News, data and analysis on tokenized assets, market design and digital economic systems.
Every development we have verified against a primary source, in sequence. An entry names what happened, when, under which regime, and links the filing, rule or release that evidences it.
New Jersey's attorney general and its gaming enforcement director filed a petition for certiorari on 2 September 2026 in Flaherty and Davenport v. KalshiEX, asking whether Dodd-Frank preempted states from regulating sports bets offered on CFTC-registered markets. The office calls it the first such petition, and it follows opposite rulings in the Third and Ninth Circuits.
The Comptroller granted preliminary conditional approval on 2 September 2026 to charter OpenReserve Bank, National Association, a full-service insured national bank in Salt Lake City whose plan puts tokenized capabilities across all deposit products and a wholly-owned stablecoin subsidiary not yet applied for. Capital must reach $210m and the tier 1 leverage ratio 12 per cent for three years.
Cari said on 2 September 2026 that it had raised $32.5m in the first tranche of its initial external round, with every investor a bank, including all six Design Partner Banks and Glacier Bank. More than thirty banks have joined the network and more than forty are in discussion. The build reached a full product suite on 31 July and remains in pilot.
Broadridge announced on 2 September 2026 that its Distributed Ledger Repo platform would take G7 securities as collateral alongside US Treasuries, for cross-border repo, intraday repo and collateral movement with atomic settlement. The release gives August volume at $7.4tn, a daily average of $351bn, which is the lowest of the five months this desk has recorded.
London Stock Exchange Group said on 1 September 2026 that it is assessing a UK tokenized equity structure meant to preserve shareholder rights and governance standards, and named Payward, Kraken's parent, as a partner in exploring tokenized public equity markets. It says it intends to list xStocks on LSE 24, its planned round-the-clock venue, in 2027. No companies are named and no permissions are stated.
Twenty-one banks and asset managers said on 1 September 2026 that they had committed to establish a company in the second half of 2026, subject to closing conditions, to support the issuance of a stablecoin, starting in dollars with a euro offering the priority for expansion. They aim to go to market in the first half of 2027. No company name, token, chain or custodian is given.
The Securities and Exchange Commission proposed Release No. 34-106246 on 1 September 2026, rewriting transfer agent rules not substantively updated since the early 1980s. The amended definition would permit a transfer agent to use a blockchain or other distributed ledger as its master securityholder file or part of it, and new Form TA-2 questions would count the issues where one does.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore published consultation paper P015-2026 on 1 September 2026, proposing a stablecoin issuance licence whose holder may do nothing else, a prohibition on paying interest, a designation regime for systemic stablecoins with power to have them delisted, and a reversal of its 2023 bar on multi-jurisdictional issuance. Comments close on 16 October.
In KalshiEX, LLC v. Assad, No. 25-7516, decided 28 August 2026, a Ninth Circuit panel affirmed dissolution of Kalshi's injunction against Nevada's gaming regulators, holding the Commodity Exchange Act likely does not preempt state gaming law as applied to its sports event contracts. Nelson wrote, Bade joined, Lee concurred. It contradicts an April Third Circuit decision, creating a split.
Pablo Hernandez de Cos, general manager of the Bank for International Settlements, argued at the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium on 28 August 2026 that stablecoins fail on singleness, interoperability and financial integrity, and that tokenized bank deposits settled through central bank accounts do not. The speech stops short of asking for restrictions and allows that the two could coexist.
The CFTC announced on 28 August 2026 an order settling charges against Gabriel Perez for misappropriating nonpublic information from his White House employment to trade event contracts on words the President would use in speeches. He must disgorge $107,539.02 and pay a $65,000 penalty, discounted for cooperation, with a three-year trading ban. The release thanks KalshiEX for its assistance.
The Securities and Exchange Commission's Amendments to the Custody Rules, RIN 3235-AN46, sits at the proposed rule stage with a notice targeted for October 2026, covering custody of advisory client and fund assets including crypto. The Block and CoinDesk reported on 26 August that it had gone to the White House for review; the agenda entry carries no date for that step.
A one-page determination effective 24 August 2026 extends section 1(a)(i) of Executive Order 13902 to the aviation, digital asset, gold, shipping and technology sectors of the Iranian economy, so any person anywhere operating in them may be designated. The same rule suspends five general licences indefinitely, including the one authorising noncommercial personal remittances to Iran.
The ECB published on 19 August 2026 the 61 participants selected to advise the Eurosystem on Pontes and on the Appia roadmap, replacing two earlier groups from September 2026. Nineteen seats belong to the Qivalis euro stablecoin consortium or to Qivalis itself. Axiology said a day later that Pontes goes live on 21 September with four registered DLT operators.
The Southern District of New York entered supplemental consent orders against Caroline Ellison and Gary Wang on 18 August 2026, announced by the Commission on the 19th. No restitution, disgorgement or civil monetary penalty is imposed, in consideration of cooperation and an $11.02bn criminal forfeiture; the trading and registration bans run from the initial consent orders of 23 December 2022.
Standard Chartered and HSBC said on 19 August 2026 that they had executed the first live tokenized deposit transaction on Swift's blockchain-based ledger, describing it as issuing, transferring, recording and settling tokenized deposits between two banks and demonstrating interbank interoperability. No currency, value or corridor is disclosed in the release.
Kraken made more than 7,000 US-listed stocks available to eligible customers across the European Economic Area on 18 August 2026 under a MiFID authorisation held in Cyprus, in the same account as its xStocks tokens, which are issued in Jersey and distributed from Bermuda and which the company says are registered with no securities regulator.
The Commission proposed a tailored offering regime for crypto assets on 18 August 2026, five days after cancelling the meeting called to consider it. Two registration exemptions, a safe harbour perfected by the issuer's own certification on a new Form TR, and a definition of qualified purchaser that would preempt state registration requirements. Comments close sixty days after publication.
Kalshi submitted perpetual futures on the MerQube US Large Cap Index and on copper for Commission review and approval under regulation 40.3(a) on 18 August 2026, rather than self-certifying them. The copper contract references the Pyth Network XCU/USD feed, and the filing tells the regulator that the network's staking and slashing safeguard is not currently operative.
Securitize and Neuberger launched the Neuberger Securitize High Income Tokenized Fund across Avalanche, Ethereum, Solana and Sui on 18 August 2026. The fund's Form D, filed the same day, records a British Virgin Islands issuer relying on Rule 506(c) and section 3(c)(7), a $100,000 minimum investment, and $5.1m sold to two investors on the date of first sale.
