A report by Leeward maps 61 cases of banks, market infrastructures and central banks putting blockchain to work, and argues that Cayman is well placed for the next generation of tokenised funds.
For much of the past decade, blockchain in mainstream finance was a story of pilots that rarely reached production. According to a new report by Ariana Kosyan, an independent director and Director of AI at Cayman-based Leeward, that has now changed. Blockchain Goes Institutional, published with an appendix of 61 institutional cases, argues that the technology has moved from experiment into routine financial operations.
Kosyan, who led EY UK’s tax blockchain work from 2018, says the early pilots generally proved the technology worked. What was missing was the ecosystem around it, and that is now arriving. Networks are faster, more private and better connected, and institutional-grade custody is available. Blockchain is increasingly seen as financial infrastructure rather than as shorthand for bitcoin. And regulation is catching up, through the EU’s MiCA rules and the US GENIUS Act on payment stablecoins.
Institutions are putting three building blocks to work: tokenisation, which represents a bond, fund share, bank deposit or other asset as a digital token; a shared record kept in sync across a network, so institutions work from one version of events instead of reconciling separate databases; and smart contracts, code that automates transfer restrictions, dividend payments and compliance checks.
From pilots to production
While adoption remains small relative to traditional finance, the volumes are becoming more significant. J.P. Morgan’s Kinexys platform averaged around US$7 billion a day in August 2026, and Broadridge’s blockchain repo platform US$359 billion a day in September. Visa’s stablecoin settlement passed a US$25 billion annualised run rate in October, although Visa still describes it as a pilot.
The change also reaches core market infrastructure. DTCC, the US securities depository, launched a tokenisation service in October 2026. The Eurosystem’s Pontes service went live in September, linking blockchain platforms to settlement in central bank money. Luxembourg issued a €1.7bn sovereign bond natively on Clearstream’s D7 platform in October.
In June 2026, the European Investment Bank issued €77.5 million of commercial paper directly on Clearstream’s D7. Two of the buyers, DekaBank and Eurex Clearing, then used their holdings as collateral for Bundesbank financing after the European Central Bank agreed to accept such securities.
Money itself is also going on-chain. Citi, HSBC, J.P. Morgan and Wells Fargo offer tokenised deposit services that let corporate clients move funds around the clock across borders. A group of 21 institutions, including Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and UBS, plans a regulated US dollar stablecoin in the first half of 2027.
The case for change
The report sets out five areas of potential benefit: 24/7 cross-border transfers without a chain of correspondent banks; faster settlement that frees up cash and collateral; lower administration as smart contracts automate routine processes; broader distribution through smaller ticket sizes; and emerging payment rails for AI agents. Kosyan’s view is that the combined gains can justify the cost even where no single benefit would.
However, some obstacles remain. Running new systems alongside legacy architecture adds cost. Tokens on separate networks cannot easily move between one another, and secondary trading is only beginning to develop. Public ledgers can conflict with client confidentiality. Institutions need legal certainty over what a token represents, and faulty smart contract code can execute flawed transfers instantly.
But mitigations are developing for each, including interbank networks such as Swift’s shared ledger and Partior, central bank links such as Pontes, privacy-preserving technologies, clearer legislation and independent code audits.
Where Cayman fits in
The report makes a clear case for the Cayman Islands’ role. Cayman had 31,547 regulated funds as at September 2026, and Cayman funds account for 54% of qualifying hedge fund net assets reported to the US SEC. In the latest AIMA and PwC survey, 58% of crypto hedge fund respondents were domiciled in Cayman.
The first tokenised products from major managers are arriving here too. Fidelity International chose Cayman for its first tokenised fund, FILQ, a US dollar liquidity fund on Ethereum registered with the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority in 2026.
The report attributes this to legal certainty rooted in English common law, an experienced professional community and an engaged regulator with laws updated for tokenisation and tax neutrality. Cayman, Kosyan concludes, is well placed to remain the domicile of choice for established funds and the new generation of tokenised and digital asset funds.
A question for boards
Blockchain transactions settle quickly and are often irreversible, and AI-assisted attacks add to long-standing cyber risks. The report argues that boards should know which record determines ownership, who can authorise transactions, who controls keys and critical providers, how controls are independently tested, and how quickly losses can be stopped if something goes wrong.
The overall assessment is that adoption is tangible, the business case is building and scale depends on getting the foundations right. Blockchain is quietly becoming part of how finance works.
