BlackRock’s (NYSE: BLK) latest global outlook makes one thing clear: crypto is no longer being treated as a speculative side bet, but as infrastructure quietly reshaping how money moves.
In its 2026 outlook, the world’s largest asset manager describes digital assets, especially stablecoins, as infrastructure underpinning payments and settlement – effectively the financial system’s plumbing.
Instead of focusing on price action or hype cycles, BlackRock’s framing centers on function. The firm argues that crypto’s most durable role is emerging beneath the surface, in payments, settlement and liquidity flows that increasingly overlap with traditional finance.
BlackRock: Stablecoins aren’t crypto hype anymore
In the outlook, BlackRock highlights stablecoins as the clearest example of crypto maturing into infrastructure.
Once confined to trading and on-chain speculation, U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoins are now being used across payments, settlement and cross-border transfers.
BlackRock notes that stablecoins are becoming a bridge between traditional finance and digital liquidity, allowing dollars to move faster, cheaper and with fewer intermediaries.
That shift matters not because it replaces banks overnight, but because it subtly changes how financial rails operate in the background.
From crypto rails to regulated dollar rails
At its core, BlackRock’s thesis is simple: stablecoins function as digital dollar rails.
As adoption widens beyond crypto-native use cases, digital dollars start to reshape how money settles globally, especially in areas where traditional systems are slow, expensive or fragmented.
The firm points to growing integration with mainstream payment systems and increased use in cross-border flows as evidence that stablecoins are no longer niche tools, but components of the financial system’s underlying infrastructure.
That framing is increasingly being reinforced by policy.
In the U.S., lawmakers advanced the GENIUS Act, which formally defines payment stablecoins as regulated financial instruments rather than speculative crypto assets.
The bill sets reserve, audit and oversight requirements and limits issuers to banks and licensed nonbanks, explicitly steering stablecoins toward payments and settlement use cases.
It’s a sign that stablecoins are beginning to sit inside the financial system’s legal core. Once regulated this way, stablecoins stop functioning as a workaround and start operating as regulated digital dollars – aligning closely with BlackRock’s infrastructure thesis.
One more real-world proof point: Circle going mainstream
That shift from niche to infrastructure is no longer theoretical.
In 2025, Circle, the issuer of USDC, tapped public markets in a blockbuster U.S. IPO, raising over $1 billion and securing a multibillion-dollar valuation.
For BlackRock’s thesis, the signal is clear. When stablecoin issuers can access public equity markets and attract institutional demand, crypto infrastructure has crossed into the financial mainstream.