Digital assets are no longer stuck in a “crypto winter” somuch as a period of industrial rewiring, according to panelists at the FMSingapore Summit 2026, who said the sector is increasingly being shaped bybanks, custodians and institutional allocators rather than the speculativetraders who dominated earlier cycles. The discussion painted a picture of a market that is stillfragmented and cautious, but also more regulated, more connected and moreuseful to mainstream finance than it was even a few years ago.Market Winter, Not Market DeathThe panel, titled “Buying the Deep: Digital Asset Adoptionin APAC and Beyond,” centered on whether the latest downturn has stalledadoption or merely changed its form.It brought together David Jenkins, the ChiefProduct and Technology Officer at Openmarkets Group, Chris Knight, the ManagingDirector of LMAX Digital, Andrew Leelarthaepin the Head of Business Product MaybankInvestment Banking Group, Luke Boland, the Head of Fintech at Standard Chartered, Karl Mohan, the EVP forFinancial Services and Crypto.com, and ZannKwan, the Managing Partner and Chief Investment Officer of REVO.Continue reading: “For Founders, Singapore Is Less a Destination and More a Launchpad”: Lessons from FM Singapore Summit 2026Knight argued that the industry is not in hibernation at all, but undergoinga hard rewiring as banks and market infrastructure providers build theplumbing needed for institutional participation.Boland echoed that view, sayingthe bank’s digital asset work had moved beyond siloed projects into broaderinternal coordination across risk, compliance and custody functions.Leelarthaepin of Maybank Investment Banking saiddigital asset adoption in Asia-Pacific is still growing, but warned that theregion’s many regulatory regimes remain a practical obstacle. Karl Mohan ofCrypto.com framed the shift more bluntly: in his view, the old “cowboys” andarbitrage-heavy business models that flourished in the 2021 bull market havelargely disappeared, replaced by a more serious, institution-led market.What Institutions WantA recurring theme was that the next phase of adoption willdepend less on hype and more on operational efficiency. Panelists repeatedlyhighlighted custody, connectivity, settlement and collateral management as thereal bottlenecks holding the market back.Knight said credit risk remains one of the biggestunresolved issues, adding that large institutions still need clearer centralclearing and stronger counterparty structures before they can participate atscale.Boland said the industry is already seeing practical usecases move into production, including collateral mirroring with tokenized moneymarket funds in the UAE, which he said the bank plans to roll out in othercustody markets. He also argued that stablecoins have become an importantsettlement layer because they make money movement faster and more flexible,particularly in a 24/7 market.Stablecoins as Capital ToolsIf one message cut through the discussion, it was thatstablecoins are no longer just a payment story. Mohan said their real valuelies in “capital efficiency,” allowing traders and funds to move collateralquickly and stay active over weekends and outside traditional banking hours.Knight used a vivid comparison, saying stablecoins are likesending an email while fiat still feels like mailing a letter and waiting forthe post office to open.Zann Kwan, managing partner and chief investment officer atREVO, said many allocators had reduced risk exposure after a difficult year,but still held stablecoins and could redeploy capital with “a click of abutton” when conditions improved.More from the event: “When AI Is a Black Box, Traders Either Distrust It Completely or Trust It Far Too Much”: Insights from FM Singapore Summit 2026She said the market had shifted from broad exposure acrossdozens of tokens to a narrower focus on top assets, even as pockets of activitycontinued in derivatives, tokenized products and M&A.Regulation and Regional MomentumThe panel was notably upbeat about regulatory progress inAsia-Pacific and the Middle East, even while acknowledging the patchwork natureof local rules. Mohan said the days of setting up in offshore jurisdictions andservicing the world from there are over, because major markets now have someform of regulatory framework.He argued that once the US fully settles its own rules,other markets will be forced to follow because capital tends to move toward thelargest and most liquid venues.Leelarthaepin said regional regulators have beenprogressively more open to innovation, citing Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan andthe Philippines as examples of jurisdictions that have built workable paths fordigital assets. Still, he said fragmentation remains a challenge for largeinstitutions operating across multiple markets, with compliance requirementsoften varying from one jurisdiction to another.Human Stories and AnecdotesThe panel also offered several personal moments thatunderscored how far the industry has come. Kwan recalled that, a decade ago,even her daughter’s bank account had been shut down because of her family’sinvolvement in crypto, making it difficult to handle even basic expenses suchas school fees. She said the fact that banking access is now far less hostilemarks an important form of progress for the industry.Mohan, meanwhile, described the rise of 24/7 trading ascrypto’s most important contribution to traditional finance, saying it solved aproblem that decades of legacy markets had not. He also pointed to theconvergence of AI and crypto as the next frontier, arguing that agentic tradingsystems linked to stablecoin wallets could eventually make every piece ofinformation, from headlines to social media posts, tradable in real time.Broader ImplicationsThe discussion suggested that digital assets are entering amore mature phase in which infrastructure, compliance and utility matter morethan pure speculation.Banks and institutions are increasingly treating the assetclass as part of a broader financial toolkit, whether for investment exposure,treasury management or faster collateral deployment. That does not mean themarket has solved its structural problems, but it does suggest the industry ismoving from experimentation to integration.For APAC in particular, the panel’s message was that theregion has a real chance to remain at the forefront if regulators and marketparticipants continue building practical rails for institutional use. The nextcycle, they implied, may not be about whether digital assets survive. It willbe about which firms can make them work in everyday finance.This article was written by Jared Kirui at www.financemagnates.com.