The Financial Accounting Standards Board proposed illustrative examples for Topic 230 on 18 August 2026 setting out when a digital asset meets the existing definition of cash equivalents: an on-demand contractual redemption right, a direct right against the issuer, and segregated short-term liquid reserves held at least one for one. Comments close on 19 November 2026.
The Treasury issued a notice of proposed rulemaking on 17 August 2026 implementing section 3 of the GENIUS Act, published the next day at 91 FR 53368 with comments due by 19 October. It would create 12 CFR part 1523, read section 18(a) to let qualifying foreign issuers issue in the United States, and treat market making in an unlawful issuance as participation in it.
Corporate Decision #1385 of 14 August 2026 grants preliminary conditional approval to charter World Liberty Trust Company, National Association, which would issue and redeem USD1, hold its reserve and custody digital assets as a fiduciary, assuming the issuer's role from BitGo Bank & Trust. Seven conditions attach, including $20m of tier 1 capital.
A notice of 14 August 2026 tells users not to transact with sixteen crypto platforms from 7, 13 and 23 August. Fourteen of the names and both later dates reproduce Annex VIII of Council Regulation (EU) 2026/1848. The notice cites no authority and no jurisdiction, and says an attempt may breach Binance's terms of use.
Ludlow Exchange, trading as Novig, filed a 45 page complaint in the Western District of Wisconsin on 14 August 2026 seeking a declaration that the Commodity Exchange Act preempts the state's gambling statutes. It is its fifth suit against a state officer since 4 August, and it follows a federal court in the same state refusing the CFTC the same relief on 28 July.
The Austrian Financial Market Authority published a penalty of 70,000 euros against Bitpanda GmbH on 14 August 2026 for sending a crypto-asset white paper to it later than twenty working days before publication and for marketing failings under article 7. The proceeding was ended on an expedited basis and the decision is legally final.
The city filed two complaints in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City on 13 August 2026 under its Consumer Protection Ordinance. The Kalshi case also names Robinhood, Webull and Coinbase, pleading that each takes a fee alongside Kalshi on every event contract bought through its prediction markets hub, and seeks penalties, an injunction, disgorgement and restitution.
A cancellation notice dated 13 August 2026 withdrew the open meeting called for 10 a.m. on 14 August, at which the Commission was to consider proposing a tailored offering regime for certain investment contracts involving crypto assets. No reason and no new date were given. The meeting agenda of 10 August names the item Regulation Crypto Assets.
The agenda of 13 August 2026 sets three sessions for 20 August, on crypto regulation, artificial intelligence and prediction markets. The prediction markets session lists the respective roles of federal and state authorities and recent state litigation among its potential topics. It names three officials, no members and no panellists.
Tether announced on 13 August 2026 that KPMG US had audited the financial statements of Tether International, S.A. de C.V. for the year ended 31 December 2025 and issued an unqualified opinion, with reserves exceeding liabilities by $6.814bn. The statements and the auditor's report were not published.
The Division of Investment Management said on 12 August 2026 that it would not recommend enforcement action under section 17(f) and rule 17f-2 if the group's registered funds custody Franklin OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund shares with its affiliated transfer agent, on conditions requiring that agent to keep the power to freeze, migrate and restore the official record.
In its first results as a public company, filed on 12 August 2026, tokenization revenue fell 12 per cent to $7.84m while average tokenized assets under management reached a record $4.3bn and aggregate transaction volume rose 147 per cent to $5.3bn. Net loss was $21.7m, most of it fair-value marks, and fund services assets fell about 20 per cent.
CFTC Letter 26-23 of 12 August 2026 sets out what a designated contract market may put in a market-maker or trading incentive programme and how to certify it. Unlimited rebates, guaranteed profits, secret discount codes, chance-based prizes and selectively faster market data are named as concerns, and existing programmes are to be reviewed by 14 September.
A King County Superior Court judge signed an amended preliminary injunction on 12 August 2026 requiring KalshiEX to stop offering event contracts on sports, elections, politics, entertainment, culture, tech and science and mentions in Washington, with geofencing through GeoComply by 2 September and $120,000 a day thereafter. It holds the Commodity Exchange Act does not preempt state gambling law.
AFC raised CHF 350m of five-year paper at a coupon of 1.4925% on 12 August 2026, admitted for trading on SIX Swiss Exchange and deposited with SIX Digital Exchange, under its US$5bn Global Medium-Term Note Programme. About 90 per cent of demand came from Swiss domestic investors, and it is the first such issue by an African institution.
The Commission found on 11 August 2026 that New York's enforcement action and its motion for a temporary restraining order are a major market disturbance under section 8a(9) of the Commodity Exchange Act, and directed KalshiEX to continue performing its functions as an exchange under the Act's core principles. No court had ruled on the restraining order.
FlightAware filed a notice of voluntary dismissal without prejudice against all four Kalshi defendants on 11 August 2026, hours after Judge Arun Subramanian signed an order to show cause setting a temporary restraining order hearing for 13 August. No reason is given and no answer had been filed. Kalshi's self-certification still names FlightAware as the primary source agency.
Cohort 2 of the bank's regulatory sandbox opened on 11 August 2026 with a Virtual Asset Service Provider track covering fiat-backed stablecoin payments, stablecoin issuance models, virtual asset payments, custody, wallets, token-based products and fiat on and off-ramps. Applications run from 12 to 31 August. Admission is not a licence and substitutes for no other agency's approval.
Nasdaq entered a definitive agreement on 11 August 2026 to acquire LeveL Markets, the third largest alternative trading system in the United States, and placed it in a new Digital Liquidity Networks organisation holding its tokenization capabilities. Terms were not disclosed and the venue remains a registered ATS under FINRA oversight.
Robinhood said on 10 August 2026 that more than 50 cryptoassets were going into its main UK app, traded through Bitstamp UK Ltd, which is registered with the Financial Conduct Authority as a cryptoasset service provider. There is no trading, custody or account fee; a 0.10 per cent fee applies to the currency conversion, rising to 0.30 per cent between Friday and Sunday evenings in New York.
