Ripple legal chief flags crypto’s path to mainstream

Ripple’s chief legal officer says crypto is moving beyond speculation and into everyday finance, driven by quiet adoption, tokenisation and deeper ties with traditional institutions.

In an opinion piece for Fast Company, Stuart Alderoty argued that structural adoption is accelerating and that by 2026 crypto’s role in mainstream finance will feel normal rather than dramatic.

“Crypto is increasingly going mainstream, even when that story doesn’t show up in headlines,”

Alderoty wrote, pointing to growing use in payroll, retail payments and creative platforms instead of speculative trading.

He said the first major shift is quiet, everyday adoption, adding:

“The tipping point might not feel dramatic when it arrives. It’ll feel normal. And that’s the point.”

The second shift is the tokenisation of real-world assets, which Alderoty said is lowering barriers to entry by enabling fractional ownership of assets such as property, art and commodities.

“A lot of people have been locked out of owning certain assets because the entry cost is too high,”

He wrote, adding that tokenisation “chips away at that barrier”.

The third shift is institutional integration, with Alderoty concluding:

“Crypto in 2026 is about quiet adoption, real-world assets going digital, and traditional finance finding common ground with digital assets.”