The Future of Finance Awards 2026
Winners Gallery
About the Awards
The Future of Finance Awards 2026 brought together the innovators shaping the future of global finance at Plaisterers’ Hall in London on 18 June 2026. Celebrating excellence across digital assets, tokenisation, and market infrastructure, the awards recognised the organisations and individuals driving meaningful change across the financial ecosystem.
The 2026 Winners
All winners by category, award rationales, digital plaques, shareable social cards, and presentation moment photos.
Event Photos
The full gallery from the evening, from the drinks reception through to the awards dinner, organised by moment.
Branding & Assets
Official awards logo and winning badge, ready for press releases, social media, and publication materials.
The 2026 Winners by Category
These awards recognise the organisations that have demonstrated the broadest, deepest, or most consequential impact across the digital assets landscape. They span outstanding all-round performance, landmark innovation, and the programme and institutional leadership that has moved this industry forward most meaningfully over the past year. Last year's Most Groundbreaking Innovation went to the ECB for its Wholesale DLT Settlement Trials, which brought central bank money into live DLT-based securities and repo settlement for the first time at scale. The bar for this year's winners is set accordingly.
Best All-Round
Deutsche Börse
Most Ground Breaking Innovation
The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation
Best Traditional Bank
J.P. Morgan
Best Programme Management for a Major Digital Asset Initiative
EY
Custody sits at the foundation of institutional trust in digital assets. What began as a fragmented landscape of crypto-native providers has matured into a regulated, competitive market where security standards, service breadth, and institutional credibility are table stakes. Three trends define the current moment: the emergence of bank-grade security frameworks across both bank and non-bank custodians; the entry of full-service banks as tokenisation of money and securities becomes the primary growth driver; and a wave of product innovation spanning staking, prime services, off-exchange settlement, and inter-custodian transfer networks. These awards recognise excellence across every dimension of that evolving landscape.
Best Full-Service Custodian Bank Globally
Standard Chartered
Best Full-Service Custodian Bank in Europe
Sygnum Bank
Best Full-Service Custodian Bank in Asia
DBS Bank
Best Full-Service Custodian Bank in North America
State Street
Best Custodian Globally
BitGo
Best Custodian in Europe
Zodia
Best Custodian in Asia
Hex Trust
Best Custodian in North America
BitGo
Most Innovative Custodian
Fireblocks
Best Institutional Custody Innovation: TradFi-Crypto Convergence
Crypto Finance Group
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Best Institutional Custody Innovation: TradFi-Crypto Convergence
Clearstream
Best Digital Asset Custody Technology Provider
Ledger
Best Custodian for Staking
BitGo
Best Custodian for Funds or Stablecoin Reserves
BNY
Best Service Provider for Staking
Blockdaemon
Best Custodian for Stablecoin Coverage
Fireblocks
Best Service Provider for Stablecoin Coverage
Circle
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Best Off-Exchange Settlement Platform
Zodia
Best Off-Exchange Settlement Platform
Standard Chartered
This section covers exchanges and platforms trading tokenised securities and regulated digital assets, not cryptocurrency venues. It remains an early-stage market. Initiatives have emerged across Singapore, Tokyo, the European Union, and the United States, ranging from tokenised equity platforms to alternative trading systems, but none has yet achieved the listings depth or trading volume that would define a mature market. That is about to change. The launch of new trading infrastructure at Nasdaq and NYSE, combined with the DTCC's approval to hold unlimited on-chain positions, means the foundation is now in place. These awards recognise the platforms leading the way into that next phase.
Best Digital Asset Exchange Globally
Nasdaq
Best Digital Asset Exchange in Europe
21X
Best Digital Asset Exchange in Asia
DBS Digital Exchange
Best Digital Asset Exchange in North America
tZero
Most Innovative Digital Asset Exchange
Nasdaq
Best Primary Market Digital Asset Exchange
21X
Best Secondary Market Digital Asset Exchange
BX Digital
Best Emerging Digital Asset Exchange
Axiology
Best Real Estate Digital Asset Platform
BPX
Best Tokenised Listed Equities Platform
Ondo Finance
Best DLT/TSS Trading Facility
21X
Best Settlement and Cash Management Solution
BX Digital
Best Digital Asset Exchange Technology Vendor
Nasdaq
Best Digital Asset Surveillance Services Provider
Check Point Software Technologies
Stablecoins have had their defining year. What was still a contested asset class at the start of 2025 is now core payments and settlement infrastructure, embedded in the rails of global payment networks and held in the treasuries of major financial institutions. MiCA in Europe and the GENIUS Act in the United States have done something important: they have forced the market to distinguish between stablecoins that are genuinely well-reserved, properly licensed, and institutionally deployable, and those that are not. That distinction is now commercially meaningful, and these awards reflect the full breadth of that landscape.
Best Non-Bank Stablecoin Issuer
Paxos
Best Bank Stablecoin Issuer
Ripple
Best Regulated Stablecoin Issuer under GENIUS ACT
Anchorage Digital Bank
Best Regulated Stablecoin Issuer under MiCAR
Circle
Best Stablecoin Reserve Quality and Liquidity
Circle
Best Stablecoin Risk Management Program
Circle
Best Institutional Adoption of Stablecoins
Visa
Most Innovative Retail Stablecoin Payment Use Case
Stripe
Tokenised deposits represent one of the most consequential forms of digital money receiving serious institutional attention, and the distinction from stablecoins matters. The core proposition is an upgrade to existing commercial bank money: preserving the regulatory protections and trust of traditional deposits, while unlocking the programmability and 24/7 availability of blockchain infrastructure. Banks are now issuing tokenised deposits across multiple currencies and jurisdictions, enabling real-time settlement and programmable treasury flows. Landmark pilots are demonstrating that sterling, and commercial bank money more broadly, can operate on public blockchain infrastructure without compromising on safety or compliance. These awards recognise the institutions at the front of that effort.
Best Live Tokenised Deposit Issuer
HSBC
Best Pilot Tokenised Deposit Programme Issuer
Lloyds Bank
The way money moves is changing in ways that would have seemed speculative just a few years ago. Stablecoins have gone from crypto trading instruments to live settlement infrastructure, now embedded in the core rails of networks processing trillions in annual volume. At the corporate level, programmable money is being used to automate FX settlement, trigger payments from real-world manufacturing processes, and replace multi-day clearing cycles that have defined corporate treasury for decades. These awards recognise the organisations leading that transition at both ends of the stack.
Best Digital Payment Network
Visa
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