FlightAware filed in the Southern District of New York on 10 August 2026, alleging that Kalshi named it as the primary source agency for flight cancellation contracts, displayed its registered mark on the market pages and settled positions using data licensed for personal use only. Six counts are pleaded and a temporary restraining order is sought.
A Sunshine Act notice dated 10 August 2026 called an open meeting for 10:00 a.m. Eastern on Friday 14 August, at which the Commission will consider whether to issue a release proposing new rules creating a tailored offering regime for certain investment contracts involving crypto assets. The notice names no rule and no scope.
Broadridge said on 10 August 2026 that its Distributed Ledger Repo platform processed an average of $365bn of repurchase agreements a day in July against tokenized collateral, totalling $8.0tn for the month, which it reported as a 28 per cent rise year on year. Its releases for March, April and June put the daily average at $354bn, $368bn and $357bn.
The CFTC's Division of Market Oversight and Market Participants Division wrote to regulated entities on 7 August 2026 to say that displaying event contracts in American plus-minus odds rather than in cents is likely to mislead participants about the nature of the transaction and risks breaching the prohibition on manipulative or deceptive devices. Receipt was to be confirmed by 31 August.
Judge Shalina D. Kumar of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan denied Coinbase Financial Markets a preliminary injunction on 6 August 2026, holding that sports event contracts are probably not swaps under the Commodity Exchange Act and that the Act preempts Michigan's gambling laws neither expressly nor by implication. The Gaming Control Board was dismissed on Eleventh Amendment grounds.
Wintermute said on 6 August 2026 that its affiliate Wintermute USA LLC had registered as a broker-dealer with the Securities and Exchange Commission and joined FINRA, as a proprietary trading firm able to trade equities and equity options, act as an authorised participant for exchange-traded products and self-clear digital asset securities for its own account. BrokerCheck dates the approval to the same day.
cNGN, issued by WrappedCBDC Limited and described as Nigeria's first regulated naira stablecoin, went live on Celo on 6 August 2026, with Textile FX enabling onchain swapping. The announcement is Celo Core Co.'s own and presents it as opening the naira to onchain foreign exchange, payments and remittances. The Nigerian SEC is named as regulator.
Circle reported second-quarter 2026 revenue and reserve income of $701m on 5 August, up 7% year on year, with reserve income of $668m up 5% as a 66 basis point fall in the reserve return rate offset 25% growth in average USDC in circulation. USDC in circulation was $73.3bn at the quarter end and net income from continuing operations $48m.
BlackRock, the DTCC, Galaxy, Global Payments, ICE, Mastercard, MoneyGram, SBI Group, Standard Chartered, Sumitomo Corporation and Visa will run validators on Arc, Circle's layer-one network, ahead of a public mainnet set for 16 September 2026. BlackRock is expected to deploy BUIDL on it, and the DTCC to make it a supported blockchain for its tokenization service in the second half of 2027.
JPYC Inc said on 5 August 2026 that an extension of its Series B round had taken the round to approximately 6bn yen cumulatively, with AZ-COM Maruwa Holdings as the investor. Its own release of 22 May put that figure at approximately 5bn yen. The two had agreed a capital and business alliance on 22 July to build a settlement platform paying the logistics group's network in the yen stablecoin.
Dinari opened trading in 724 tokenized US stocks, the S&P 500 among them, to eligible US investors on 4 August 2026, settled in USDC through self-custody wallets and running on Ethereum, Arbitrum, Base and Avalanche. Dinari Inc is an SEC-registered transfer agent; its affiliate Dinari Securities LLC is a FINRA member broker-dealer. It opened platform licences to US financial institutions the same day.
Yellow Card closed a $40m strategic round on 4 August 2026 from SC Ventures by Standard Chartered, the Sony Innovation Fund, Polychain Capital and Blockchain Capital, taking total equity financing past $120m. The money goes to Global USD Accounts, its dollar account for businesses, and to extending its stablecoin rails into Latin America and the Asia-Pacific.
Wells Fargo said on 4 August 2026 that it would offer tokenized deposits to corporate and commercial clients, starting this autumn with a limited US dollar to British pound exchange and widening over 2027 to more clients, countries and currencies. The tokens run on the bank's own blockchain platform and the release says they carry the same deposit insurance eligibility as its existing deposit products.
BlackRock announced OnChain shares of its Select Treasury Based Liquidity Fund on Ethereum, with BNY as transfer agent, and BRSRV, a new multi-chain tokenized money market fund with Securitize, on 3 August 2026. Both hold cash, short-dated Treasuries and overnight repo, and the release says their strategy intends to make them eligible reserve assets for permitted US payment stablecoin issuers under the GENIUS Act.
In a letter dated 3 August 2026, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Richard Blumenthal asked SEC chair Paul Atkins to investigate the $TRUMP memecoin for illegal fraud or unjust enrichment, arguing it may be a gradual rug pull. The letter cites press estimates that nearly a million investors lost over $3.81bn to the end of June while Trump made $636m. The SEC declined to comment.
Google's revised Chrome Web Store Developer Program policies came into force on 1 August 2026, the Regulated Goods and Services section stating that extensions facilitating or enabling real money transactions on predictive outcomes are not allowed. The change was published on 1 July. It names no venue and reaches extensions rather than the markets themselves; no removal has been reported.
Governor Kathy Hochul and Attorney General Letitia James announced on 31 July 2026 that New York had petitioned the Supreme Court of the State of New York, New York County, against KalshiEX LLC, alleging that its sports event contracts amount to an unlicensed gambling business under state law: wagers on outcomes outside the bettor's control without a Gaming Commission licence, users admitted from the age of 18 against a state minimum of 21, and none of the tax obligations licensed operators carry. The petition seeks an injunction, forfeiture of gains, treble damages, restitution and civil penalties.
Tether published its second-quarter 2026 attestation on 31 July, examined by BDO as of 30 June. Total liabilities were $183,622,105,630 against total assets of $187,751,426,411, leaving excess reserves of $4,109,529,196, against $8.23bn three months earlier. The company reported net operating profit of about $1.5bn for the quarter, gold holdings above 146 tonnes after adding 14 during the period, and a reduction of about $2.38bn in secured lending exposure.
