BingX Research notes that over the past year, the convergence between traditional finance and digital assets has accelerated significantly. What, until recently, was more of a discussion about connecting two separate ecosystems is now seen concretely in capital flows, payment infrastructure, the use of collateral and access to private assets. The main question is no longer whether the crypto market will remain separate from traditional finance, but how quickly systems based on digital assets will be integrated into the broader architecture of financial markets. Three signals show this change. Bitcoin spot ETFs have simplified investors’ access to digital assets within traditional portfolios. Tokenized government securities products have moved from the concept stage to institutional uses, including as a form of collateral. In parallel, the big players in the payments area are buying, upgrading and developing infrastructure for stablecoins. All these developments point to a market where traditional and digital assets no longer develop completely separately. The two worlds retain their own systems, but are beginning to be connected by common products, flows, and infrastructure.
The Institutional Signal: Flows to ETFs
The strongest institutional signal remains the US Bitcoin spot ETF market. BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF, IBIT, launched in January 2024, reached $63.5 billion in net assets by May 1, 2026, according to the fund’s (iShares) iShares page. The importance of this product comes from the fact that IBIT is not only aimed at specialized crypto investors. It provides exposure to digital assets in a format already familiar to traditional investors. The flows confirm the same direction. IBIT has attracted net inflows of more than $25 billion in 2025, after about $37 billion in 2024. Thus, cumulative net inflows have reached about $62.5 billion since launch, according to Farside Investors data cited in the financial press (Yahoo Finance). BlackRock also included IBIT among its top investment themes for 2025, along with short-term US Treasuries and exposure to major US tech companies (Yahoo Finance). This positioning matters. Access to digital assets is no longer treated as a niche area, but is increasingly being integrated into the construction of traditional portfolios. When a large asset manager puts a Bitcoin fund in the same discussion as US Treasuries and stocks of big tech companies, the question changes. It’s no longer just «does Bitcoin have a place in a portfolio?», but «what weight should it have, how is risk managed, and how does it fit into the overall allocation?». Institutions may continue to debate volatility, timing of entry and size of exposure, but digital assets have already entered the mainstream of financial markets.
Infrastructure token: tokenization
The second major signal comes from the area of tokenization, specifically of US government securities. BlackRock’s USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund, BUIDL, launched in March 2024 as the company’s first tokenized fund on a public blockchain. By March 2025, the fund had reached $1 billion in assets (PR Newswire). The product offers qualified investors on-chain access to US dollar returns, daily distributions and near-instant peer-to-peer transfers, according to Securitize (PR Newswire). By May 2026, RWA.xyz estimated the tokenized US Treasury market to be $15.20 billion, of which BUIDL accounted for approximately $2.58 billion (RWA.xyz). The size remains small relative to the entire US Treasury market, but it is already large enough to matter. Tokenized government securities are no longer just a story about faster settlement. They are beginning to be used as programmable collateral, on-chain cash instruments and reserves for other financial products. The evolution of BUIDL shows how quickly tokenization can move from launch to practical use. Securitize reported that BUIDL was used for treasury management, stablecoin backing, DeFi access and trading collateral after the fund crossed the $1 billion mark in assets (PR Newswire). Later in 2025, Securitize announced that BUIDL was to be accepted as off-exchange collateral for trading on a major digital asset platform (PR Newswire). The central idea is that tokenized government debt is no longer just an experiment. It is starting to be used to make digital asset markets more efficient.
Signal from payments: stablecoin infrastructure
The third signal comes from the payment area. Stripe bought Bridge on February 4, 2025, for $1.1 billion, with the goal of developing the infrastructure for stablecoins. Bridge helps companies manage stablecoin payments and cross-border transfers without having to directly manage all the technical details of digital tokens, according to CNBC (CNBC). The transaction was not an isolated case. Stablecoins processed $15.6 trillion in transactions in 2024, a level comparable to Visa, according to fintech analysis published by a16z (Andreessen Horowitz). At such a size, stablecoins are no longer just a tool for the settlement of crypto transactions. They are increasingly being considered for global payments, transfers between treasuries and programmable settlement. Stripe’s next move showed the direction of the market. At the end of September 2025, Stripe launched Open Issuance via Bridge, a platform that allows companies to create and manage their own stablecoins (Stripe). Companies can choose the blockchains they use, set up smart contracts and decide how currencies are backed, all while connecting to a common liquidity network, according to Stripe. This marks the transition from simply accepting stablecoins as a payment method to integrating the issuance of stablecoins into the operational infrastructure of companies.
