A new payments stack is emerging, and it looks very different from the legacy rails global finance has relied on for decades.
This shift is happening quietly but decisively. Regulators are providing clearer frameworks, enterprises are demanding real-time settlement and resilience, and technology leaders are rethinking how payments infrastructure should be built for a world that operates continuously.
At a basic level, digital assets change how funds move. Traditional payment systems were built for a slower, more manual world, relying on multiple intermediaries and limited operating hours. By contrast, digital assets enable money to move more like data on the internet: faster, more directly and with greater transparency. This is particularly useful for cross-border payments, where speed, cost and visibility have long been pain points.
Stablecoins and blockchain-based payments enable near-instant settlement, reducing delays for businesses. Such technologies are increasingly being used alongside existing systems to improve efficiency, and regulated institutions are exploring digital assets as a way to modernise payments, improve cash flow and support real-time services that legacy infrastructure struggles to deliver.
Tokenisation extends these benefits beyond payments. By turning real-world assets, such as money or securities, into digital tokens, ownership and transfer can be automated and made more flexible. This allows assets to be split, traded and settled in real-time, with rules and compliance embedded directly into the system.
Regulation is forcing a rethink of crypto infrastructure
Institutional involvement in digital assets has grown rapidly as regulations become clearer. According to a 2025 survey by Coinbase, around 86% of institutional investors already have or plan to gain exposure to digital assets this year alone. The crypto industry appears to be on the cusp of broad institutional support, the report explains.
Frameworks such as the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) and the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) are further driving adoption, pushing companies that build and operate crypto, stablecoin and blockchain-based payment services towards higher standards of transparency, resilience and security. In parallel, initiatives such as the proposed US GENIUS Act signal a broader global move towards formalising stablecoins and digital payment rails within existing financial systems.
Technology will play a large role in helping to meet tighter regulations. Firms need systems that can demonstrate real-time compliance, continuous monitoring and operational resilience. DORA, in particular, places emphasis on ICT risk management, incident reporting and resilience testing. This requires platforms that are modular, observable and capable of adapting quickly as regulatory expectations evolve.
Embracing AI to meet scale and compliance obligations
Over time, compliance is becoming part of the payment itself, with modern payment systems using AI to conduct regulatory checks as transactions occur, instead of relying on batch processing and static, rule-based controls. AI enables crypto-native platforms to process high transaction volumes continuously while adapting to changing risk and regulatory conditions. It can optimise liquidity across multiple payment rails and digital assets, routing transactions dynamically based on cost, congestion and risk.
Meanwhile, machine learning models analyse live transaction flows to detect anomalies, flag suspicious activity and adjust risk models as new threats emerge. This goes beyond simple rules by correlating behaviour across wallets, devices and networks, enabling earlier fraud detection and more contextual compliance decisions.
Cybersecurity threats are evolving
While AI can help the crypto industry to scale, greater adoption will attract more sophisticated attacks. Phishing attacks remain one of the most effective threats, often exploiting human behaviour rather than technical weaknesses. At an infrastructure level, attackers are increasingly focused on APIs, cloud misconfigurations and supply-chain vulnerabilities. Where legacy systems often rely on periodic testing and manual controls, modern crypto platforms are designed for continuous monitoring and rapid response.
Behavioural analytics, anomaly detection and automated response mechanisms are increasingly essential to limit the impact of incidents, and resilience planning should focus on rapid recovery and continuity rather than absolute prevention.
The importance of cloud-based, resilient infrastructure
As digital asset payments expand into sectors such as real estate, travel and e-commerce, expectations around uptime and performance are rising. These industries depend on always-on systems that can handle spikes in demand without degradation.
Cloud-based infrastructure gives payment platforms the flexibility and resilience they need as demand grows. By designing systems that can run across multiple servers and automatically switch when something goes wrong, organisations can scale more easily, update services without disruption and prevent small issues from turning into major outages. Modern payment stacks are designed for continuous operation, where settlement, reconciliation and reporting happen in near real-time across jurisdictions.
MCP servers and the rise of adaptive financial systems
Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers are one of the newer developments enabling the shift to smarter and more flexible financial systems. MCP servers act as the connective tissue between AI models, data sources and execution environments, dynamically adapting in real time to enable context-aware decision making across distributed systems without the need for model retraining. In payments, this translates into infrastructure that can respond instantly to regulatory requirements, network congestion and emerging threats, while improving cost and resource efficiency through the use of on-demand contextual data.
Unlike traditional server architectures, MCP-based systems are modular and interoperable, supporting workloads across cloud, edge and on-premises environments. This flexibility allows platforms to evolve alongside regulation and market demands, providing a level of agility that legacy financial infrastructure was never designed to deliver.
Infrastructure agility as a competitive differentiator
By the year’s end, market leadership in digital finance will belong to those who treat security, compliance and resilience as architectural principles, not afterthoughts. The convergence of regulation, AI-powered transaction systems and adaptive infrastructure such as MCP servers is laying the foundation for that future, and the coming years will determine which organisations are prepared to take advantage.
Mustafa Budak is CTO at cryptocurrency payment gateway Bitpace