The New York State Department of Financial Services granted Circle Internet Trust Company LLC, trading as Circle New York Trust, a limited purpose trust charter on 31 July 2026, permitting fiduciary, custody and asset-management services under the New York Banking Law. It sits alongside the national trust bank approval the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency gave Circle on 10 July 2026.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced an order on 31 July 2026 against the former US representative George Santos for manipulative trading of a Kalshi event contract on whether he would attend the February 2026 State of the Union address. Axios reports a civil fine of $17,500, the surrender of $17,569.98 in profits and a three-year trading ban; the reports differ on the ban's scope.
The CFTC issued a notice of proposed rulemaking on 30 July 2026 seeking comment on amendments to Parts 37, 38 and 39 of its regulations and to Regulations 1.52 and 1.55, addressing conflicts of interest that arise where designated contract markets, swap execution facilities, derivatives clearing organisations and futures commission merchants are affiliated. Reporting describes restrictions on affiliated traders' access to non-public exchange data, a bar on preferential fee treatment, separation of personnel and technology, and a prohibition on proprietary trading arms operating on the same platform. Comments run for 60 days from Federal Register publication.
Uniswap Labs launched Earn on 30 July 2026, letting users deposit USDC, USDT or ether on Ethereum mainnet into lending vaults built on Morpho infrastructure with risk parameters curated by Gauntlet. The product is self-custodial, has no lockup or cooldown, and carries no Uniswap fee at launch beyond network costs.
Coinkite published a security advisory on 30 July 2026, updated on 1 August, saying Coldcard devices had generated seeds with insufficient entropy: about 72 bits rather than 128 on later models, and weak seeds on Mk2 and Mk3 firmware 4.0.1 to 4.1.9 unless dice rolls were used. The advisory confirms no thefts; outside analysts attributed large automated sweeps of bitcoin to the flaw the following day.
NASD OTC Securities Exchange introduced the NASD Digital Securities Platform, built on Blockstation infrastructure with TK Tech Africa to carry tokenized securities from issuance through trading, clearing and settlement, with a first public offering slated for early September 2026. Punch and Vanguard reported it live on 29 and 30 July; the exchange's own page for it says coming soon.
BNY said on 29 July 2026 that it had launched Digital Transfer Agency capabilities, keeping fund books and records on blockchain rails with legal title recorded there, accepting subscriptions and redemptions in either fiat or stablecoins, and issuing fund tokens by mint and burn. The service runs alongside the conventional transfer agency that services roughly $8.6tn across more than 7.6 million investor accounts, and starts with three funds: BLIQUID from BNY Investments Dreyfus, the Baillie Gifford Enhanced Yield Fund, and a BlackRock tokenized money market fund share class aimed at stablecoin reserves.
Polymarket announced the Polymarket Institute on 29 July 2026, a research arm to fund academic work on prediction markets. Kai Brusch, the company's head of data, is managing director and Brian Jabarian of Carnegie Mellon University is scientific director in what Fortune reports is an unpaid role. Fortune reports an inaugural cohort of twelve doctoral fellows on one-off grants of $10,000, applications opening on 18 August, and wider public access to the exchange's market data through its APIs. The release itself gives no funding figures.
Aviva Investors launched a tokenized share class of its US Dollar Liquidity Fund on the XRP Ledger on 29 July 2026, approved by the Central Bank of Ireland. Ripple supplies the ledger, Komainu the institutional custody of the tokens and Licuido the tokenization infrastructure, with The Bank of New York Mellon remaining the fund's custodian. The conventional fund has run since 2020 and the tokenized class carries the same investment terms.
Tether's USAT, the dollar token issued by Anchorage Digital Bank under the GENIUS Act regime, went live on Celo on 29 July 2026, its first network beyond Ethereum. The deployment mints and burns natively rather than bridging a representation, and Celo's fee abstraction mechanism lets USAT pay transaction fees, so a holder can transact without first acquiring the network's own asset. The announcement ran through Celo's channels; Tether's newsroom carried no release of its own.
The Bank for International Settlements published real-value testing results for Project Agora on 29 July 2026. Twenty-eight private sector institutions and central banks completed transactions across seventeen scenarios worth about CHF800,000 in total, settling in roughly eighty seconds on average on a platform where tokenized commercial bank deposits move alongside tokenized central bank reserves.
1inch opened Aqua to the public on 28 July 2026 across 13 EVM networks including Ethereum, Arbitrum, Base and BNB Chain. Providers authorise the protocol against tokens that stay in their own wallets rather than depositing them in a pool, and the same balance can stand behind several quoted positions at once. The 1inch Foundation allocated 10 million 1INCH to provider rewards, with a further 500,000 USDC proposed and pending governance approval, and the release says the protocol went through eight independent audits.
Quidax said on 28 July 2026 that its stablecoin payment infrastructure now reaches more than 21 countries and 14 currencies, with corridors across nine African markets including Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa and Côte d'Ivoire alongside destinations such as the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, China and the United Arab Emirates. USDT, XAUT and USAT are among the supported stablecoins. The company holds an approval-in-principle as a digital assets exchange from Nigeria's Securities and Exchange Commission rather than a full registration.
Tether and the Nairobi Securities Exchange announced a memorandum of understanding on 28 July 2026 covering investor education, blockchain-based infrastructure for securities tokenization and instant settlement, streamlined anti-money-laundering and know-your-customer onboarding under Kenyan rules, and asset tokenization on Tether's Hadron platform, with what the release calls potential integration of USDT as a settlement layer. The memorandum binds neither party to build anything and names no timetable, pilot or regulatory approval.
Circle said on 27 July 2026 that it had acquired IBM's blockchain patent portfolio, more than 680 patent families and close to 1,000 issued patents worldwide, covering foundational technology alongside applications in banking, insurance, enterprise infrastructure and supply-chain verification. No price was disclosed.
Judge Katherine Menendez of the US District Court for the District of Minnesota granted preliminary injunctions on 27 July 2026 against Senate File 3432, which would have criminalised operating a prediction market platform in the state from August. The court found the plaintiffs, Kalshi, Polymarket and the CFTC, likely to succeed on their claim that the Commodity Exchange Act preempts the statute. The injunction holds until the merits are decided.
The National Football League filed a comment letter on 27 July 2026 on the CFTC's proposed public interest determinations rule, saying the draft falls significantly short and asking the Commission to prohibit outright the categories it considers manipulable, including contracts on officiating, individual player performance and events knowable in advance, rather than review them case by case. It also asked for a minimum age of 21 and league-specific prohibited-bettor lists.
