Financial institutions are looking to enter the world of crypto and digital assets as regulatory certainty has increased and use cases are emerging. However, they do not want the expense or the potential risk of overhauling their entire technology stack. Instead, they are looking to access these new assets within their existing workflows and infrastructure across the front, middle, and back office. This allows them to remain within their regulatory compliance and risk control frameworks and not change their reporting requirements. Firms can then evolve their technology over time to invest in digital assets on-chain through a unified technology platform, according to their own risk appetite and business needs.
Mike Powell, chief executive of electronic trading workflow solutions provider Rapid Addition, told Markets Media that the cost and complexity of change in highly regulated organizations can be a blocker to innovation because of the huge complexity of their operations and the huge margin pressure. There is a carrot in terms of the potential long-term revenue opportunity from new asset classes, or making illiquid asset classes more liquid, but there is also a slight fear factor of more crypto-native firms taking share. He added: “This will be evolutionary rather than revolutionary.”
He argued that there needs to be an effort to lower the barriers of entry as much as possible in order to meet the promise of decentralized finance (DeFi) and tokenization. One way to lower these barriers for traditional firms is to extend their technology stack and partner with those who have expertise in the on-chain world.
For example, BlackRock integrated its Aladdin technology platform with Talos’s order and execution management system (OEMS) in October 2025. Talos provides institutional technology and data for digital asset trading and portfolio management. Anton Katz, chief executive and co-founder of Talos, said in a statement that BlackRock can access digital asset markets with the same level of sophistication they are accustomed to in traditional markets within their existing workflows.
Dan Veiner, head of markets at BlackRock, commented at the time that digital assets are a growing part of the investment landscape. He added: “Talos’s crypto-native technology strengthens our execution capabilities now, ensuring we’re ready to meet future client demand with greater efficiency, liquidity access, and execution quality.”
The integration allows users of Aladdin to route cryptoasset orders directly through Talos to access multiple sources of liquidity, including centralized exchanges and DeFi protocols, as well as over-the-counter (OTC) dealers, an important source of digital asset liquidity for institutions. Traders using Aladdin gain functionality they expect in TradFi, including algorithms, smart order routing, market connectivity and post-trade reporting. Talos also partners with third parties who specialize in on-chain aspects of compliance, such as trade surveillance, tracing assets on blockchains and analyzing tokens.
Thomas Kennedy, product director at Talos, told Markets Media that institutional adoption of digital assets has accelerated in the past two years following the launch of crypto ETFs in the U.S. He said: “As a result, we also see bigger banks wanting to complement their existing technology stack and access these new markets without being in a lab or an experimental phase for too long.”
A wholesale change to in-house technology is too disruptive, especially as the crypto and digital asset markets move very quickly. Kennedy continued that TradFi wants to bridge the gap with crypto with all its nuances, such as having to use different custodians to safeguard on-chain assets, and the lack of central clearing.
“The barriers of adoption are beginning to shift as some banks are making crypto a strategic priority,” added Kennedy. “Tokenization is an accelerator with firms looking at money market funds and unlocking huge capital efficiencies from increased collateral mobility.”
The Role of FIX Connectivity
Barriers to adoption include the presence of multiple blockchains and that institutions can choose to build applications on multiple standards. Another way to lower these barriers is to enable TradFi institutions to use FIX messaging standards in the new digital assets world. This removes the need for custom development, reduces implementation from months to days and allows firms to use the same workflows and connectivity they already have for equities, foreign exchange and derivatives across the spectrum of market data and pre- and post-trade transactions.
Powell said institutions will still need to internally run cross-asset risk systems, accounting and ledgers and potentially report to the same regulators. In 2024, Rapid Addition partnered with Chainlink, which provides on-chain data, cross-chain interoperability, and blockchain abstraction, to develop a FIX-native blockchain adapter for institutional digital asset trading.
“An interoperability layer that means that firms do not need to wholesale rip and replace their technology,” added Powell.
For example, in December 2025, Archax partnered with TradingStack.io, which provides FIX connectivity to institutions for trading digital assets, to enable FIX access to the primary and secondary markets of the UK/EU-regulated digital asset trading platform. Archax allows trading in crypto and tokenised real-world assets (RWAs), including tokenized funds, bonds and commodities.
Andrew Flatt, chief technology officer and co-founder of Archax, told Markets Media that the firm uses partners, wherever possible. TradingStack allows Archax to provide its services to the traditional world where trillions of dollars of trades are facilitated by FIX every day, without clients needing to build new technology to connect to the venue.
Flatt said: “As a CTO, I would love to build everything, but it is impossible as the on-chain world moves too quickly. TradingStack is bringing the pipes that exist in the TadFi world straight to us.”
Archax was formed to give regulated TradFi institutions access to blockchain technology and Flatt described the TradingStack partnership as bringing the old world into the new. GD Singh, co-founder at TradingStack.io, told Markets Media that the firm can convert any digital asset protocol into FIX language and vice versa.
“Institutions are worried about needing separate systems for digital assets, but we have demonstrated that traditional firms can seamlessly integrate with existing infrastructure,” Singh added. “We are excited to partner with Archax as they are connected to all the major public and private blockchains.”
Flatt expects that, over time, TradFi institutions will natively connect to blockchains, but estimated that this could take decades. Singh agreed with this timeline and said that FIX will be a major part of the solution to increase interoperability, especially for the buy side, until that happens.
Growth prospects
Lowering barriers to entry will also accelerate the convergence of the on-chain and traditional finance worlds, bringing new efficiencies and enhanced liquidity to established centralized markets. The ability to communicate between investment banks’ and brokers’ centralized risk and settlement systems and new blockchain-based platforms is more critical than ever.
“2025 was the year of getting the assets on-chain and I think most large institutions are comfortable,” said Flatt. “2026 is going to be the year of the utility and there will be a flywheel effect.”
