Holders of cryptocurrencies are no longer satisfied by capital appreciation alone but increasingly seek income from staking and lending. Holders whose investment mandate, liquidity needs, operational capabilities and risk profile permit staking and lending should nevertheless proceed cautiously. While the risk of “slashing” is exaggerated, research into counterparty, custody and cyber-attack risks will earn rewards for institutional investors

The growing interest of institutional investors in cryptocurrencies is allied to rising demand for yield on cryptocurrency investments. This necessitates active management, which creates challenges. Neither Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) nor conventional mutual funds issued under the Investment Company Act of 1940 (’40 Act funds) can accommodate actively traded cryptocurrency funds.

At the turn of the century a disruptive alternative trading platform called Chi-X competed successfully with the established stock exchanges for order flow by cutting transaction costs dramatically. Blockchain technology has promised a similar revolution for more than a decade but failed conspicuously to deliver. The founders of BPX Digital Securities Marketplace, the digital securities marketplace licensed by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in June 2025, believe they

Institutional asset and wealth managers and end-investors are increasingly active in the cryptocurrency markets. This is putting the banks that provide them with trade and post-trade services in the traditional markets under pressure to make it easy for buy-side institutions to access cryptocurrency markets, trade cryptocurrencies, settle cryptocurrency transactions and safekeep and service cryptocurrency assets in custody.

Investec is connecting its client trading platform Zebra-X to the BPX digital assets exchange The link will enable users of Zebra-X to trade digital asserts in the same way that they trade conventional debt and equity securities BPX aims to offer customers a full set of digital asset management, trading, settlement, custody and depository services BPX, the London-based digital assets exchange that has already secured trading, asset management and custody licences from the Fi

Deepening inter-operability between Euronext and Clearstream can be read as a solution to the fragmentation of European post-trade infrastructure Börse Stuttgart has positioned its Seturion tokenised settlement platform as an alternative to the reconfiguration of the existing post-trade infrastructure Clearstream has hedged its exposure to a tokenised future by simultaneously placing a series of bets on the growth of digital asset markets When Börse Stuttgart launched Seturio

The Fed, the FDIC and the OCC have confirmed that the capital treatment of tokenised securities and derivatives is the same as non-tokenised equivalents Tokenised securities posted as collateral will also be recognised as a credit risk mitigant on the same terms as the non-tokenised equivalents The capital treatment of a tokenised security is the same, irrespective of whether it is issued on a permissioned or permissionless blockchain. The three Federal banking industry regul

Asset manager Fidelity has issued a US dollar-denominated Stablecoin called Fidelity Digital Dollar (FIDD) onto the Ethereum blockchain The issuance follows the granting to Fidelity of a conditional trust bank licence by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) FIDD circumvents GENIUS Act restrictions on paying interest to Stablecoin holders by integrating FIDD with a tokenised money market fund Fidelity Investments has launched a US dollar-denominated Stablecoin,

Cross-border payments platform Payoneer has applied to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) for a national trust bank charter A federal banking licence will enable Payoneer customers to pay and get paid in Stablecoins and hold Stablecoin balances in digital wallets Payoneer plans to issue its own US dollar-denominated Stablecoin that its clients can use to settle cross-border payments and hold in digital wallets Payoneer , the cross-border payments technology p

Anchorage Digital has launched a US dollar Stablecoin payments service aimed at foreign banks currently using correspondent banks The new service enables banks to buy and sell and hold in custody a variety of US dollar-denominated Stablecoins authorised under the GENIUS Act The regulated status of Anchorage Digital Bank is expected to appeal to foreign banks willing to use blockchain infrastructure that eliminates regulatory risk Anchorage Digital , the regulated provider of

Société Générale subsidiary SG-FORGE is making its EUR CoinVertible euro-denominated Stablecoin available on the Ripe-owned blockchain XPRL Société Générale hopes XPRL will increase use of the EUR CoinVertible, already available on the Ethereum and Solana blockchains, in trading activity Euro Stablecoins remain modest by comparison with US dollar equivalents but S&P predicts a €1.1 trillion markets by 2030 as Stablecoins are used in payments French universal bank Société Géné

Stablecoin infrastructure provider Bridge has secured a conditional federal banking licence from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) The licence, once fully approved, will enable Bridge to custody digital assets, issue Stablecoins and hold Stablecoin reserves Bridge is the sixth Stablecoin or digital assets company to secure an OCC banking licence in the last five months Bridge , the Stablecoin infrastructure provider owned by Stripe since February last year,

Cross-border payments company Payoneer is adding Stablecoins to the payment options it offers customers The Stablecoin capabilities will be deliver via technology supplied by Bridge, the Stablecoin infrastructure provider owned by Stripe Users of the Payoneer service will be able to hold Stablecoins, pay and get paid in Stablecoins, and transfer the value of Stablecoins to bank accounts Payoneer , the Israeli cross-border payments company that listed on NASDAQ in 2021 via a S

After a four-month competitive tender the UK government has chosen HSBC’s Orion platform to host issuance of an experimental tokenised government bond The so-called Digital Gilt Instrument (DIGIT) has proceeded slowly since it was first announced in November 2024, and progress looks set to remain slow Though a digital gilt is a potentially transformative initiative, concern remains that the UK is falling behind rival jurisdictions in its embrace of tokenisation The United Kin

Ripple Custody is giving its customers, and by extension customers of its customers, access to “staking” services provided by Figment Ripple says integrating access to Figment “staking” infrastructure relieves its customers of operational, compliance and reporting demands Figment offers regulated institutional holders of tokens the opportunity to earn an income from validating transactions on Proof-of-Stake blockchains Digital asset custodian Ripple Custody has appointed Fig

A group of digital asset exchanges and one CSD have warned European institutions their blockchain reforms are too slow to compete with the US With reforms not scheduled for implementation until 2030, the group suggests a mini package of liberalising measures within the DLT Pilot Regime sandbox now The proposed “quick fix” reforms will allow DLT Pilot Regime licence holders to tokenise any asset and grow faster for longer before being fully regulated A group of digital asset e

European digital assets exchange 21X is offering buy- and sell-side customers of LeveL Markets access to tokenised financial instruments Customers of the LeveL Markets equity trading dark pools for buy- and sell-side institutions will access tokenised instruments through existing interfaces Institutional order flows are expected between traditional and tokenised instruments and vice-versa 21X , the Frankfurt-based token exchange licensed under the DLT Plot Regime administered

Asset manager WisdomTree has added Solana to the six blockchains where its tokenised funds are accessible already The WisdomTree decision imparts further momentum to Solana, which has emerged as the main challenger to Ethereum Ondo Global Markets, an issuer of non-native tokens, has already expanded the range of blockchain networks it supports to include Solana Asset manager WisdomTree is making its tokenised funds available on the Solana blockchain network. It indicates gr

The ECB will accept as collateral for credit tokenised versions of securities and other assets it accepts already The tokenised assets eligible as collateral will initially be non-native only but native assets will become ECB-eligible in future The extension of ECB eligibility to tokenised securities is an opportunity for national and international CSDs with tokenisation platforms The European Central Bank ( ECB ) says it will accept tokenised versions of eligible assets as c

The government of Bermuda is working with Circle and Coinbase to put the island economy on blockchain Circle will provide the USDC Stablecoin and Coinbase the blockchain infrastructure Payments by USDC are merely the starting point for tokenisation of all financial transactions and assets in Bermuda The Government of Bermuda has announced it plans to move the island’s economy on to the blockchain, initially by embracing the USDC Stablecoin issued by Circle as the principal