Lido began moving more than 265,000 validators onto consolidated post-Pectra credentials on 27 July 2026, a migration of over 8 million staked ETH that it expects to cut Ethereum's validator count from about 880,000 to roughly 628,000 and attestation messages by about 29% per epoch. The new module requires node operators to post ETH bonds for the first time.
Ondo Finance introduced the Ondo Network on 27 July 2026, an execution layer running trades inside secure hardware enclaves with asset transfers settling on public blockchains and a set of attestors verifying the code in use. It replaces Ondo Chain, the institutional layer-1 announced in February 2025, and carries the firm's perpetual futures venue as its first application.
Securitize said on 27 July 2026 that its Securitize Capital subsidiary had registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission as an investment adviser, having previously operated as an exempt reporting adviser. The registration sits alongside the group's registered broker-dealer, alternative trading system, transfer agent and fund administration businesses, which together service more than $5bn in tokenized funds.
The CFTC's Division of Market Oversight issued an advisory on 24 July 2026 cautioning designated contract markets against template certifications that bundle many event contract variations into a single filing, saying such submissions limit its ability to judge whether the information required under Regulation 40.2 has been supplied, and setting out when closely related contracts may instead take class treatment.
The Council of the European Union adopted its 21st package of sanctions against Russia on 23 July 2026, extending the transaction ban to 14 crypto-related service platforms based in Georgia, Panama, the UAE, the Marshall Islands, Kyrgyzstan and Belarus, and introducing for the first time a power to prohibit dealings with crypto-asset service providers of an entire third country. The Council's summary does not name the 14 platforms.
HDR Global Trading said on 23 July 2026 that BitMEX would close at 04:00 UTC on 23 September, following a strategic review, and told users to withdraw funds before the deadline. The venue introduced the perpetual swap in May 2016, the contract design that went on to dominate crypto derivatives trading on centralised and onchain venues alike.
DTCC began limited production trades on the DTC Tokenization Service in July 2026, covering Russell 1000 constituents, large index-tracking exchange-traded funds and US Treasury bills, notes and bonds, with commercial launch targeted for October 2026. More than 50 firms, among them BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Kraken and Circle, joined the industry working group; DTCC said tokenized holdings carry the same entitlements and ownership rights as assets held in conventional form.
Luxembourg's CSSF said the transitional period under which virtual asset service providers could continue operating in the European Union without a MiCA authorisation ended on 1 July 2026. Firms without a crypto-asset service provider authorisation must wind down EU activity in an orderly way: they may not onboard new customers or market products, and may only allow existing customers to convert holdings into legal tender, transfer them to an authorised platform or move them into self-custody.
The Bank of England published a policy statement and draft Code of Practice for issuers of systemic sterling stablecoins, setting a temporary guardrail of £40bn per issuance instead of the individual holding limits it had consulted on. Issuers may hold up to 70% of backing assets in short-term UK government debt, with the remaining 30% in deposits at the Bank; responses are due by 22 September 2026 and regulated stablecoins are expected to operate from 2027.
The Bank for International Settlements reported that the Project Agorá prototype showed tokenisation of central bank reserves and commercial bank deposits can support atomic multi-currency settlement across jurisdictions while leaving each central bank in control of its own money and preserving transaction privacy. Seven central banks and more than 40 private financial institutions took part, and the project said the work would advance to real-value transactions in certain currencies.
A divided panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed a preliminary injunction in KalshiEX LLC v. Flaherty, holding that the Commodity Exchange Act preempts New Jersey's gaming laws as applied to sports event contracts traded on a CFTC-designated contract market, on both field and conflict preemption grounds. Judge Roth dissented, arguing that the presumption against preemption applies with particular force to gambling and that the two regimes can be complied with simultaneously.
The SEC approved a Nasdaq proposed rule change, as modified by Amendment No. 2, permitting securities to trade on the exchange in tokenized form through DTC's tokenization pilot, in Release 34-105047. Eligible participants may set a tokenization flag on orders in Russell 1000 constituents and large index ETFs; tokenized and conventional shares trade on the same order book with the same priority provided they remain fungible and share the same CUSIP and symbol.
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency published a proposed rule implementing the GENIUS Act, codifying most requirements in a new 12 CFR Part 15 and amending Parts 3, 6, 8 and 19. The proposal covers permitted activities, reserve assets, redemption, risk management, audits, reports and supervision for permitted payment stablecoin issuers, and applies to national banks, federal savings associations, federal branches and agencies, foreign issuers and non-bank applicants for federal issuer approval.
Tether announced USAT, a dollar stablecoin issued in the United States by Anchorage Digital Bank under the GENIUS Act framework, with Cantor Fitzgerald as reserve custodian and preferred primary dealer. The token sits alongside USDT, which continues to be issued outside the United States.
Uniswap governance activated the protocol fee switch on Ethereum, directing a share of swap fees to protocol revenue used to buy back and burn UNI. Governance subsequently extended protocol fees to further deployments, with temperature checks on Uniswap v4 fees and on extension to Robinhood Chain posted in July 2026.
Ghana's Parliament passed the Virtual Asset Service Providers Act, requiring entities providing virtual asset services to be licensed or registered, with regulatory responsibility shared between the Bank of Ghana and the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Bank of Ghana said transition arrangements would give existing operators time to comply once the law takes effect and that unauthorised activity would attract sanctions.
Staff in the SEC's Division of Trading and Markets told The Depository Trust Company that they would not recommend enforcement action over the preliminary base version of DTCC Tokenization Services, under which participants may elect to have their security entitlements to DTC-held securities recorded on a distributed ledger rather than only on DTC's centralised ledger. The relief covers Regulation SCI, the section 19(b) rule filing requirement and parts of Rules 17ad-22(e) and 17ad-25, expires three years after launch and is conditioned on 16 representations.
Banco Central do Brasil issued Resolution BCB 521, incorporating virtual asset service provider activities into the foreign exchange market rules and into the regime for Brazilian capital abroad and foreign capital in Brazil, under Law 14,478/2022 and Decree 11,563/2023. The resolution covers international payments and transfers made with virtual assets, transfers to self-custody wallets and purchases and sales of virtual assets referenced to a fiat currency, and imposes reporting obligations on providers.
