74% of firms surveyed are exploring DLT and digital assets: Citi

87% of those surveyed believe digital money, like a CBDC, could be viable before 2026

article-image

metamorworks/Shutterstock modified by Blockworks

share

Despite a rocky 2022, Citi believes that the last few years are “now paying off” for digital assets — though the technology is still in the early stages of maturity.

A survey found that interest and engagement in both distributed ledger technology (DLT) and digital assets have grown, despite the collapse of FTX and other crypto firms. 

More firms are exploring both DLT and digital assets, up to 74% in 2023 from 47% in 2022.

Citi noted that “billions of (US) dollars of value are now being managed on DLT, across a combined ecosystem that includes over 20 of the world’s leading financial institutions.”

Additionally, it found that it’s not the technology that firms face issues with, but actually the people and the processes putting it in place. 

When breaking down how different continents are approaching crypto, Citi found that both Asia and Latin America have focused on institutional liquidity and bringing it to the “masses,” whereas Europe has taken a regulatory approach with Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA).

In North America, “banks and investors have begun evidencing serious returns from tokenization across numerous asset classes.”

Unsurprisingly, 51% of those surveyed believe that regulatory uncertainty could impede further progress in the next three years — especially in North America and Europe. 

Specifically, the digital money sector — which includes central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) — is growing rapidly, the survey found. 87% of market participants see the sector as “viable” before 2026, an increase from 72% last year.

Read more: Russia to commence digital ruble pilot testing with 13 banks

Overall, however, the DLT landscape is growing faster than the crypto landscape due to the hurdles that crypto has faced in the last year. 

Around 87% of custodians are working on DLT and digital asset projects, but only 25% of asset owners or end clients have open and active projects. Roughly three-quarters of institutional investors are not “engaging.”

“DLT will be used not to experiment but to deliver,” the survey said.

“Above all, DLT and digital assets are about change and process re-engineering,” Citi said, which means that “it is critical that firms begin their initiatives on the assumption that significant investment in re-shaping processes and systems will be needed.”


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily, with Byron Gilliam.

Upcoming Events

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

Unlocked by Template (10).png

Research

Innovations on Aptos’ technical design through Raptr, Shardines, and Zaptos approach near-optimal latency and throughput by unlocking 100% utilization of network resources, with the capacity to settle 260k transactions per second with latencies less than 800ms. The original Move language was revamped with the launch of Move 2, supporting more expressivity in smart contract logic and a scalable ability to interact with high volume datasets. The ecosystem has benefitted from strong asset inflows, now hosting over $1.3B in stablecoins, $450M in bridged BTC, and $530M in RWAs. Activity in the Aptos ecosystem has grown notably over the past year, with monthly application revenue reaching ~$835k and monthly DEX volumes growing to over $5B, both at new all time highs.

article-image

Interchain Labs will focus on sovereign L1s and institutional demand, abandoning plans for smart contracts on the Cosmos Hub

article-image

Also, only three tokens have outperformed bitcoin so far this year: XMR, HYPE and SKY

article-image

The fund group has submitted proposals in recent months for other funds that would hold litecoin, solana, XRP, HBAR, Sui and others

article-image

Momentum’s back — BTC leads, risk assets follow

article-image

Ondo Finance’s acquisition of blockchain development company Strangelove follows its buy of Oasis Pro

article-image

Cryptocurrency and stock traders alike had a lot to unpack Wednesday