Digital Assets and Crypto

EY offers an experienced, multi-disciplinary team that is prepared to assist you in driving toward business opportunity while recognizing the potential risks of not following a thoughtful, informed approach. Our team draws on best practices from serving both traditional financial services firms (across all sectors) and the emerging, digital natives.

Digital assets: the next wave of finance

Digital assets such as cryptocurrencies and stablecoins are becoming a more significant part of our financial system, thanks to the power of blockchain technology. Ernst & Young LLP (EY US) is here to help clients navigate their journey into digital assets. We offer a wide range of sector-based capabilities across product strategy, technology infrastructure, tax and regulatory implications, risk management and transaction lifecycle support for going public or making acquisitions. Our team is dedicated to helping clients create effective strategies and explore innovative operating and revenue models that can drive their success in this evolving landscape.

Revolutionizing modern finance and value creation

The digital assets ecosystem and the underlying blockchain technology allow for instant payments and settlement, portfolio diversification, immutable security and privacy, and fractionalized asset ownership to unleash new business and operating models. These new capabilities could change how institutions raise capital, launch new products, lend money, advise clients and manage risk.

Capturing opportunity with digital assets

Custody

Required foundational capability to securely hold and enable access to digital assets, including cryptocurrencies, stablecoins and tokenized assets, for the organization or its clients to invest in.

Wealth management

Emerging new asset class for portfolio diversification and wealth creation through spot ownership, exchange-traded products (ETPs), and access to decentralized finance (DeFi) offerings (staking, lending, yield generation through stablecoins).

Payments and stablecoins

New opportunities for near-instant payments for commercial and retail use cases, including remittances, trading, liquidity and cash management, money transfers and cross-border payments enabled by blockchain-based payments including stablecoins and tokenized cash.

Tokenization

Tokenized assets have the potential to drive expanded access to capital, create new investment options and improve operational efficiency for participants. Investors could have both access to a wider array of investments (including alternatives and private markets) through fractionalization and the ability to utilize assets for instant settlement, new forms of collateral, and more.

Tax and regulatory

Added complexity in the digital asset landscape stemming from compliance with evolving tax, regulatory, capital and permissibility rules.

Deal activity and transactions

Necessity to evaluate build-vs.-buy-vs.-partner trade-offs as both offensive and defensive strategy against disruption. Mergers and acquisitions (M&A), initial public offerings (IPOs) and special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) all require due diligence and readiness efforts, as well as integration and value creation to realize the benefit of the deal.

What can EY US do for you?

EY US brings a multidisciplinary approach to the digital assets journey. Leveraging our knowledge and experience in strategy and industry insights, tax, compliance, and blockchain technology, we provide traditional finance (TradFi) firms with foundational strategies to capture new opportunities, while equipping digital native companies with strong governance frameworks to manage risk and drive growth. Overall, we are helping clients bring compliant, secure and resilient digital asset offerings to market and enabling safe, responsible growth.