What Corporate Digital Money Adoption Numbers Hide

Key Takeaways

• DBS: 88% deploy or pilot tokenized money.
• Only 24% describe operations at scale.
• EY puts corporate stablecoin production at 18%.
• EY ran both surveys, with different definitions.

DBS published its figure on October 28, reporting that 88% of surveyed large businesses were deploying or piloting tokenized money.

From 88% to 24%

The headline combines four very different situations. Page 17 of the full report, The Great Rewiring: Money in a New Order, separates them:

88% deploying or piloting

24% at scale + 43% in selected markets + 21% in pilots

67% some live use

24% at scale + 43% in selected markets 24% operational at scale

The remaining 12% are exploring or not using it. 

Live in selected markets is the largest group, which makes a limited footprint the most common state, not full operation. Of the 88% counted as adopters, only about one in four describes its deployment as scaled. Even that is the companies’ own label: a firm can call a system scaled without saying what share of its treasury transfers or supplier payments runs through it.

Same firm, two answers

The other widely cited number, EY’s 18% of corporates using stablecoins in production, comes from the same consultancy. DBS commissioned EY to run its survey. EY-Parthenon ran a separate one. The results differ because the questions and the respondents do:

DBS survey · run by EY

422 leaders, 11 markets

Revenue above $500 million only

All tokenized money

88% deploying or piloting

EY-Parthenon survey

383 corporates, 138 institutions

Broader range of company sizes

Stablecoins and blockchain payments

18% in production, 13% piloting

Add EY’s pilots to its production figure and the total reaches 31%, still far below DBS’s 88%. Part of the gap is who was asked: DBS surveyed only large companies, about a wider set of instruments.

EY’s chart splits its 18% into 10% with a single use case and 8% with several. That measures breadth, not size: one recurring payment process could move more money than several small applications combined.

Where pilots end and operations begin

“Pilot” and “live” are not opposites. Real money can move inside a test, and a pilot can carry ongoing business:

• Test with real payments. DBS and Citi completed a weekend dollar payment in minutes, inside a proof of concept that runs to December.
• Pilot with ongoing use. In October 2024, DBS described its Treasury Tokens as a pilot already handling recurring intragroup transfers for Ant International.
• Live in selected markets. Operational, but limited to particular countries, currencies or counterparties.
• At scale. A routine part of how the company moves money.

A survey answer puts each company on one rung. The rungs overlap more than the labels suggest, which is why the activity behind them matters more than the stage name.

Read the chart, not the headline

Page 18 of the DBS report carries a 63% figure for stablecoins. The chart covers instruments companies already use or plan to adopt, so it measures intentions as well as usage.

The instruments differ too. A tokenized deposit is a claim on a bank, and a tokenized money-market fund is an investment. Grouping them with stablecoins as “digital money” describes how companies are experimenting with payments and treasury. None of it means companies are buying Bitcoin or other volatile crypto assets. The relevant question for launches such as JPMorgan’s deposit tokens on Ethereum is which payments real counterparties can complete with them.

What a credible adoption figure would include

What would prove adoptionIn DBS / EY? Named service and users · shows exactly what is running and for whom✗ Markets and currencies · separates “live in selected markets” from scale✗ Transaction count and value · the only direct measure of size✗ Unique counterparties · one partner or a real network✗ Share of relevant payments · side project or core process✗ Internal vs external · moving cash between subsidiaries or paying suppliers✗ When funds are usable · whether speed reaches the recipient✗

Neither survey fills in those fields. Until a company or bank publishes them for a named service, 24% is the closest figure to “live at scale,” and it rests on how respondents described themselves.