For years, traditional financial institutions took a measured approach to digital assets. Now that deliberate evaluation is translating into active institutional integration. According to a survey conducted with American Banker, three out of four US banks have digital asset initiatives underway — with two thirds allocating dedicated infrastructure budgets and over half issuing formal RFPs for tech partners. Joining us live from Money 20/20 is Robin O’Connell, CEO of Enterprise at Uphold. Robin, great to have you here.
Great to see you again. Thanks for having me.
Uphold had a blockchain summit on day one of Money 20/20. What is different this year compared to last?
It has been a sea change. A year ago it was more about stablecoins and crypto. Now it is really about moving finance and financial products on-chain. One of the big reveals was the American Banker survey conducted over the summer — about 100 banks, large and small, responded. Large banks, sure — but also small banks, credit unions, community banks. About 75% are already initiating digital asset initiatives. It is a big deal for us because we are the infrastructure behind that.
What role does AI play in all of this?
It adds a whole other layer. Right at the time where banks are figuring out how to move their dollars on-chain through tokenised deposits — money market funds and other financial products — AI becomes possible on top of that. We want to be the rails making it possible to move all of these tokenised financial assets 24/7/365 seamlessly. The end user — whether a business or consumer — does not really have to know that. It is just better finance. We are not far from a world where individuals have a very personalised experience through AI that knows everything about them and can optimise their money — finding the highest yield, identifying tokenised assets they can borrow against, getting access to financial products like private equity that they otherwise could not reach. Banks have to be thinking about that and be ready to operate in that world.
What is your perspective on the regulatory outlook?
We are highly regulated — compliance is the second largest group in our organisation. We are regulated in the United States, UK, and Europe. With the Clarity Act and the GENIUS Act, I do not think anything has slowed down because the Clarity Act has not passed yet — the SEC and CFTC are putting out frameworks and guardrails regardless. Nothing is really slowing down from that perspective.
What is Uphold’s competitive advantage and what trends are you watching heading into 2027?
We have two sides to the house — retail and enterprise. What makes us special is that we have battle-tested all of our services over twelve years. We have served tens of millions of customers and billions of dollars of transactions. We have an amazing stack from the payments layer to the blockchain wallet layer to the compliance layer. A bank can pick and choose — this custodian, this liquidity source — and put pieces together. We have all of those pieces. That is our competitive advantage.
And heading into 2027?
The creation of financial assets and moving them on-chain — or taking existing financial assets and moving them on-chain — creates better liquidity, better access, 24/7/365 access. That creates a whole new set of possibilities. And ultimately you take all of that and make it programmable. We have always talked about what makes blockchain beautiful — it is programmable money. Now with AI — there you go. It is a merging of two phenomenal new technologies.
Robin, thank you so much for joining us here at Money 20/20.
Thank you.
