The issuance by the Luxembourg government of a €1.7 billion bond on to a permissioned blockchain is less exciting than it appears. Most of the traditional paraphernalia of securities issuance, distribution, settlement and servicing is preserved. The scale of bond market activity on blockchains remains trivial by comparison with the size of the traditional markets.

On 25 October 2027, the “crypto-asset” regime for the United Kingdom comes into effect, and Stablecoins will be regulated in detail for the first time. They will take their place in a money and payments “eco-system” in which traditional bank deposits, Tokenised Deposits, Stablecoins and, possibly, a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) interact seamlessly without imperilling the “singleness” of money.