By Verse Press Research Desk | June 10, 2026

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US financial advisors are showing greater interest in stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets alongside Bitcoin, according to findings from the Bitwise/VettaFi 2026 Benchmark Survey released this week.

The eighth annual edition of the survey, which tracks how wealth managers across the United States approach digital assets, signals a structural change in how institutional money is engaging with crypto.

For regions where stablecoin adoption is already near-universal, the shift carries implications that go well beyond portfolio allocation.

Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan summarized the finding plainly. "Crypto's future has always depended on what financial advisors think of it," he said in the survey report. "They are trusted guides to millions of families and responsible for stewarding trillions of dollars in wealth. And in 2025, advisors embraced crypto like never before." In comments reported by BitcoinWorld, Hougan noted that institutional investors are increasingly embracing cryptocurrency, tokenization, and stablecoins, a trend he described as continuing independently of short-term market price movements.

The numbers back that up. Stablecoins and tokenization together topped the survey's "most-watched" category at 30%, ahead of the digital gold and fiat debasement narrative at 22% and crypto-linked AI investments at 19%. Meanwhile, 32% of advisors said they invested in crypto for client accounts in 2025, up from 22% the previous year. Separately, 42% now report being able to transact crypto on behalf of clients at all, compared to just 19% in 2023. Personal ownership reached a record high as well: 56% of advisors owned crypto themselves in 2025, the highest share since the survey launched in 2018. Exchange-traded funds remain the dominant vehicle, with 77% of advisors preferring ETFs for crypto exposure, reflecting the success of spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETF launches. Portfolio allocations are also deepening, with 64% of client portfolios that include crypto now carrying allocations above 2%, up from 51% in 2024.

Ninety-nine percent of advisors who held crypto in 2025 said they plan to maintain or grow that exposure.

The on-chain data for tokenized assets reflects that momentum. According to RWA.xyz, the total market for tokenized real-world assets (excluding stablecoins) currently sits at approximately $31.37 billion, after peaking near $33.69 billion in mid-May. Ethereum leads the sector with $16.4 billion spread across 707 assets. Solana has grown 22% in the past 30 days, while Stellar has climbed 32% over the same period, a pace analysts connect to emerging-market momentum where Stellar maintains significant infrastructure presence. Tokenized commodities alone jumped from $1.43 billion to $5.55 billion in the first quarter of 2026, a 289% quarterly increase per Chainalysis data. The total stablecoin market cap stands at roughly $297.62 billion, led by Tether at $186.9 billion and USDC at $73.1 billion.

Institutional players are deepening their positions in this space. BlackRock's BUIDL tokenized treasury fund has crossed $2 billion. Franklin Templeton partnered with Ondo Finance in March 2026 to offer 24/7 tokenized ETFs covering US equities, fixed income, and gold, with a rollout targeting Europe, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, Latin America, and emerging markets.

What reads as a new frontier for US advisors is, in much of the world, already essential infrastructure. Nigeria processed $92.1 billion in on-chain value between July 2024 and June 2025 and ranks sixth globally in crypto activity. It placed second on the 2025 Chainalysis Global Crypto Adoption Index for grassroots use.

Stablecoins account for 43% of all crypto transaction volume in Sub-Saharan Africa, a region that recorded $205 billion in total on-chain value over that same period, up 52% year-over-year. That adoption has been driven in large part by the naira's depreciation of more than 75% between 2019 and 2024. Approximately 80% of crypto users in Nigeria and South Africa already hold stablecoins, and 95% of Nigerian survey respondents said they prefer receiving payments in stablecoins over the naira.

As Yellow Card Financial CEO Chris Maurice put it plainly when describing the naira's scarcity: "The banks do not have dollars, the government does not have dollars, and even if they had them, they would not give them to you." That infrastructure argument was reinforced further in May 2026, when Tether partnered with payment platform LemFi to accelerate stablecoin-based cross-border payments across Africa.

In Ethiopia, stablecoin adoption grew 180% year-over-year following a 30% birr devaluation in July 2024. In India, an estimated $89 billion in stablecoin volume flowed through local addresses in 2024, largely for remittances and inflation hedging. India ranks first globally in overall crypto adoption; Pakistan ranks third, with 18.2 million crypto users and a regulatory sandbox that approved three stablecoin remittance providers for pilots in late 2025. Bangladesh, ranked 14th globally, counts 3.1 million verified crypto users despite an outright ban, with much of that activity driven by stablecoin remittances flowing through the same regional corridors.

The policy backdrop adds urgency to the story. The Guaranteeing Essential National Infrastructure in US-Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act, which requires stablecoin issuers to maintain full reserves in cash or short-term Treasuries and to publish monthly disclosures, is now law. Implementing rules are due by July 18, 2026, with full regulations taking effect on January 18, 2027.

The legislation has already prompted the UK, Canada, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Japan to accelerate their own stablecoin frameworks. Former People's Bank of China Governor Zhou Xiaochuan, in remarks reported by the World Economic Forum, warned that pursuing dollarization, except under extreme circumstances such as fighting high inflation or heavy debt burdens, could bring many adverse side effects.

For African economies where dollar-denominated stablecoins already account for 43% of crypto transaction volume and serve a central role in everyday finance, a US regulatory framework that further entrenches USDT and USDC as the default rails poses a sovereignty question that domestic regulators in Kenya, South Africa, and elsewhere have yet to fully answer.

Boston Consulting Group projects the tokenized asset market will reach $16 trillion by 2030. Whether that growth benefits users in Lagos and Lahore as much as it does clients of US wealth managers will depend less on the technology and more on whether emerging market regulators move fast enough to shape how it lands.