Crypto ETFs and real-world asset volumes are thriving right now - even as Bitcoin and altcoins have seen better days.

At the Hack Seasons Conference in Cannes on April 1, 2026, LKI CEO Maryna Barysheva moderated a panel on institutional adoption of digital assets - covering ETFs, stablecoins, and tokenized markets with four industry leaders:

1. Ophelia Snyder - Co-Founder, 21Shares

2. Paul Brody - Author, Ethereum for Business

3. Zach Pandl - Head of Research, Grayscale

4. Marina Markezic - Executive Director & Co-Founder, European Ethereum Institute

Institutions are entering crypto through private blockchains - the same way banks first tested stablecoins. Snyder mentioned that history is repeating itself. Permissioned chains, controlled environments, no commitment to open infrastructure. Brody Highlighted institutions aren't waiting because they doubt blockchain. They're waiting for a positive roadmap from legislation like the Clarity Act.

MiCA has 174 registered crypto service providers, 38 e-money token registrations, and roughly 800 white papers filed. Most of those white papers came out of Ireland. The framework exists and is further along than the outside world acknowledges. Euro-denominated volume remains thin, and the UK - a primary global financial center - has no MiCA equivalent in play. 

The real winners in institutional crypto will be backend infrastructure providers, not the banks entering the space. Pandl highlighted traditional firms have distribution - 401Ks, pension plans, client relationships built over decades. Crypto-native firms have the infrastructure those firms will run on. Not all TradFi players will successfully build crypto products. The ones that can't will depend on crypto-native backends to deliver.

The institutional era is splitting crypto into two tracks, not unifying it. Pandl called it bifurcation. Stablecoins, tokenized assets, and regulated instruments sit on one side - absorbable by traditional finance. Self-custody and censorship resistance sit on the other - structurally incompatible with it. Sovereign wealth funds and pension plans entering the space will accelerate the first track.