Just paid attention to an interesting survey from Ripple involving over 1,000 global finance leaders. It turns out digital assets are no longer considered an experiment but have become a serious strategic necessity to stay competitive in the financial industry.

The data that came out is quite eye-opening: 70% of respondents agree that companies should offer digital asset solutions to compete. But the most interesting part is the position of stablecoins here — 74% of leaders say stablecoins can improve cash flow efficiency and enable more flexible working capital. So it’s not just about payments anymore; it’s already at the treasury management level.

Looking at practical adoption, fintech is leading the charge. They are more aggressive in using digital assets in treasury and payment systems compared to banks or other corporations. About 31% of fintech are already using stablecoins to collect payments from customers, and 29% accept stablecoins directly. Meanwhile, banks and asset managers are still focused on asset tokenization and need partners for infrastructure. Of those interested, 89% prioritize secure custody first.

One interesting thing: almost all respondents (97%) consider security and certifications like ISO and SOC 2 as critical. So this isn’t just about technology but also about trust and compliance.

But there’s other news with a somewhat different tone. The WLFI token from World Liberty Financial is trending for less positive reasons. Its price dropped 14.51% to the lowest level since its launch this year after the crypto project linked to Trump had to defend its controversial lending strategy on the DeFi platform Dolomite. They claimed to use their own governance token as collateral to borrow stablecoins and drain the USD1 pool on Dolomite. This serves as a reminder that in the crypto space, governance and financial engineering can be risky if not transparent.

So the bottom line: digital assets have truly become a core part of financial strategy, not just a side experiment. Infrastructure decisions made now will shape long-term competitive advantage. Worth monitoring how this landscape evolves.