Sam Duncan — Practice Leader, HFS Research[00:21]
Hello everybody and welcome to the latest edition of HFS’s Unfiltered Stories. I’m Sam Duncan, the practice leader at HFS responsible for driving our enterprise blockchain coverage. We recently published in November 2025 our Enterprise Blockchain Services Horizons report. As part of that study, we identified EY as a Horizon 3 market leader. And as a part of that, I’m excited to say that today we’re joined by two of their leaders, Clare and Paul. I’ll let them both introduce themselves. And maybe if we start with Paul, if you want to do a quick intro and maybe tell us about your t-shirt and why you’re always wearing jazzy shirts.
Paul Brody — Former Global Blockchain Leader, EY[00:54]
Thank you, Sam. So, yes, I am Paul Brody. I am the global blockchain leader at EY until Friday afternoon at 5 p.m. I’m actually out. I’m on my way out to start my own blockchain technology company. I think, you know, the T-shirts, they started during the pandemic because this is all that somebody could see of you. So I was like, well, I should make it entertaining. And this is actually one of my favorites because people are always saying that like crypto is going to the moon. And I’m like, if I’m going to the moon, it’s as a chubby unicorn on a rainbow jetpack. So I am super excited to be here because I’m so proud of the work that we have done for the last 10 years. And I’m especially proud to be here with my incoming replacement, who deserves to introduce herself, the amazing Clare Adelgren.
Clare Adelgren — Global Blockchain Leader, EY[01:40]
Thank you. Wow. Hi, Sam. So good to see you again and really good to be here today. Yes, as Paul said, I am the incoming global leader for blockchain, for EY. But I also have been, and for the last four years, have been leading our operations and all of our sales enablement globally for everything that we do in blockchain. I was also interim head of engineering. So I’ve been part of this team and part of our mission for a long time. Super passionate about the work that’s been done over the last 10 years. And I know that we’re going to talk a little bit about that later today. So really good to be here today.
Sam Duncan — Practice Leader, HFS Research[02:20]
Perfect, thank you both. Paul, sorry to see you leaving, but Clare, it’s great you’re in good hands – you’ve known the space for a couple of years now, so it’s good to see the torch passed to the right people.
From an HFS perspective, we do our Blockchain Horizons report every two years, and we typically look at how the market’s evolving. We talk to a bucket of enterprises in the space, learn how they’re using the technology, what their challenges are, and then as part of that we identify which services firms we think are leading the charge.
I think you’ll both agree blockchain has been a unique market. We saw a lot of hype starting in 2017 through maybe 2021 or 2022, and then it died down pretty dramatically. A lot of people said blockchain was dead, that no one was doing it anymore – but that just wasn’t true. So it was a really interesting report this time around.
What we found is that the smart firms didn’t stop investing in blockchain. They just got a lot quieter and a lot more focused. Today, we’re seeing it step back up – with much more targeted use cases that are driving real business value. The two that come to mind right now are stablecoins, which are really hot at the moment, and tokenized real-world assets.
So my first question for Clare and Paul: is blockchain finally boring, but in all the right ways? What’s your take on the market today?
Paul Brody — Former Global Blockchain Leader, EY[03:37]
Yes, it is. It is exactly that. It’s gotten boring in exactly the right ways. I used to gather with some of the other folks in the industry and we said, you know, what we want to be is boring. And boring doesn’t mean bad. It doesn’t mean slow. It means that you have found this like well understood operational use case where there’s a clear value proposition and you go from there. And I think a lot about, you know, I think a lot about the technology history. We had waves and waves of growth. And every time we have waves of growth, whether it’s in blockchain or with other technologies, there’s always this initial hype cycle. And then there’s this like disappointment because it doesn’t do all the things you want. And then one at a time, you come out of this trough with good, compelling use cases. Stablecoins just happens to be the first one. But it’s a tsunami that’s coming for, I think, every B2B transaction in the course of time.
