I was at the Liquidity Summit in Hong Kong, and a conversation with Samar Sen from Talos made me rethink how institutions actually handle digital assets. We tend to think everything is uniform, but the reality is much more fragmented than it appears.

What caught my attention the most is that regulatory clarity remains the main factor, but it’s not the only one. Institutional infrastructure has evolved significantly in recent years—custody, execution platforms, portfolio management—all of this already exists and works. But even so, many institutions still hesitate. And do you know why? It’s not due to lack of resources or technical capacity. It’s internal conviction. Companies that have been structured for decades tend to gradually mature their relationship with digital assets, regardless of whether the external environment is ready.

When I asked what truly builds trust among institutions when evaluating crypto partners, the answer was clear: it’s not just branding or sector recognition. What matters are proven controls—SOC 2 certifications, audit trails, operational safeguards. Track record also matters, especially when it comes from people who have worked in traditional finance with strict governance. And there’s more: institutions observe what others are doing. If they see peers using the same infrastructure, it reduces uncertainty.

But here’s the most interesting part: not everyone advances at the same pace with digital assets. Sen identified three quite distinct groups. There are the pioneers—those who understand that something structural is changing in capital markets and allocate resources even without full clarity. They invest in internal teams and talk to new providers. Then come the fast followers, who wait for more validation before increasing exposure. And there are the laggards, where leadership still hasn’t developed trust or initiatives are internally fragmented.

The point we took away is that this isn’t a lack of competence. It’s that risk tolerance and internal mandates vary greatly. Some organizations simply don’t have the institutional space to move quickly, even if they want to. Understanding this dynamic significantly changes how we think about institutional adoption of digital assets in the coming years.