Luno CEO says crypto now entering institutional era, driven by tokenisation and stablecoins

Speaking at the Luno Institutional Digital Asset Conference 2026, James Lanigan outlined three distinct phases of the digital-asset market: a speculative era dominated by Bitcoin until about 2017, an infrastructure era from 2018 to 2022 that saw regulation, custody and other services develop, and a current institutional era that began in 2023 and gained speed after the approval of Bitcoin exchange-traded funds in January 2024.

He said major financial firms such as BlackRock and Fidelity have entered the space, with billions of dollars moving on-chain each day. Tokenisation now covers roughly $350 billion of real-world assets, of which about $310 billion are stablecoins, representing 90 % of the tokenised market, though 98 % of stablecoins are US-dollar pegged. Lanigan highlighted a growth gap for locally-denominated stablecoins and pointed to Malaysia’s supportive regulatory environment and institutional readiness as a catalyst for further development.