The Era of Blockchain Infrastructure Maturity: A New Turning Point in Enterprise Adoption and Regulatory Frameworks by 2026
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Maturity and Market Expansion of Enterprise Blockchain
As of early 2026, the global blockchain market is entering a maturity phase faster than anticipated, with enterprise adoption accelerating rapidly. According to the latest report by Gartner, the global blockchain market size in 2026 is expected to reach $163 billion, reflecting a 73% growth compared to the previous year, significantly exceeding the 2024 forecast of $94 billion. Notably, 68% of total blockchain investments are focused on building real business solutions rather than cryptocurrency transactions. This shift clearly indicates that blockchain is transitioning from a speculative technology to a core enterprise infrastructure.
In the United States, 47% of Fortune 500 companies are already operating or piloting blockchain-based solutions, a significant increase from 31% in 2024. California-based Oracle announced a 124% increase in revenue from its blockchain platform in Q4 2025 compared to the same period the previous year, with supply chain tracking solutions accounting for 42% of total revenue. New York-based IBM reported $1.8 billion in blockchain-related revenue in 2025 through its Hyperledger Fabric-based enterprise solutions, marking an 89% growth from the previous year. Global retail giants like Walmart, Nestlé, and Unilever are actively adopting IBM’s Food Trust platform for food safety tracking, demonstrating tangible business value.
In South Korea, enterprise blockchain adoption is also accelerating. Samsung SDS reported a blockchain business revenue of 420 billion KRW in 2025, a 156% increase from the previous year. The blockchain-based identity verification service ‘Nexledger’ for government and public institutions is a major growth driver, currently utilized by 17 central ministries and 112 local governments. SK Telecom achieved 89 billion KRW in related revenue in 2025 through its self-developed blockchain platform ‘Ifland Chain,’ providing digital asset trading and NFT services within the metaverse. This marks the highest blockchain-based new business revenue among domestic telecom companies.
Blockchain adoption in supply chain management is particularly prominent. According to Deloitte’s 2026 Global Supply Chain Blockchain Report, 34% of global manufacturers have adopted blockchain technology to ensure supply chain transparency, resulting in an average 17% reduction in operating costs. The automotive, electronics, and pharmaceutical industries are increasingly utilizing blockchain for tracking parts and raw materials. Germany’s BMW announced the implementation of a blockchain-based parts history management system with global suppliers from 2025, reducing recall response time from 45 days to 7 days.
Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) and Structural Changes in the Regulatory Environment
The year 2026 marks a turning point with the full-scale introduction of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs). According to the latest survey by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), 86% of central banks worldwide are engaged in CBDC research and development, with 24 countries entering the pilot testing phase. The People’s Bank of China’s digital yuan (DC/EP) surpassed a cumulative transaction volume of 870 billion yuan (approximately $134 billion) by the end of 2025, with an average daily transaction count of 2.8 million. In major cities like Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen, the acceptance rate of the digital yuan has reached 67%, rapidly replacing cash usage.
The European Central Bank’s (ECB) digital euro project entered the proof-of-concept phase in October 2025. A six-month pilot test conducted in Germany, France, Italy, and Spain revealed that small payment processing speed via the digital euro was on average 78% faster than traditional card payments, with transaction fees reduced by 45%. The ECB aims for an official launch in the second half of 2026, having completed technical integration with central banks in all 27 Eurozone countries. The Bank of Japan also initiated a digital yen pilot program in April 2025, with participation from the three mega-banks Mitsubishi UFJ Bank, Mizuho Bank, and Sumitomo Mitsui Bank to test inter-company payment systems.
The Bank of Korea’s digital won research is also making significant progress. The second phase of the pilot test, which began in August 2025, involves major commercial banks such as KB Kookmin Bank, Shinhan Bank, and Hana Bank, as well as fintech companies like Samsung Pay, Kakao Pay, and Naver Pay. The cumulative number of test transactions has exceeded 470,000, with an average transaction processing time of 1.3 seconds, significantly shorter than the traditional account transfer average of 4.7 seconds. The Bank of Korea plans to make a final decision on the introduction of the digital won by the end of 2026, having completed technical preparations to stay ahead in the global CBDC race.
Structural changes in the regulatory environment are also accelerating. The United States passed the ‘Digital Asset Market Structure and Investor Protection Act’ in July 2025, providing a clear legal framework for blockchain-based financial services. Under this legislation, the regulatory authorities of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) are clearly delineated, and a unified federal regulatory standard for stablecoins has been established. California-based Coinbase reported a 234% increase in institutional trading volume in Q4 2025 under the new regulatory environment, with a significant rise in digital asset investments by pension funds and insurance companies.
