Morning Minute: PwC Says Crypto Adoption Has Passed The Point of No Return

Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. Subscribe to the Morning Minute on Substack.

GM!

Today’s top news:

Crypto majors fall 1-2% despite Gold & Silver pump; BTC at $89,200
Ledger prepares for $4B IPO, tapping Goldman and others to lead
PwC says institutional crypto adoption can no longer be reversed
Leshner’s SuperState raises $82.5M in Series B to accelerate tokenized stocks
Sentient AGI’s SENT token debuts at $900M fdv

🏛️ PwC Says Institutional Crypto Adoption Has Passed the Point of No Return

One of the biggest concerns of crypto under the Trump presidency has been—what happens if the political winds shift in 2026 or 2028?

Well, PwC says you have nothing to worry about.

📌 What Happened

According to PwC, institutional adoption of crypto has crossed a threshold where it is no longer reversible, marking a structural shift in how large financial players interact with digital assets.

PwC’s assessment points to sustained engagement across custody, trading, settlement, tokenization, and onchain financial infrastructure, even through periods of market volatility and regulatory uncertainty.

Rather than institutions testing crypto on the margins, PwC says firms are now building long-term strategies and systems around it, making a full retreat impractical even if market conditions deteriorate.

🧠 Why It Matters

The signal here is not just what PwC said in the report. It is that PwC is saying it at all.

A Big Four accounting firm weighing in on crypto adoption carries a different kind of weight than commentary from exchanges, venture firms, or protocol founders.

They weren’t issuing reports like this in 2021.

Now more and more big TradFi players are paying attention and publishing thought leadership on crypto.

As for the substance of the report, it also speaks directly to one of the biggest lingering concerns around crypto – the idea that a political shift in 2028 could unwind the progress made over the past two years.

PwC’s assessment suggests the opposite.

Once institutions commit to crypto and everything that goes with it (custody systems, compliance frameworks, tokenized products, onchain settlement infrastructure, etc), walking away becomes too expensive.

These are multi-year investments embedded in core business processes, not experiments that can be flipped off with a change in administration.

We may actually be making enough progress right now to set crypto up for decades.

And the biggest players are finally taking notice…



🌎 Macro Crypto and Markets

A few headlines that stood out:

Crypto majors are red while Gold nears $5,000 and Silver closes in on $100; BTC -1% at $89,100; ETH -2% at $2,925, SOL -2% at $127; XRP -2% to $1.90
ZRO (+15%), AXS (+10%) and DASH (+8%) led top movers
Ledger is preparing for a $4B IPO, enlisting Goldman Sachs, Jefferies and Barclays for support
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse predicted crypto could hit new highs in 2026, pointing to regulatory momentum and institutional participation as key drivers
President Trump sued JPMorgan for $5 billion, alleging politically motivated “debanking”
BitGo briefly surged in its stock market debut before finishing its first day of trading just over its $18 IPO price
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink pushed the idea of a single blockchain for tokenization to avoid corruption and aid in scaling
Kansas introduced its own Bitcoin Strategic Reserve bill
PwC said institutional crypto adoption has crossed a point of no return, as regulatory frameworks move from draft rules toward active supervision.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent reaffirmed the Trump administration’s push for U.S. crypto leadership and support for a strategic Bitcoin reserve

In Corporate Treasuries / ETFs

The BTC ETFs saw $32M in net outflows on Thursday; ETH ETFs saw $42M in outflows
Bitwise filed for a “Debasement” ETF designed to pair Bitcoin and gold exposure as a hedge against currency depreciation
21Shares launched a DOGE ETF backed by the Dogecoin Foundation
DeFi Development Corp faced insider trading allegations after a Solana meme coin trader reportedly turned $4K into $1M on its DONT memecoin

In Memes / Onchain Movers

Meme majors were mostly flat; Doge -1%, Shiba -1%, PEPE -1%, TRUMP +1%, Bonk -1%, Pengu -1%, SPX -6%, WIF -1% and Fartcoin -1%
DFDV’s DONT token led volume and jumped 48,000% to $26M
PENGUIN (+180%), PsyopAnime (+80%) and USOR (+70%) led other onchain movers

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

Robert Leshner’s Superstate raised $825M to accelerate its tokenized stocks push across Ethereum and Solana
Warden raised $4M at $200M fdv to build a global AI agent network ahead of its upcoming airdrop, and also announced $1M in grants and incentives for builders
Railgun announced that Railgun Connect is live in what they describe as a “huge leap for making private addresses function as public ones.”
MegaETH’s global stress test went live aiming for 18k-35k tps for transactions
New tokens SENT and FIGHT opened at $900M fdv and $230M fdv respectively, with SENT tied to the Sentient AGI protocol aiming to ensure AGI is open-source

🚚 What is happening in NFTs?

NFT leaders were slightly red; Punks even at 27.24 ETH, Pudgy -1% at 4.84 ETH, and BAYC -1% at 5.88 ETH; Hypurr even at 480 HYPE
Fidenza (+22%), Qurikies (+15%) and mfers (+14%) led notable top movers