Sam Duncan — Practice Leader, HFS Research[04:28]
I’ve heard that makes a lot of sense. And then so I think, you know, we did the study in 2023. We did it in 2025. I think when we looked at 2023, a lot of our sort of conversation with enterprise will look like the board don’t want to invest in this anymore. Our CEO is looking at AI, right? And so we saw a bit of a slowdown. A lot of people walked away. And from your perspective, what sort of, from an enterprise perspective, is driving the turnaround?
Paul Brody — Former Global Blockchain Leader, EY[04:50]
So this is actually a really interesting one. And Clare and I both have some perspective on this because we came from IBM, which is a company that pioneered so many technologies. And one of the biggest dangers for companies that tried too early before the thing was ready is that they come away with a lack of success. They then proceed to learn all the wrong lessons and never try again. And so, you know, we saw that IBM made the first smartphone. They could have stuck with it, but, you know, it was just much, much too early. And the important thing, I think, for people in these enterprises that have tried it before and didn’t have success is to remember it really is different now and this is a normal pattern.
Sam Duncan — Practice Leader, HFS Research[05:33]
And then looking more specifically at the engagements themselves that you see with these enterprises, I think we always track how many are sort of piloting proof of concept, how many are in production. And the key theme, honestly, until the 2025 study, was this sort of proof-of-concept theater, right? This slide for the board and things like that. But when you actually dove into the data, for a lot of cases, it was sort of 10% of engagements are in production, maybe less. What are the key traits from your perspective that drive an engagement beyond that and to this real business value? And as always, we’d love to hear a real-world story if you have any.
Clare Adelgren — Global Blockchain Leader, EY[06:10]
Yeah, absolutely. I think what we’re seeing right now is that what is moving through to production is really everything that’s about trust, reconciliation or traceability. And it doesn’t actually matter whether it’s tokenized instruments, whether it’s payments, whether it’s operational reconciliation between counterparties. I think the key difference is that what you’re seeing is these controls, privacy and integration are being designed in from the beginning, which makes the whole package infinitely easier to productize and be able to move through to production.
And, you know, a really good illustration of how that market is moving forward. I mean, we can talk a little bit about, you know, the FundsChain initiative with World Bank. I think last time we met in person, actually, Sam, when we were together was like early last year, right, in Amsterdam. And, you know, the FundsChain platform, which is designed for creating end-to-end traceability of project funding for the World Bank, that was in POC. We’d gone through POC and it had been tested out. You know, come to the summer last year, we started to be able to roll out through to production. And that’s ongoing and it’s well on track. And I think it’s a really good illustration of something that’s gone through that whole journey.
Sam Duncan — Practice Leader, HFS Research[07:37]
Perfect. Honestly, the more examples we have in the world of real, production-grade, value-adding use cases, the more people will realize blockchain is very much alive. In some cases it’s becoming part of the core enterprise infrastructure – which makes sense.
Diving into EY specifically: as you know, we ranked you as a Horizon 3 market leader in the study. When I look at why we did that – I’ve personally covered EY since 2017 or 2018 – Paul, you’ve been very passionate about public blockchains, with Ethereum as the answer. That’s played a key role and has probably proven correct. And as a key part of that, you’ve driven so much innovation across the market, not just for yourselves but pushing it out there. You bring the ecosystem together in a way that really sets you apart. I think you’ve got a blockchain summit in New York at the end of March coming up.
So from your perspective, what positions EY uniquely to push those engagements through and deliver that value with blockchain?
