Empire Quadrillions: The New Wall Street | Nick Shalek & Mathew McDermott
Feb 18, 2026
Yuval Rooz (Canton Network), a privacy-and-interoperability strategist; Mathew McDermott, Goldman Sachs’ digital assets lead; Nick Shalek, Ribbit Capital investor in tokenization. They discuss why institutional adoption stalled, how privacy, governance, and interoperability unlock banks, the rise of tokenized, machine-readable assets, and why permissioned and permissionless rails must interoperate.
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Why Fintechs Lead Onchain Adoption
- Modern fintechs adopt on-chain rails because innovation is in their DNA and they have modern stacks.
- They pursue global expansion and new customer experiences that incumbents often avoid.
Regulatory Clarity Drives Institutional Momentum
- Institutional adoption stalled from lack of regulatory clarity and scalable proofs.
- Recent policy shifts and agency engagement are now breeding the confidence needed to scale institutional efforts.
Build For Underserved Users, Not Incumbents
- Expect incumbents to be second movers and act when competitive pressure forces them.
- Focus product strategy on underserved users and new market behaviors to win adoption.