
Firms would do well to think of digital asset investment as a decisive head start on a structurally new financial system. Those who are not technically savvy or familiar with blockchain may not realize its transformative qualities. The tentacles of traditional finance (TradFi) and decentralized finance (DeFi) are beginning to intertwine throughout the financial system and will ultimately become permanent siblings. But make no mistake; digital asset preparedness is not a futuristic play.
Buy-side institutions that long ago perceived digital assets as speculative and toxic now want to leverage them as legitimate collateral for lending, yield generation, and portfolio diversification. Sell-side institutions that once viewed stablecoins as threats to their business now see “significant new opportunities across client interface, custody, treasury solutions, tokenized funds, collateral mobility, and trading,” according to Boston Consulting Group.ix Firms are zealous about spot crypto and ETFs, perps, futures, options, prediction market contracts, and crypto-backed loans. Firms get a new asset class to generate alpha, ways to out-innovate competitors, and newer products to attract AUM. Most segments of institutional players, including custody providers, clearinghouses, and asset managers, have already taken incremental steps toward tokenized infrastructure.
The industry grasps the benefits of blockchain in trading: transparency in transactions, lower transaction costs, a faster settlement process, lower (or no) counterparty risk, innovative products, and reduced fraud and manipulation. As far as actual action goes, 29% of retail investors, institutional traders, and financial analysts said that they are already using both AI and blockchain in their trading activities, “a meaningful level of early adoption.”x
“The infrastructure supporting digital assets has matured significantly, with leading global benchmark administrators collectively maintaining over 300 digital asset indexes as of 2026. Index design has progressed from basic, single-asset tracking in the mid-2010s to sophisticated frameworks that include broad market benchmarks, sector-specific tracking (such as DeFi and smart contracts), and specialized yield- or staking-related measures.” — Index Industry Associationxi
There is a hazard of falling behind if firms delay their crypto operational readiness because the preparations are not necessarily easy or swift. Infrastructure implementations take months or years; waiting for final CLARITY enactment before upgrading back- and middle-office systems risks creating severe operational bottlenecks once trading desks go live. There are institutional digital asset platforms available, but integrating data and workflows is not a matter of plugging in the cables. Most market participants currently manage digital assets through desk-level tools or specialized crypto platforms while keeping traditional assets on legacy systems. Operating separate platforms for TradFi and crypto creates significant post-trade operational fragmentation. Firms should take steps toward a single operating model, especially with regard to investment data management.
In blockchain, data moves faster, and there is much more of it. In erecting viable digital asset infrastructure, firms should keep certain priorities on their dashboard, including an automated, single cohesive system of record to prevent the time-intensive manual work of blending datasets from disconnected TradFi and digital asset platforms. The spreadsheet method leads to data drift, reconciliation breaks, cash discrepancies, and failed trades. And all of this leads to latency, wasted time, and missed opportunity windows.
For buy-side firms still wrestling with consolidating data from public and alternative asset strategies, the crypto challenge is, in some ways, just another asset class to incorporate. The question becomes: Can the multi-strategy firm’s new digital asset instruments merge easily, and can the firm promptly get a total portfolio view of investments, positions, and exposures? Are your firm’s data and operations systems capable of normalizing public equities, fixed income, private markets, and digital assets within one synchronized accounting, reconciliation, risk, and reporting framework?
Modern operating models require intelligent reconciliation tools, automated treasury and margin optimization, and a universal book of record. However, unless a firm’s platforms natively understand the crypto trading conventions, those workflows will have to remain separate, and a consolidated view of holdings will be hard to come by. Investment domain-aware technologies are game changers in helping TradFi teams adapt to digital asset nuances, like crypto derivative strategies for example, in which operational infrastructure must handle the duality model, continuous settlement, and exchange-specific fee mechanics.
Waiting until Fall 2027 or 2028, when CLARITY passes, to launch digital asset strategies is a recipe for falling permanently behind. Another green flag went up recently when a global banking consortium formed to create a dollar-pegged stablecoin. The sell-side is working on “how to make regulated money programmable and interoperable across institutions, networks and jurisdictions.”xii
Firms should seek centralized data infrastructure that can seamlessly bring together security and instrument data from public, private market, and digital assets platforms. The data and operating model should understand the numerous intricacies of crypto trading and must leverage cloud-native architectures capable of scaling to millions of tax lots per book and running automated test repositories to guarantee data integrity across releases. Larger institutions should target technology partners with proven financial stability, long-term runway, and single-tenant architectures to ensure unbroken service levels and software updating.
Institutions that build smart digital asset infrastructure before 2027 or 2028 can lock in a competitive advantage in expanding high-margin diversification into crypto-backed lending, prediction market-based hedging, perpetuals, stablecoins, and tokenized RWAs. Institutions that build smart digital asset infrastructure before 2027 or 2028 can lock in a competitive advantage in expanding high-margin diversification into crypto-backed lending, prediction market-based hedging, perpetuals, stablecoins, and tokenized RWAs.
Discover how your operating model compares to the next generation of institutional digital asset investing.
Phillip Silitschanu
Phillip Silitschanu leads Arcesium's global digital asset commercial efforts as Senior Vice President, Digital Assets. Phillip is an expert and thought leader in the FinTech, blockchain, cryptocurrency, and digital assets space, known for his work as the research director leading IDC’s (Blackstone) global blockchain practice, and in various strategic roles within the financial services industry. He has authored and co-authored numerous whitepapers, reports, and books on these topics and is a recognized speaker and expert cited by major media outlets like the Financial Times and CNBC.
Sources:
i Kalshi, Sept. 15, 2026. https://news.kalshi.com/p/clarity-act-odds-plunge-senate-procedural-vote-fails
ii New York Times, Sept. 15, 2026. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/15/technology/senate-blocks-crypto-bill.html
iii Reuters, Sept. 16, 2026. https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/us-senate-vote-advancing-landmark-crypto-bill-2026-09-15/
iv CNBC, Sept. 15, 2026. https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/15/senate-cloture-vote-on-clarity-act-fails-dealing-regulatory-setback-to-crypto-industry.html
v The Block, Sept. 15, 2026. https://www.theblock.co/news/regulation/2026-09-15-this-one-stings-clarity-act-fails-senate-is-cryptos-biggest-regulatory-push-dead-415135
vi SEC, August 18, 2026. https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2026-76-sec-proposes-new-regulation-crypto-assets
vii SEC, Sept. 14, 2026. https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/speeches-statements/atkins-remarks-solana-policy-institute-091426
viii Cryptos R Us, Sept. 16, 2026. https://www.facebook.com/cryptosrus/posts/just-in-cftc-chair-mike-selig-announces-the-cftc-is-locked-in-and-ready-to-ship-/1725194022945759/
ix BCG, May 18, 2026. https://www.bcg.com/publications/2026/the-future-of-digital-assets-in-finance
x Int J Financ Reg Compl Innov, Apr. 21, 2026. https://www.researchlakejournals.com/index.php/IJFRCI/article/view/711
xi IIA, 2026. https://www.indexindustry.org/insights/digital-asset-indexes-2026/
xii Forbes, Sept. 14, 2026. https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikecahill/2026/09/14/banks-start-designing-the-next-layer-of-financial-infrastructure/
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