Clare Adelgren — Global Blockchain Leader, EY[08:37]
I actually think you’ve hit the nail on the head, Sam. I mean, EY stayed consistent and consistency matters in any emerging market. Consistency matters. And we’ve been consistent for a decade now with a privacy-first public blockchain. It’s an incredibly consistent mission statement. And we’ve done that delivering as a full firm. So, you know, engineering, risk, audit, tax, compliance. We’ve been very, very consistent in having that theme as we’ve gone through and we’ve approached what we do. And you will know as well that a big part of that is actually taking the time to build out our own assets for clients, but also to really put our arms around and think about what’s needed to be able to achieve the right type of privacy for our clients. You know, our edge is definitely there. And I think it’s in the consistency. But what the consistency allows you to do is build our expertise. And so I honestly think, and your study reflects it, we’re unique in the position, especially amongst our closest competitors in the Big Four, in terms of the depth of our expertise and the breadth of our expertise that goes across all aspects of what we do. And we’re able to pull it together and deliver it for clients as they need it and as they’re evolving their own products and as they’re evolving in this new space.
Sam Duncan — Practice Leader, HFS Research[10:15]
100%, makes a lot of sense. The one thing that stands out to me every time I talk to both of you, and to the wider team when we meet up, is how you’ve held that core vision and belief for such a long period of time. The consistency. It means you’ve got complete buy-in from everyone you work with – you speak to your team at these events and they get behind it, they support it, and it brings with it that deep technical expertise.
You mentioned the summit coming up in March – it’s the 24th, 25th, and 26th, in New York this year. I know we probably say it every year, but I genuinely think this one is going to be one of our best. Different format again, as you’d expect for the market we’re in. It’s a full three-day in-person event this year, and we’re partnering closely with the Ethereum Foundation and the DRC to bring together all the minds who want to collaborate, cooperate, and build together to meet the demands of the market today. We’ve got a full day of regulatory discussion and a full day on privacy – because that’s really top of mind right now.
Really exciting. As we come up on time, a quick-fire question – and either of you can take this – one key takeaway for the enterprise listeners: what should they remember about EY and blockchain?
Paul Brody — Former Global Blockchain Leader, EY[11:41]
So you are what you do. Like if there’s been one of the conversations, didn’t you? It was funny, Sam, you said, you know, I’m sure everybody has buy-in. That’s not guaranteed, and it’s not universal. EY is a partnership. We have lots of people with different points of view. We’ve had big, long, contentious meetings about what we should be doing and whether or not, for example, when certain private blockchains were hot, shouldn’t we be doing them? And, you know, should we do something because there’s short-term money in it or because somebody offered us a pile of cash to build on that particular platform? And very consistently, I had been against that on the grounds that you are what you do.
So if you do something, even if it’s for the short term, you are building expertise there. You are losing your kind of brand clarity, messaging, and vision. And my message for enterprise users would be set aside the very tactical inducements. Set aside also the considerations about which platform seems niftier or not. And think very strategically about what is the problem that you’re solving? This is one of my favorite sort of business models, which is what’s the job to be done? And what is the most widely used platform? Not the perfect platform, the most widely used. And then you will conclude it’s probably going to be, if you’re starting out, it’s going to be stablecoins or tokenized assets on Ethereum. That makes sense.
Sam Duncan — Practice Leader, HFS Research[13:04]
Clare, I don’t know if you haven’t been on the [unclear].
Clare Adelgren — Global Blockchain Leader, EY[13:07]
Actually not. I’m a strong, strong, strong believer in the point that Paul just made around be really, really clear on what’s the business outcome that you’re looking to create. And come and talk to us about it. You know, I think there’s an awful lot of people out there that can help guide you and have discussions to help strengthen and make those ideas more robust. But business value, thinking through the business case, this is what any investment is going to look like for your business. It’s no different.
Sam Duncan — Practice Leader, HFS Research[13:41]
Makes a lot of sense. Perfect. I think it’s a really exciting time for the market, honestly. I love covering it, I love covering it for such a long time, and I really appreciate you both joining me today to talk about it, talk a little bit about what you guys are doing at EY. And Paul, best of luck for the future. And to everyone listening, I encourage you to check the description, check out our Horizon report, go have a look. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, guys.
