DBS, Singapore's largest bank, reported on October 28 that 88% of the large businesses it surveyed are deploying or piloting tokenized money — bank deposits, money-market funds, and stablecoins represented on blockchains — yet only 24% describe their operations as running at scale. The distance between those two numbers shows how differently “adoption” can be measured.

From 88% to 24%

The headline figure combines four very different situations. Page 17 of the full report, The Great Rewiring: Money in a New Order, separates them: 88% are deploying or piloting, 67% have some live use, and the remaining 12% are exploring or not using tokenized money at all.

“Live in selected markets” is the largest group, which makes a limited footprint — not full operation — the most common state. 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 actually runs through it. For treasurers, banks, and vendors reading the headlines, the distinction is practical: the 88% measures activity, while the 24% measures how much of that activity has become routine operations.

Same Firm, Two Answers

The other widely cited number — EY’s finding that 18% of corporates use stablecoins in production — comes from the same consultancy, one of the Big Four professional services firms. DBS commissioned EY to run its survey, while EY-Parthenon conducted a separate one. The results differ because the questions and the respondents do:

• DBS survey, run by EY: 422 leaders across 11 markets; revenue above $500 million only; covering all tokenized money; 88% deploying or piloting.
• EY-Parthenon survey: 383 corporates and 138 institutions; a broader range of company sizes; focused on stablecoins and blockchain payments; 18% in production and 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 lies in who was asked: DBS surveyed only large companies, and about a wider set of instruments. EY’s chart splits its 18% into 10% with a single use case and 8% with several — a measure of 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 places each company on a single rung, but 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. That chart covers instruments companies already use or plan to adopt, so it measures intentions as well as usage.

The instruments differ as well. A tokenized deposit is a claim on a bank, and a tokenized money-market fund is an investment. Stablecoins, the third category in these surveys, are tokens designed to hold a steady value against a reference asset such as a fiat currency. 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. For launches such as JPMorgan’s deposit tokens on Ethereum, the relevant question is which payments real counterparties can complete with them.

What a Credible Adoption Figure Would Include

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. Any published breakdown for a named deployment — for instance, documentation following the DBS-Citi proof of concept that runs to December — would let readers check the label against the activity behind it.

This article is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice.