The internet financial system

Jeremy Allaire, whose company Circle operates the largest regulated stablecoin, USDC, envisages a world in which money is exchanged "as effortlessly as we communicate". He expects that "all money will be digital" in the near future and that payments will feel as easy as sending a message or starting a video call – instant, global, low‑cost and largely invisible on the backend.

Just as the internet enabled information for all, Allaire sees future finance democratizing money – "what we call the internet financial system". He says that "every person, every business, everywhere in the world" will be able to transact and access capital. To demonstrate the technology's potential reach, Allaire referenced Circle's recent efforts to get digital aid to displaced refugees from the war in Ukraine.

"We created a system where there could be direct aid disbursement to known individuals registered as refugees. Those known individuals only needed a mobile device. The funds would effectively reach them as digital dollars – instantly – in a corruption-resistant way. There's no cash being handed around, no one taking pieces of it and hiding it."

Digital money as everyday inclusion

Denelle Dixon, of nonprofit Stellar Development Foundation, speaks along similar lines. She views blockchain as the backend technology that people will neither need, nor want to know about – it "should just feel like they're either using mobile money or their bank account".

Dixon makes the point that, unlike in traditional banking, "there are no intermediaries" with digital assets – "you are the owner" – giving individuals much more financial freedom. She gave the example of creators in Africa or Latin America who can now export their talent globally and get paid in a stablecoin, easily transferring it into their local currency.

Dixon was also keen to debunk the widely-held belief that crypto means criminal. "I think the biggest myth of digital money is that it's only used for fraud." While 2025 saw over $3.4 billion of crypto theft globally, Dixon points out that digital money can "so simply and easily" be traced, making criminal activity harder to achieve.

Reshaping what safe money looks like

Global macro investor Ray Dalio sees a rocky road ahead. The current fiat system is under threat as debt burdens and geopolitical tensions grow. This volatile landscape has increased the demand for gold, which is seen as a safe investment as it's "more difficult to confiscate", Dalio says, when countries are seeking to enforce sanctions. Digital currencies like bitcoin are also harder for governments to "grab".

But the future of money, according to Dalio, ultimately hinges on what can be trusted as "a storehold of wealth". What he is sure about is the cyclical nature of finance: "The same things happen over and over again." Even the AI bubble doesn't faze him: "Almost all great technological changes produce bubbles naturally, because nobody knows exactly how much to invest in something that is fantastic." He notes the AI cycle is "not yet much of a bubble" but warns the danger arises when investors begin to "invent wealth" by valuing companies based on potential rather than cash flow.

Re‑plumbing the financial system

For Bill Winters of Standard Chartered, 2026 is about the consolidation of three trends: the bedding down of a multipolar world, the digitization of money, and the wide-scale adoption of AI. Winters describes the wholesale switch to tokenized money as a "re-plumbing of the financial system", in which "overnight settlements" via banks are replaced by the instantaneous transfer of stablecoins or central bank digital currencies.

"Once the money is in tokenized form, it can be transferred through blockchain technology from party A to party B, instantly, 24-7, with an indelible record," he says. "So there are tremendous efficiencies that come from the digitization of money."

That will depend on a global regulatory framework, which isn't yet in place. It will also require "the building out of the network itself" – existing blockchains are not big enough to cope with the volume that will need to come through. When asked whether cryptocurrencies were in trouble, Winters is unperturbed: "What I do think is clear is that there is now value attached to having a non-fiat currency."

Taken together, these four perspectives suggest that whatever the future of money, the systems, protections, and principles behind it will need to be shored up. "The decisions made by governments, businesses and workers in the year ahead will be pivotal ... to ensure that as many people as possible can access the rewards of the new economy."

© 2026 World Economic Forum