The European Union’s ‘Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA)’ also fully came into effect in December 2024, setting new standards for the blockchain industry. Under MiCA regulations, cryptocurrency exchanges in Europe are required to comply with regulations equivalent to those of traditional financial institutions, including the segregation of customer assets, capital requirements, and operational risk management. Binance Europe, headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany, invested €120 million in 2025 solely for regulatory compliance to meet MiCA requirements and has obtained formal licenses in 12 countries, including Germany, France, and the Netherlands.
Technological Innovation and the Competitive Landscape of Next-Generation Blockchain Platforms
Blockchain technology itself continues to evolve, addressing scalability and energy efficiency issues. Following Ethereum’s ‘The Merge,’ the transition to a Proof-of-Stake mechanism was completed, reducing energy consumption by 99.95%. With the ‘The Surge’ update in 2025, sharding technology was introduced, increasing the number of transactions processed per second from 15 to 100,000. The Ethereum Foundation announced plans to reduce transaction fees by an average of 87% with the final update, ‘The Splurge,’ in the first half of 2026.
The Solana ecosystem is also experiencing rapid growth. In 2025, the average daily active wallet count on the Solana network increased by 156% to 2.8 million, and the total value locked (TVL) in decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols exceeded $8.7 billion. Notably, the monthly trading volume of Solana-based decentralized exchanges (DEXs) reached $240 billion, surpassing the Ethereum-based DEX trading volume of $189 billion for the first time. Solana’s core technologies, ‘Proof-of-History’ and ‘Tower Byzantine Fault Tolerance,’ enable the processing of 65,000 transactions per second, securing a competitive edge in high-frequency trading and gaming applications.
Competition among enterprise blockchain platforms is also intensifying. Hyperledger Fabric is utilized by over 2,400 companies worldwide as of 2025, particularly establishing itself as a trusted private blockchain solution in the financial sector. JPM Coin, developed by JPMorgan Chase, recorded $345 billion in inter-institutional payment transactions in 2025, leading the enterprise stablecoin market. Microsoft offers a ‘Blockchain-as-a-Service (BaaS)’ model through its Azure cloud platform, achieving $2.4 billion in related revenue in 2025, a 78% increase from the previous year. This growth is driven by enabling small and medium-sized enterprises to easily adopt related services without complex blockchain infrastructure.
Virginia-based MicroStrategy is a representative case of a company holding Bitcoin as a strategic asset. As of January 2026, the company holds approximately 200,000 BTC (worth about $18 billion at market value), accounting for 0.95% of the total Bitcoin supply. MicroStrategy’s stock price rose by 347% in 2025, significantly outperforming the Bitcoin price increase of 89%. This achievement demonstrates a new trend of companies using digital assets as a hedge against inflation.
Among next-generation blockchain technologies, ‘Zero-Knowledge Proof’ technology is gaining attention. Zero-knowledge rollup solutions like Polygon’s zkEVM and StarkWare’s StarkNet are emerging as key technologies to address Ethereum’s scalability issues. In 2025, transactions through zero-knowledge rollups accounted for 73% of all Ethereum Layer 2 transactions, with average transaction fees 95% cheaper than the mainnet. Zero-knowledge proof technology is becoming essential infrastructure for processing large volumes of microtransactions in gaming and social media applications.
The convergence of artificial intelligence and blockchain is also emerging as a new area of innovation. California-based NVIDIA launched a service through ‘Omniverse Cloud’ in 2025 to verify AI model training and inference processes with blockchain, ensuring transparency and reliability of AI models. Demand for blockchain-based AI governance is surging, particularly in medical AI diagnostic systems and autonomous driving algorithms. Major AI companies like OpenAI and Anthropic are also considering implementing systems to track the provenance and usage rights of model training data with blockchain, suggesting that the integration of AI and blockchain will accelerate further.
In 2026, the blockchain industry is entering a new growth phase centered on technological maturity, regulatory clarity, and the creation of tangible business value. As the transition from speculative assets to core digital infrastructure accelerates, companies are actively adopting blockchain technology to enhance operational efficiency and create new business models. The blockchain market is expected to sustain an average annual growth of 68% over the next 3-5 years, reaching $480 billion by 2030, with companies possessing both technological innovation and regulatory compliance capabilities expected to lead the market.
