FinanceShareShare this articleCopy linkX (Twitter)LinkedInFacebookEmailBrickken CEO Predicts Wall Street Will Transition to Blockchain by 2030
Edwin Mata warns that EU regulations are hindering local startups, allowing the U.S. and AI technologies to lead the future of tokenized finance.
By Olivier Acuna|Edited by Jamie Crawley Jun 9, 2026, 12:08 p.m. 2 min readMake preferred on Edwin Mata, the CEO and founder of Brickken, envisions a future where Wall Street fully integrates blockchain technology as banks explore tokenized assets. (Olivier Acuna/CoinDesk)Key Points:
- Edwin Mata, CEO and founder of the tokenization platform Brickken, anticipates that by 2030, Wall Street will operate entirely on blockchain.
- Mata cautions that Europe’s excessive regulations are pushing startups away.
- He foresees a shift from traditional software dashboards to AI-driven chat prompts that manage backend operations to optimize financial returns.
The distinction between traditional finance (TradFi) and cryptocurrency is becoming increasingly blurred, with tokenization emerging as a key theme in the digital asset sector.
According to Edwin Mata, CEO and founder of Brickken, Wall Street is expected to fully adopt blockchain technology by 2030. He explained to CoinDesk that terms like "Web3" are diminishing in importance as significant financial institutions implement this technology for essential functions like settlements and payments.
"The merger of Wall Street and technology is going to fade away," Mata remarked during an interview. "We will no longer discuss blockchain as a separate entity. It will become part of fintech."
With institutional interest in the tokenization of real-world assets on the rise, driven by initiatives like BlackRock’s BUIDL fund, Mata also expressed concern over Europe’s regulatory environment, which he believes is stifling competition.
This movement towards blockchain-centric systems was underscored by Bullish’s (BLSH) recent $4.2 billion acquisition of transfer agent Equiniti. This acquisition aims to enable corporate shareholder recordkeeping directly on-chain from the outset, eliminating the need for synthetic digital "wrappers." Notably, Bullish is the parent company of CoinDesk.
Mata indicated that the future of tokenization will rely more on software than human input. Brickken, located in Barcelona, Spain, has facilitated the onboarding of $500 million worth of real-world assets onto the blockchain and is currently working on integrating AI agents to streamline asset onboarding and liquidity sourcing for its 200 clients.
He predicts that conventional software dashboards will soon be replaced by straightforward chat interfaces, with AI handling the backend processes to identify optimal financial yields.
"The decision-making will no longer be in our hands; it will be managed by AI," Mata stated.
He further criticized the EU’s MiCA regulatory framework, arguing that it favors established banks by imposing costly and slow compliance requirements on smaller startups.
"Smaller companies find it difficult to enter the market, creating a barrier for larger firms," Mata noted. "Acquiring a license can take up to nine months, and for startups, that delay without the ability to monetize can be fatal."
Due to these challenges, startups may opt to relocate to regions like the UAE and Southeast Asia instead of facing these regulatory hurdles. Mata believes the U.S. will continue to be the leading hub for crypto innovation simply because it has the world’s largest capital market, rendering the current regulatory debates in Washington as merely temporary distractions.
Charles Guillemet, CTO of Ledger based in France, echoed Mata’s concerns. He told CoinDesk that the EU’s regulatory framework has altered the competitive dynamics of Web3, inadvertently disadvantaging crypto startups while providing significant advantages to traditional financial institutions.
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