The opening plenary sessions of TOKEN2049 Singapore 2025 underscored how products, regulation and infrastructure are converging TradFi and DeFi. In a panel exploring institutional adoption of digital assets, Richard Teng, CEO of Binance; Hunter Horsley, CEO and co-founder of Bitwise; Heath Tarbert, president of Circle; and Tim McCourt, global head of equities, FX and alternative products at CME flagged challenges— from regulatory arbitrage to interoperability across blockchains — but agreed that unprecedented flows and clearer rules are already accelerating the rise of a hybrid financial system.

CME’s McCourt pointed to record demand for regulated derivatives in 2025, with institutional participation gaining momentum in recent years. “If we look at open interest as a proxy for institutional adoption, we’ve seen continued acceleration,” he said. CME now sees average open interest of $30–$35 billion per day, peaking at almost $40 billion in September 2025 — more than double the year before.

McCourt noted that Ether (ETH) futures — which began trading on CME in 2021 — are among the exchange’s fastest-growing contracts, with open interest surging alongside new launches like Ripple’s XRP and Solana (SOL) futures. He highlighted that the Solana contract, launched in March, “crossed $1 billion in open interest within five months, faster than Ether’s eight months and Bitcoin’s three years,” noting XRP futures also hit the $1 billion mark within three months. “It’s a growth-versus-growth story,” he said, adding that ETH futures and options themselves hit peak levels in August and September.

Horsley described 2025 as the beginning of the “mainstream era” for crypto ETFs. He recounted how a trillion-dollar US bank approved a Bitwise fund after years of hesitation, once regulatory uncertainty eased. “For the first time, mainstream investors from wealth managers to sovereigns, hedge funds and retirement accounts are all engaging and stepping forward,” Horsley said.

Teng, however, argued that institutionalisation began in 2024 with the approval of US ETFs and the entry of BlackRock, Fidelity and others. “We saw more than double the institutional onboarding last year, and that momentum has carried into 2025,” he said. Trading desks formed the first wave, followed by corporates, family offices and even sovereigns, he added.

Teng highlighted Kazakhstan’s move to build a strategic reserve using Binance’s infrastructure — a sovereign-level signal of adoption under the country’s Astana International Financial Centre framework. This underscores the country’s push to position itself as a regional crypto hub in Central Asia. He also pointed to Binance’s launch of ‘crypto-as-a-service,’ a white-labelling platform allowing regulated financial firms to offer digital asset exposure using Binance’s liquidity and infrastructure.

Meanwhile, Tarbert – who previously served as the Commodity Futures and Trading Commission (CFTC) chair – noted that stablecoins are becoming the connective tissue between TradFi and DeFi. By anchoring digital transactions in fiat reserves, he argued, stablecoins offer both compliance and programmability, enabling banks and asset managers to engage without compromising risk standards.

Regulation and innovation as growth enablers

Regulation emerged as the core enabler. Tarbert stressed that legal clarity around stablecoins has unlocked institutional flows. “For years what held institutions back was the absence of legal and regulatory certainty. Now policymakers are recognising the power of stablecoins to literally put money on the web, backed one-for-one,” he said.

Far from competing with banks, he argued, stablecoins complement them: Circle’s reserves are deposited back into the banking system, creating opportunities for banks to build tokenised lending and payments products on top of stablecoin rails.

Tarbert also addressed Circle’s development of Arc, a new blockchain designed for sub-second finality. While reaffirming the immutability of transactions, he noted that optional chargeback protocols could be layered on for specific applications — a way to reconcile blockchain’s permanence with traditional financial safeguards.

The panellists agreed that US regulatory clarity, particularly on ETFs and stablecoins, is catalysing global adoption. McCourt observed that clearer frameworks are enabling CME to launch new products, while Horsley highlighted the UK’s forthcoming lifting of its ban on crypto exchange-traded products. “The US has sprinted ahead, but other regulators are taking note,” he said

Teng cautioned that regulatory clarity should not be confused with innovation. Innovation, he said, “has always advanced at a rapid pace,” but clearer frameworks “unleash institutional adoption.” He added that the US is setting the tone globally, with other jurisdictions competing to catch up.

Infrastructure and interoperability drive scale and efficiency

The conversation also turned to infrastructure. McCourt highlighted the need for interoperability between public blockchains, permissioned networks and traditional rails. Futures and options, he noted, serve not just for hedging but for unlocking capital efficiencies — helping firms manage balance sheets as digital assets become long-term holdings. “If I’m long the digital asset, how can I free up capital to participate in related markets? That’s where futures, options and stablecoins provide these tools,” he explained,

Meanwhile, Binance’s Richard Teng framed 2025 as “the year of DATs,” estimating that some 200 listed companies worldwide have already announced treasury allocations. He argued that corporate adoption remains at an early stage, but momentum is accelerating as US policymakers position the country as a global crypto hub and financial firms set up trading desks. Teng noted that beyond dedicated DATs, many corporates are beginning to allocate 5–10% of their treasuries into digital assets. He cautioned, however, that risks from volatility to cyber threats demand robust risk management models, which many firms are now developing.

Across sessions, the opening plenary framed TOKEN2049 Singapore around convergence rather than disruption. In addition to the panel, Balaji Srinivasan — serial entrepreneur and former Coinbase CTO — cast the urgency of digital risks in stark terms: “AI makes everything fake; crypto makes it real again.”  His warning that deepfakes and state-backed credentials are eroding trust provided the philosophical backdrop for a plenary that offered hard evidence of adoption, from all-time high derivatives volumes to sovereign-level engagement.

The message was clear: TradFi contributes governance, scale and compliance, while DeFi delivers programmability, innovation and speed. At the core of both lies a simple requirement: verifiable trust. With Asia maturing in regulatory clarity and the US setting global benchmarks, TOKEN2049 underscored not a clash of systems but the rise of a hybrid financial order already taking shape.