Crypto Promised Disintermediation. New Intermediaries Are Emerging

The crypto industry’s long promise of disintermediation—letting people transact and invest without banks or brokers—may be shifting in 2026 toward a more complex model of new intermediaries. The article argues that stablecoins are increasingly moving into formal regulatory frameworks, tokenization of real-world assets (RWAs) is being pushed by large financial institutions, and many investors now access crypto exposure through exchange-traded products and professional custodians rather than direct ownership. It also notes that DAOs demonstrate how technical decentralization doesn’t automatically remove governance friction. Stablecoins are reframed as financial infrastructure, with adoption depending on reserve management, compliance, and operational oversight. For tokenization, RWA.xyz estimates more than $36 billion in RWAs represented on-chain, led by products tied to BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, JPMorgan, WisdomTree and Janus Henderson.