JPYC started issuing its yen-referenced stablecoin and opened JPYC EX, its issuance and redemption platform, with the token deployed on Avalanche, Ethereum and Polygon. The company had been registered as a funds transfer service provider under Japan's Payment Services Act on 18 August 2025 and said the token is exchangeable one-for-one with the yen and backed by yen deposits and government bonds.
The Virtual Asset Service Providers Act, Act No. 20 of 2025, received assent on 15 October 2025 and commenced on 4 November 2025. It splits supervision between the Central Bank of Kenya, which takes wallet providers, payment processors and stablecoin issuance, and the Capital Markets Authority, which takes exchanges, brokers, advisers, managers and initial coin offering providers.
Retail access to crypto exchange traded notes reopened in the United Kingdom, reversing a prohibition in force since January 2021. The Financial Conduct Authority required the notes to be traded on an FCA-approved UK investment exchange and subject to financial promotion rules and the Consumer Duty; holdings are not covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, and the ban on retail access to cryptoasset derivatives remains.
Intercontinental Exchange agreed to invest up to $2bn in cash in Polymarket at a pre-investment valuation of about $8bn, and to distribute the prediction market's event data to institutional customers. The two companies said they also planned to work together on tokenisation.
Swift said it would build a blockchain-based shared ledger into its infrastructure stack, initially for round-the-clock cross-border payments and the movement of regulated tokenised value, with smart contracts used to record, sequence and validate transactions. More than 30 financial institutions across 16 countries are working on the design, and Consensys was appointed to build the prototype for the first phase.
The People's Bank of China launched an international operation centre for the digital renminbi in Shanghai, comprising a cross-border digital payment platform, a blockchain service platform and a digital asset platform. The central bank said the centre was intended to support internationalisation of the currency and the development of financial market services.
The Department of the Treasury issued an advance notice of proposed rulemaking on implementing the GENIUS Act, with comments due by 20 October 2025. It sought input on issuance, reserve and marketing rules for stablecoin issuers and service providers, illicit finance controls, the treatment of foreign payment stablecoin issuers, taxation, insurance and cost and benefit estimates.
The Stablecoins Ordinance came into operation, bringing stablecoin issuance in Hong Kong under a licensing regime administered by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority. The Ordinance had been gazetted on 30 May 2025 and the commencement notice fixing the 1 August date was gazetted on 6 June 2025, with transitional provisions allowing professional investors to receive specified stablecoins from unlicensed issuers under defined conditions.
BNY and Goldman Sachs launched a service under which subscriptions to money market funds placed through BNY's LiquidityDirect platform are mirrored as tokens on GS DAP, the Goldman Sachs Digital Assets platform built on Digital Asset technology. BNY continues to keep the official books, records and settlements for the funds. BlackRock, BNY Investments Dreyfus, Federated Hermes, Fidelity Investments and Goldman Sachs Asset Management took part at launch.
The Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act was approved as Public Law 119-27, 139 Stat. 419, providing for the regulation of payment stablecoins and restricting issuance to permitted issuers. The House of Representatives had passed the bill on 17 July 2025.
The ECB Governing Council approved a plan for settling distributed ledger technology transactions in central bank money on two tracks. Pontes is to link DLT platforms to TARGET Services, with a pilot planned by the end of the third quarter of 2026; Appia examines a longer-term integrated tokenised ecosystem. The decision followed exploratory work between May and November 2024 that involved 64 participants and more than 50 trials.
Robinhood began offering more than 200 tokenised US stocks and exchange-traded funds to customers in 30 EU and EEA countries, issued on Arbitrum and traded with no commission or added spread from Robinhood. The company said it was also building its own layer-2 network, based on Arbitrum technology, for tokenised real-world assets.
Kraken began offering xStocks, tokenised US stocks and exchange-traded funds issued by Backed Assets (JE) Limited of Jersey as SPL tokens on Solana, with 60 assets at launch. US persons were excluded from the offering, which Kraken said it intended to extend to more than 140 countries.
The Hong Kong government published a second policy statement on digital assets structured around four workstreams it labelled LEAP: legal and regulatory streamlining, expanding tokenised products, advancing use cases and people and partnership development. It committed to regularising issuance of tokenised government bonds, clarifying the stamp duty treatment of tokenised exchange traded funds, and bringing the stablecoin issuer licensing regime into effect on 1 August 2025.
Coinbase said the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier had authorised it as a crypto-asset service provider under the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation, with Luxembourg as its EU hub. The single authorisation replaces the separate national registrations Coinbase held in Germany, France, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain and allows it to passport services across the 27 member states.
Circle, the issuer of the USDC stablecoin, priced an upsized initial public offering of 34m Class A shares at $31 each, implying gross proceeds of about $1.05bn. Circle sold 14.8m shares and selling stockholders 19.2m, with trading due to begin on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker CRCL on 5 June 2025.
In Interpretive Letter 1184 the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency confirmed that national banks and federal savings associations may hold crypto-assets in custody and buy and sell assets held in custody at a customer's direction. The letter also stated that banks may outsource bank-permissible crypto-asset custody and execution activities to third parties subject to third-party risk management, and built on the earlier Interpretive Letters 1170 and 1183.
President Bola Tinubu signed the Investments and Securities Act 2025, which replaces the 2007 Act and widens the statutory definition of securities to include virtual and digital assets. The Act places virtual asset service providers, digital asset operators and digital asset exchanges under the supervision of the Securities and Exchange Commission, which announced the signing on 29 March 2025.
The remaining titles of Regulation (EU) 2023/1114 took effect, requiring firms providing crypto-asset services in the European Union to be authorised and supervised. National regimes were replaced by a single set of rules with passporting across member states, subject to transitional arrangements set by each state.
The ECB reported the conclusion of Eurosystem trials and experiments settling transactions recorded on distributed ledgers against central bank money. 64 participants ran more than 200 transactions across more than 40 trials and experiments between May and November 2024, with a combined value of about €1.59bn.
Circle said it had obtained an electronic money institution licence from France's ACPR, allowing Circle Internet Financial Europe SAS to issue USDC and EURC under MiCA. It was the first global stablecoin issuer to bring its euro and dollar tokens within the EU regime.
Titles III and IV of Regulation (EU) 2023/1114 took effect, making authorisation, reserve and redemption requirements binding on issuers of asset-referenced tokens and e-money tokens. The European Banking Authority subsequently urged issuers and distributors to align with the rules, noting that some tokens on offer in the EU were not yet compliant.