The next frontier: retail investor access to private markets
The next stage of this trend will likely outpace public assets and cash-like products. Private markets have traditionally been reserved for high-net-worth investors, funds with high entry barriers and difficult-to-access secondary markets. For ordinary investors, this has meant missing out on important opportunities: many fast-growing companies only become available to the general public after listing, by which time much of the value has already been created. This is beginning to change. Morningstar reported in April 2026 that retail investors could gain pre-IPO exposure to OpenAI through ARK Invest ETFs as part of OpenAI’s funding round. The report also noted that public investors now have more ways to gain exposure to private companies such as Databricks, Stripe and ElevenLabs through listed funds (Morningstar). Morningstar also pointed out that firms like SpaceX and OpenAI have been criticized for staying private for too long, limiting retail investors’ access to the big gains generated in private markets (Morningstar). Perpetual tokenized structures are part of the same change. They do not offer direct ownership of shares and come with risks related to price, liquidity and the ability of the provider to honor its obligations. However, it shows that exposure to a company before listing becomes possible. In 2026, pre-IPO access is one of the areas where crypto and traditional markets intersect more and more visibly.
The operational layer: AI in retail trading
As more asset classes become accessible, the complexity increases. Retail investors could have, within the same ecosystem, access to stocks, indices, commodities, forex, crypto, perpetuals, tokenized government securities and private market related products. But access alone is not enough. Users need to be able to compare these exposures and understand how they behave in times of market stress. This is where AI becomes the operational layer. Bloomberg reported in June 2025 that AI-powered trading tools capable of analyzing large data sets and building portfolios are moving from Wall Street to retail investor uses (Bloomberg). The same report noted that retail investors own about 25 percent of the U.S. stock market directly and more than 60 percent indirectly through retirement accounts, according to Barclays calculations (Bloomberg). In a market with more and more asset types, the real question for AI is not just whether it can suggest trades. The bigger stake is whether it can help users understand complex markets: map exposures, run scenarios, track liquidity, size positions and explain risks. In the next couple of years, we will probably see which AI tools really help in trading and which are just marketing.
Opportunity, but also complexity
The convergence of these markets brings new opportunities, but also new risks. ETFs make investing in digital assets more accessible, but they don’t eliminate volatility. Tokenized government securities can streamline settlement and collateral, but introduce new operational risks. Stablecoin infrastructure can simplify global payments, but users need to understand how reserves work and what risks exist at the network level. Pre-IPO products can open up access to previously hard-to-reach markets, but they expose retail investors to a major issue: less transparent valuations in private markets. This gap in understanding becomes one of the central themes of the next stage. Retail investors get access faster than they can understand the risks. That’s not to say the trend needs to be stopped, but that the next step needs clearer products, better tools, and more transparent explanations of what each type of exposure represents.
What BingX Research is looking at next
In the coming year, BingX Research is looking at four directions: Stability of institutional flows to ETFs during periods of volatility. Long-term allocations matter more than first-year excitement. The evolution of tokenized real assets beyond government securities to equities, commodities and credit, and the existence of sufficient liquidity for real use. Pre-IPO market depth as more retail investors enter. If products linked to private markets remain small, fragmented and difficult to value, the opportunity for ordinary investors will remain limited. If liquidity improves, 2026 could become the first year in which retail investors have real access to assets that until recently were reserved for institutions. The evolution of AI tools for retail trading. As investors gain access to more asset classes, the systems they use will become as important as the assets themselves. The next stage of convergence between TradFi and crypto will not only be about what can be tokenized or listed. It will also depend on investors’ ability to manage complexity with tools that make risks clearer, not harder to see.