2025 in review

A turning point for digital asset compliance

As we come to the end of 2025, I’d like to reflect on a year that’s been marked by a clear shift, both for our industry and for the team here at Cense. A few years ago, the question dominating boardroom conversations was simple: “Should we even touch digital assets?” Now this is no longer the primary concern. This year, leading financial institutions have been asking something far more urgent: “How do we engage with digital assets safely, responsibly and at scale?”

Of course, this shift didn’t happen overnight. But it does reflect a deeper market realisation, namely that compliance and infrastructure, not custody or trading, are key to unlocking widespread institutional adoption. And because we spent years building the infrastructure before the market demanded it, Cense is uniquely prepared for this moment.

One insight refined our strategy

Over the past 12 months, as we expanded our work with financial institutions, one insight became impossible to ignore: not all banks face the same problem.Some financial institutions have the teams and expertise to adopt sophisticated tools quickly, so they need infrastructure that can handle volume and complexity. Others, however, face a different challenge: their compliance teams lack the operational capacity to engage with new products and services without additional support.

This insight reshaped our entire approach. Large financial institutions need scalable, resilient infrastructure. Smaller institutions need a hybrid model that pairs our Cense technology with expert guidance. This evolution has made our proposition clearer and our route to industry-wide adoption more scalable.

Focusing on our roadmap for 2026

As the market evolves, so do the expectations of financial institutions. Key learnings from this year have also helped us to identify the areas where we can strengthen both our platform and our customer experience.

Looking ahead, we’re enhancing our coverage of emerging digital asset ecosystems, refining how insights are communicated within client workflows, elevating usability as we scale, and deepening automation for high-volume environments. We’re also improving how we support institutions through the complexities of enterprise onboarding and implementation.

At Cense, our commitment remains the same – to set the standard for how financial institutions onboard digital asset clients with clarity, confidence and resilience.

Decoding the signals that matter

Across the digital asset ecosystem, we saw strong validation of Cense’s role as a foundational layer in compliance. Here’s how:

• Major financial institutions began transitioning from experimentation into partial or full-scale digital asset offerings.
• Industry leaders who had attempted their own ‘internal build’ increasingly sought partnerships with specialist providers like us, reflecting confidence in our depth and focus.
• Regulators, law enforcement and national expert working groups welcomed us into the room, recognising that meaningful progress involves collaboration between technology providers and public sector institutions.
• Our ecosystem of partners expanded, spanning technology, consulting and wealth management, widening the pathways through which institutions can access and adopt Cense.

These new developments reinforce something we believe deeply, that Cense is no longer simply a ‘tool’. It’s becoming part of the institutional stack, which is the very fabric of digital asset compliance.

Preparing for what’s next

If 2025 was the year we proved that the model works (and won an award for it) then 2026 will be the year when we scale it. To make this happen, we’re strengthening our customer-facing capabilities, refining our onboarding processes, expanding our partner ecosystem and evolving how we tell our story to institutions and their clients.

The industry is entering a new phase, one defined not by speculation but by standards, governance and trust. At Cense, we intend to help shape it.

New year. New optimism.

Today we’re more optimistic than ever about what lies ahead; for Cense, for our partners and for the future of compliant digital asset adoption. Thank you to everyone who has been part of this journey: our customers, advisors, partners and the institutions working towards a safer, more resilient financial system. Most importantly, I would like to thank and pay tribute to our outstanding team.

2026 will be an important year. We’re ready for it, so join us on the journey.

In the meantime, I wish you and your family the happiest of festive seasons.

Dennis Wohlfarth
CEO, Cense