The central bank partners in Project mBridge announced that the cross-border multi-CBDC settlement platform had reached minimum viable product stage and invited further participants. The founding central banks were the Bank of Thailand, the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates, the Digital Currency Institute of the People's Bank of China and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority; the Saudi Central Bank joined as a full participant and more than 26 central banks were observing members.
The Securities and Exchange Commission approved rule changes allowing eight spot ether exchange-traded products to list on NYSE Arca, Nasdaq and Cboe BZX. The order relied on the Commission's own analysis of correlation between CME ether futures and Coinbase spot prices from October 2021 to March 2024, which it put at no less than 96.2% at hourly intervals, 85.7% at five-minute intervals and 67.1% at one-minute intervals.
Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing welcomed the listing of Asia's first spot virtual asset exchange-traded funds, covering bitcoin and ether. The listings followed the Securities and Futures Commission's circular of 22 December 2023 setting conditions for such products.
The Bank for International Settlements announced Project Agorá, a public-private effort to test tokenised commercial bank deposits alongside tokenised wholesale central bank money on a programmable platform. Seven central banks joined, working with private financial firms convened by the Institute of International Finance.
BlackRock introduced the BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund, holding cash, US Treasury bills and repurchase agreements, with shares issued as tokens on Ethereum. Securitize acted as transfer agent and tokenisation platform, BNY Mellon as custodian of the fund's assets, and the minimum investment was $5m.
The Securities and Exchange Commission approved the listing and trading of spot bitcoin exchange-traded product shares, having previously rejected such applications. The chair's statement attributed the change to the D.C. Circuit's decision vacating the Commission's denial of Grayscale's proposed conversion.
The Central Bank of Nigeria issued guidelines on banks' operation of accounts for virtual asset service providers, superseding the circulars of 12 January 2017 and 5 February 2021 that had barred regulated institutions from serving the sector. Banks were permitted to open designated and settlement accounts for VASPs licensed by the Nigerian securities regulator, but remained prohibited from holding or trading virtual currencies on their own account.
Fnality completed the first payments on its sterling payment system, with Lloyds Banking Group, Banco Santander and UBS transacting in tokenised central bank money held in an omnibus account at the Bank of England. The system was the first regulated wholesale payment infrastructure of its kind to go into operation.
The Swiss National Bank and SIX Digital Exchange announced a pilot issuing a wholesale central bank digital currency in Swiss francs on SDX's regulated platform, to settle tokenised bond transactions with real value. The pilot ran from December 2023 to June 2024 with six commercial banks participating.
Progmat, Inc. was established with capital of ¥100m to develop and operate platforms for issuing security tokens, utility tokens and stablecoins in Japan. Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking held 49%, with NTT Data, Mizuho Trust & Banking, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, SBI PTS Holdings, JPX Market Innovation & Research and Datachain holding the remainder.
Section 12F of the Income Tax Act, inserted by section 10 of the Finance Act 2023, came into operation, imposing a digital asset tax at 3% of the transfer or exchange value of a digital asset. Platform owners and facilitators were made responsible for deducting the tax and remitting it within five working days, with non-resident operators required to register under a simplified regime.
MAS published the final features of a regulatory framework for single-currency stablecoins pegged to the Singapore dollar or a G10 currency and issued in Singapore. Issuers were required to hold low-risk, highly liquid reserve assets and to return par value to holders within five business days of a redemption request.
PayPal introduced PayPal USD, an ERC-20 stablecoin issued by Paxos Trust Company and backed by dollar deposits, US Treasuries and cash equivalents. It was the first dollar stablecoin issued for a large US consumer payments platform, with transfers available to eligible US customers.
The Financial Stability Board published final high-level recommendations for the regulation of crypto-asset activities and of global stablecoin arrangements, built on the principle of same activity, same risk, same regulation. The framework was addressed to national authorities and set out expectations on governance, reserve assets and cross-border cooperation.
The Financial Services and Markets Act 2023 became law as 2023 Chapter 29, carrying provisions that bring digital settlement assets within UK payments regulation and create a framework for financial market infrastructure sandboxes. The Act gave HM Treasury the powers on which later secondary legislation for cryptoassets was built.
The Council gave final adoption to MiCA, described by the Council as the last step in the legislative process following the provisional agreement of 30 June 2022. The regulation covers utility tokens, asset-referenced tokens and e-money tokens, and the trading venues and wallet providers that serve them.
USDC traded below one dollar after Circle disclosed that $3.3bn of its cash reserves, about 8% of the total, was held at Silicon Valley Bank. Circle later reported the reserve as 77% short-dated US Treasury bills, $32.4bn, and 23% cash, $9.7bn, custodied at BNY Mellon.
The Securities and Exchange Commission charged Terraform Labs PTE Ltd and its founder Do Hyeong Kwon with securities fraud in connection with the algorithmic stablecoin TerraUSD and the LUNA token. The complaint stated that UST depegged from the dollar in May 2022 and that the price of UST and its sister tokens fell to close to zero.
The Hong Kong SAR government settled an HK$800m tokenised green bond with a 365-day tenor, priced the previous day at 4.05%, on Goldman Sachs's GS DAP private blockchain platform. The HKMA's Central Moneymarkets Unit acted as clearing and settlement system, with HSBC as trustee and custodian alongside Bank of China (Hong Kong).
The New York State Department of Financial Services directed Paxos Trust Company to cease minting new Binance USD, citing unresolved issues relating to Paxos's oversight of its relationship with Binance. Paxos remained obliged to continue servicing redemptions of outstanding tokens.
Brazil enacted Lei nº 14.478, requiring prior authorisation from a designated federal body to operate as a virtual asset service provider. The law added Article 171-A to the Penal Code, creating an offence of fraud involving virtual assets carrying four to eight years' imprisonment, and took effect 180 days after publication.
The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision published its final standard on the prudential treatment of banks' cryptoasset exposures, splitting assets into a group eligible for existing capital rules and a group carrying a punitive treatment. The implementation date for member jurisdictions was set at 1 January 2025.
The Reserve Bank of India launched the first pilot of the wholesale central bank digital rupee, using it to settle secondary-market transactions in government securities. Nine banks were identified for participation, and the stated aim was to cut interbank settlement costs by removing the need for settlement guarantee infrastructure.
