Early adopters of crypto-currency are those that bought into the concept when there were only a handful of coins available to choose from. They invested their pocket money before the value of crypto went up and may be found somewhere around the world where the weather is warm, having left their former colleagues shopping for padded jackets and boots once winter started. From an organizational perspective, those who embraced this technology early leveraged its capacity to secure data, automate the signing of agreements, provide proof of the origin of supplied gods, and manage registries. While this was happening, most governments and financial institutions were seen as the laggards of crypto adoption. During times of crisis, the topic of whether crypto would soon become a global currency often came to the fore. However it took almost a decade since the 2009 launch of bitcoin for the USD coin to be released (2018). At the time, it felt as though the world of regulated finance was finally dipping its toes in the waters of crypto.
From a government perspective, El Salvador and the Central African Republic led the charge by adopting crypto as legal tender while other countries tentatively watched from the sidelines. During that time, individuals and early adopter organizations embraced the benefits of using crypto-currency to manage the movement of money and goods across the globe. What this looked like to a regular person was that rather than waiting a week to receive your birthday money from your aunty in Australia, you could now receive it and spend it on your birthday, then send her the champagne glass selfie as an NFT before she woke up the following morning.
While this kind of adoption was still on the fringes of the global financial system, recent events have provided the means for adoption to be made in a way that has the potential to further democratize global fintech. Last week (Aug 2026) we saw the announcement of the agreement between Korea’s Jeonbuk Bank and Ripple (https://www.htx.com/news/south-korean-jeonbuk-bank-partners-with-ripple-for-cross-bor-OylPCQFn/). Jeonbuk has adopted Ripple’s cross-border solution that embraces Ripple’s “white label capabilities” which is easily implementable by Fintech institutions.
From a vendor management perspective, any organization that adopts these solutions would need to ensure that all of the regular supplier management boxes are being ticked. However the effective ticking of these boxes will need to adopt a method that uses the very technology which is being supplied for business use. The best approach would be for practitioners to use distributed ledgers to manage different types of assets, such as data, physical, and financial.
Use “Managing IT Suppliers : A Practical Guide To Vendor Management (https://exclusivebooks.co.za/products/9781041104155)” to understand what and how to approach your crypto suppliers, then integrate your growing knowledge of distributed ledgers to dynamically manage this supplier type. Buck Rogers never prepared us for this.
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