Digital Asset Ecosystem

The digital asset ecosystem is the broad network of technologies, businesses and institutions involved in creating, trading, holding and overseeing digital assets. At its base are blockchains and the tokens issued on them, including cryptocurrencies, stablecoins and tokenized securities. Around them sit service providers: exchanges and brokers, wallet makers, digital asset custodians, payment and on-ramp firms, market makers, data and analytics companies, and decentralized finance protocols. Users range from individuals to banks, asset managers and corporate treasuries. Regulators, standard-setters and law enforcement form another layer, setting rules for the businesses that the Financial Action Task Force calls virtual asset service providers. The phrase is used by policymakers and industry reports to emphasize how closely these parts depend on each other, so that a failure in one, such as a large exchange collapse, can spread across the whole system. Also see blockchain economy.