Raised in Portugal, Mónica helped build Anchorage Digital into one of the most important institutional platforms in the crypto industry. The company became the first federally chartered digital asset bank in the United States and operates an engineering hub in Porto, Portugal.

With a potential IPO on the crypto horizon, Anchorage Digital represents the highway connecting Portugal’s growing crypto ecosystem and global capital markets.

Mónica’s success reflects a broader shift in how investors increasingly think about the digital asset economy.

Portugal offers a clear example of how this ecosystem is developing.

According to a recent BlackRock investor study, 43% of Portuguese investors report holding digital assets, nearly double the European Union average of 22%. What began as a niche technology movement has increasingly moved into the financial mainstream.

One sign of that shift came in February 2026, when Novo Banco became the first major Portuguese bank to offer cryptocurrency trading services to clients through its Trading Pro platform.

Customers can now buy, hold and sell digital assets directly through their bank interface, marking a notable step in the integration of crypto into traditional finance. The bank itself continues to show strong results, reporting €828 million in net profit in 2025, an 11% increase year-over-year, while customer deposits reached €29.3 billion.

Roadmap to Crypto Investing

The sector can be understood through a simple framework:

Highways: the blockchain networks where value moves. Tollbooths: the platforms processing transactions across them. Vehicles: the financial products carrying capital through the system.

Investors can buy the assets themselves — or invest in the ecosystem that enables them.

Networks such as Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana function as the foundational highways of this new financial system.

Another way investors participate in the ecosystem is by owning the companies facilitating crypto transactions — the tollbooths.

Publicly traded platforms such as Coinbase (COIN), Robinhood Markets (HOOD) and eToro (ETOR) allow users to buy and sell digital assets alongside traditional investments. These companies effectively operate as tollbooths on the crypto highways, generating revenue from collecting fees related to trading activity and custody services.

If blockchains are the highways and exchanges the tollbooths, then ETFs, banks and digital wallets are the vehicles carrying capital across the system.

The next wave of adoption may arrive through messaging platforms. The Telegram ecosystem, powered by TON wallet infrastructure, is expanding into integrated digital wallets embedded directly inside messaging applications.

Meanwhile, the Brazilian exchange Mercado Bitcoin recently committed €50 million to expand operations in Portugal, launching its MB One International service as part of a broader European strategy built around what it calls an “invisible blockchain” financial ecosystem.

Portugal may play an outsized role in Europe’s digital asset future given its high adoption rate, expanding fintech ecosystem and growing institutional participation.

The crypto economy is no longer defined only by the coins themselves.

Increasingly, the larger opportunity may lie in owning the highways, the tollbooths and the vehicles carrying capital through the digital financial system.