Wall Street Is Moving Onchain Faster Than Most Investors Realize

Summary

Jess Houlgrave, CEO of WalletConnect, walks through onchain data showing institutional adoption is now the biggest growth driver in crypto. She argues USDC remains the default institutional stablecoin, non-USD stablecoins will grow, tokenized stocks and B2B stablecoin payments are expanding, and MiCA is shifting European stablecoin usage from USDT toward USDC. The conversation also covers central bank policy, currency competition, UX, and early AI-agent stablecoin use.

• WalletConnect connects roughly 700 wallets and 80,000 applications, with institutional use cases growing fastest.
• Institutional DeFi, RWA tokenized trading, and payments are the main growth segments behind the volume.
• USDC dominates institutional stablecoin flows, mostly on Ethereum mainnet, with chain usage expected to diversify toward Solana and institutional chains.
• Non-USD stablecoins such as HKD, dirham, and Brazilian real stablecoins are expected to grow into 2027.
• B2B stablecoin payments are growing faster than consumer payments because they unlock working capital and faster balance sheet rebalancing.
• Tokenized stocks and tokenized assets are viewed as a multi-year growth driver.
• MiCA caused European USDT outflows partially replaced by USDC, while GENIUS Act impact is seen as largely priced in.