Asheesh Birla — the former Ripple board member who now runs Evernorth, an XRP-focused institutional treasury — has laid out a compact set of 2026 predictions that center on one theme: institutions finally stop circling crypto and start using it in production. In a short social video, Birla argued next year will mark a shift where crypto infrastructure fades into the background and simply does the routine plumbing of finance. “My theme this year is really around how institutions, financial and corporate institutions, are going to start adopting blockchain technology at scale,” he said. “It’s going to be part of everyday financial infrastructure in 2026. It’s going to quietly power how money moves.” What he expects to see in 2026 - Programmable treasuries: Birla predicts corporate treasury operations will become “programmable” as DeFi tooling meets AI-driven automation. Back offices that remain manual and fragmented today can be converted into coded workflows, then orchestrated by AI — cutting costs, time, and reliance on middlemen. “Using DeFi and AI, I think you’re going to see a lot of those efficiency gains start to come to fruition,” he said. - Local stablecoins and on-chain FX: Rather than just more dollar-pegged coins, Birla foresees a proliferation of regional “local stablecoins” that interoperate on-chain. Those tokens could meet in decentralized FX venues, with DEX liquidity acting as the base layer for a new kind of spot FX market that competes with legacy rails — a potential challenge to the roughly $9.6 trillion FX market. - Stablecoins as plumbing, not a product: He expects stablecoins to be absorbed into corporate and banking infrastructure as settlement technology — enabling real-time liquidity analytics, faster movement of funds, and cleaner reconciliation. Birla highlighted a dramatic growth projection often cited in industry forecasts, suggesting stablecoins could scale from about $300 billion today to as much as $100 trillion in market capitalization. - NFTs reimagined as access tokens: Don’t expect a 2021-style JPEG frenzy, he warned. NFTs will rebrand around utility and membership: a single digital access token that can combine ticketing, loyalty, and digital collectibles to grant benefits or permissions. Birla frames 2026 as the start of “Institutional DeFi.” With regulatory clarity moving forward and enterprise demand rising, the next phase of digital assets, he says, will be less speculative and more institutional, global, and value-driven. A note on context: Birla’s current venture, Evernorth, is built around XRP exposure and institutional participation — positioning the firm as a purpose-built XRP treasury. That background underscores the commercial angle behind his broader narrative about embedding crypto into corporate finance and payments. At press time, XRP was trading around $1.8577. Read more AI-generated news on: undefined/news

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