CTOs, make blockchain your core infrastructure with proven production partners

Enterprise blockchain is often declared dead after years of hype. With budgets tightening and leaders demanding clear ROI, justifying and securing investments has become increasingly complex. The “HFS Horizons: Enterprise Blockchain Services, 2025” report tells another story: service providers are now delivering real value with the technology.

For the Horizons report, HFS assessed 14 global service providers that are helping enterprises move into production using enterprise blockchain. They are embedding blockchain into their core infrastructure as another piece of the stack rather than treating it as a standalone technology. Their engagements have moved beyond “where can I use this new technology?” to driving real efficiency gains and unlocking new revenue streams within the enterprise and their broader ecosystems.

Three use cases driving blockchain adoption you must explore

As enterprise blockchain becomes increasingly embedded within enterprise infrastructure, service providers that can move beyond pilots and proofs-of-concept into real production engagements are worth their weight in gold. Our assessment showed the market is talking less about blockchain and more about the use cases it enables. We saw three key use cases driving demand for this technology:

• Decentralized identity: Controls and verifies credentials on the blockchain, reducing reliance on central databases or authorities. For enterprises, that means faster onboarding and fewer manual checks across customers, employees, and partners, while cutting fraud and compliance risk in multi-party ecosystems.
• Stablecoins: Blockchain-based digital currencies pegged to fiat currencies, ensuring stability while benefitting from the efficiency of transacting on-chain. For CTOs working with finance and treasury, this translates to shorter settlement cycles, lower transaction fees, and more predictable liquidity in cross-border and high-volume payment flows.
• Tokenization: Represents real-world and digital assets on the blockchain, particularly for ESG use cases such as tokenized carbon credits. For enterprises, this creates more transparent, auditable records of ownership and impact, enabling new financing and ESG reporting models built on trusted, real-time data.

As these use cases mature, service providers have been changing their market approach. Historically, expensive and time-consuming custom builds were the norm as enterprises sought a competitive edge. Today, most providers are pitching rapid, repeatable solutions built around key use cases to lower costs and accelerate time-to-value. But the onus is on enterprise leaders to determine which providers have actually made the pivot and which are just talking the talk.

Only a handful of service providers can deliver production-grade enterprise blockchain at scale

Horizons reports assess service providers across three key layers of value creation (see Exhibit 1). Our assessment dimension (see points below) covers factors such as how well each provider navigates regulatory expertise, builds repeatable platforms, and integrates other emerging technologies to deliver meaningful outcomes at scale with enterprise blockchain.

• Horizon 1 providers demonstrate a strong ability to drive functional transformation with enterprise blockchain, reducing costs and driving new efficiencies.
• Horizon 2 providers move beyond functional transformation to introduce their own proprietary assets, coupled with strong consulting capabilities, to reduce costs, drive efficiencies, and create new experiences for customers and employees alike.
• Horizon 3 providers combine everything from H1 and H2 with scalable execution and innovation capabilities to drive industry-wide innovation and co-create with partners at scale, impacting ecosystems, not just enterprises.

The “HFS Horizons: Enterprise Blockchain Services, 2025” report identified four Horizon 3 leaders: Accenture, Capgemini, EY, and Infosys. While these providers are delivering production-grade blockchain at scale, our assessment reveals a bloat in Horizon 2, indicating a strong group of promising partners. Still, we need to see more scaled production outcomes.

Exhibit 1: Horizon 2 indicates promising partners with the ability to deliver industry-wide innovations

Note: All service providers within a Horizon are listed alphabetically.
Source: HFS Research, 2026

The overall rankings highlight how the enterprise blockchain market has matured in recent years, despite the hype dying. There are plenty of providers that offer credible blockchain assets, accelerators, and consulting-led capabilities, but fewer have translated them into repeatable and scalable assets that drive tangible outcomes. Enterprises, in turn, must demand proof of real-world value, not just more slide decks and theory-driven IP.

Your next move will define your long-term story in the blockchain market

Enterprise blockchain has matured beyond the realm of experimental technology. It is production technology, and that changes how you choose partners and how you deploy it. Here’s what the CTO should do next:

• Separate provider roles explicitly: Separate vendors that deliver and run production systems from those that coordinate ecosystems. Governance, interoperability, and partner networks matter as much as technical execution. Avoid vision-led pitches without live references. Ask for client names, transaction volumes, and time in production.
• Treat regulated digital assets as a real program: Design compliance, operating models, and enterprise integration from day one for stablecoins and tokenization. Scale depends on regulatory alignment and risk controls, not the tech. Avoid pilots that collapse under legal, compliance, or treasury review.
• Anchor initiatives to trust outcomes: Focus on outcomes such as traceability, ESG verification, and shared accountability, not blockchain features. These survive budget and organizational scrutiny. Avoid one-off architectures that can’t scale across teams or ecosystems.

But here is a critical trade-off: speed vs. governance. Fast experimentation can deliver quick wins, but production blockchain requires regulatory alignment, shared governance, and auditability, and that takes time.

The Horizons report shows which providers can actually execute. Enterprises can use the Horizons framework to shortlist based on ambition: Horizon 1 for pilots and Horizon 3 for scaled production. Challenge provider pitches using the evaluation criteria and ask for proof about live deployments, transaction volumes, regulatory clearance, etc. Align IT, business, procurement, and risk teams on what “blockchain-capable” means in practice, i.e., repeatable platforms, shared governance, and measurable trust outcomes.

The Bottom Line: Choose partners that prove that enterprise blockchain is production infrastructure, not experimental technology.

Enterprise blockchain has shifted from hype-driven pilots to production infrastructure for trust and value exchange. Shortlist providers with live production deployments and ecosystem governance experience, not vision decks. Avoid those that can’t show client references and measurable outcomes. Accept the trade-off: building governance-ready blockchain takes longer, but it’s the only path to scale.