The Financial Sector Conduct Authority declared a crypto asset to be a financial product under paragraph (h) of the definition in section 1 of the Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services Act, 2002, published as General Notice 1350 of 2022. The effect was to bring firms that advise on or intermediate in crypto assets within the FAIS licensing regime.
The Council presidency and European Parliament negotiators agreed a provisional text of MiCA, covering issuers of asset-referenced and e-money tokens and crypto-asset service providers. The text required stablecoin issuers to hold a liquid reserve at a 1:1 ratio, set a three-month deadline for national authorities to decide on authorisation applications, and gave ESMA a register of non-compliant operators.
MoneyGram began letting customers convert cash to and from USDC at its retail agent locations, using the Stellar network for settlement. The service opened in Canada, Kenya, the Philippines and the United States, with wider availability planned.
SIX Group issued a CHF 150m five-year bond with a 0.125% coupon, split into a CHF 100m digital tranche listed on SDX Trading and a CHF 50m conventional tranche on SIX Swiss Exchange, with the two parts exchangeable. SIX described it as the first bond issuance with a purely digital tranche in a fully regulated environment; SDX had received exchange and central securities depository licences from FINMA on 10 September 2021.
The President's Working Group on Financial Markets, with the FDIC and the OCC, recommended that Congress require stablecoin issuers to be insured depository institutions, subject custodial wallet providers to federal oversight, limit issuers' affiliation with commercial entities and promote interoperability between stablecoins. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said existing oversight was inconsistent and fragmented, and agencies committed to acting within current authority while legislation was pending.
The Central Bank of Nigeria launched the eNaira, the second retail central bank digital currency in operation anywhere, using permissioned distributed ledger technology and a two-tier distribution model in which the central bank runs the system and financial institutions hold treasury wallets. The eNaira is a liability of the central bank, pays no interest so as to limit substitution away from bank deposits, and applies tiered identity requirements with transaction and balance limits rather than allowing anonymity.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission ordered Tether to pay a $41m civil penalty, finding that between 1 June 2016 and 25 February 2019 the company misrepresented that every USDT in circulation was backed by an equivalent amount of fiat currency. The order found that Tether held sufficient fiat reserves to back tokens outstanding on only 27.6% of days in a 26-month sample from 2016 to 2018, and did not disclose that reserves included unsecured receivables and non-fiat assets.
The Bank of Ghana announced a partnership with Giesecke+Devrient to design, implement and pilot a general-purpose central bank digital currency, the eCedi, intended to work alongside physical cash and reach users through mobile applications and smart cards. The pilot was structured to test end-user adoption, infrastructure security, monetary policy effects and legal questions before any national rollout.
The Federal Act on the Adaptation of Federal Law to Developments in Distributed Electronic Register Technology and its implementing ordinance took full effect, following the Federal Council's decision of 18 June 2021. The remaining provisions created an authorisation category for DLT trading facilities and increased legal certainty over the treatment of registered assets in bankruptcy.
The working group on e-CNY research and development of the People's Bank of China published a white paper reporting that, as of 30 June 2021, pilots covered more than 1.32 million scenarios and had recorded 70.75 million transactions worth RMB 34.5bn, with 20.87 million personal wallets and 3.51 million corporate wallets opened. Pilot areas by then included Shenzhen, Suzhou, Xiong'an, Chengdu, the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics venues, Shanghai, Hainan, Changsha, Xi'an, Qingdao and Dalian.
The Crypto Assets Regulatory Working Group of South Africa's Intergovernmental Fintech Working Group, whose members include the South African Reserve Bank and National Treasury, published a position paper stating that crypto assets would be brought into the South African regulatory perimeter in a phased and structured manner. It replaced the group's earlier April 2020 paper as the reference point for later financial-sector conduct and exchange-control measures.
Banco Central do Brasil published general guidelines for a Brazilian central bank digital currency, drawn up by a working group formed in August 2020, setting out that the digital real would be an extension of the existing currency issued and distributed through the payments system rather than a separate instrument. The guidelines listed support for retail payments including offline use, programmable money and smart contracts, compliance with Brazil's data protection law, anti-money-laundering controls, interoperability for cross-border payments and cyber resilience as conditions of any issuance.
The European Investment Bank issued a €100m two-year zero-coupon bond as digitally native tokens registered on the Ethereum public blockchain, priced at 101.213% for a re-offer yield of -0.601% and maturing on 28 April 2023. Goldman Sachs, Santander and Societe Generale were joint lead managers, Societe Generale-FORGE acted as registrar and settlement agent, and the underwriters paid the issuer using a representation of central bank money provided with the Banque de France.
The summary prospectus for the Franklin OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund, dated 6 April 2021, stated that ownership of the fund's shares "will also be recorded on the Stellar network's blockchain", with the transfer agent's book-entry record remaining determinative in any conflict. It made a registered US money market fund, rather than a token referencing one, the vehicle through which investors held a blockchain record of fund shares.
The New York Attorney General ended Bitfinex's and Tether's trading activity with New Yorkers and imposed an $18.5m penalty, finding that from mid-2017 Tether "had no access to banking, anywhere in the world" and lacked reserves sufficient to back tethers one-for-one as claimed. The office also found that the day after Tether's 1 November 2018 verification of full backing, funds began moving out of the account to Bitfinex, and that Bitfinex had concealed roughly $850m of losses tied to the payment processor Crypto Capital Corp.
The Digital Currency Institute of the People's Bank of China and the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates joined the Hong Kong Monetary Authority and the Bank of Thailand in a project hosted by the BIS Innovation Hub Centre in Hong Kong to build a prototype for cross-border foreign exchange payments on distributed ledger technology. The work, which grew out of Inthanon-LionRock, targeted payment-versus-payment settlement across jurisdictions and later became known as mBridge.
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency conditionally approved the conversion of Anchorage Trust Company, a South Dakota chartered trust company, into Anchorage Digital Bank, National Association, subject to an operating agreement setting capital, liquidity and risk management expectations. The charter created a federally supervised entity able to act as custodian and, later, as issuer of record for regulated dollar tokens.
HM Treasury published a consultation and call for evidence on the UK regulatory approach to cryptoassets and stablecoins, open until 21 March 2021, confirming the government's intention to legislate to bring certain stablecoins used as a means of payment inside the regulatory perimeter. The government published its response on 4 April 2022.
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency issued Interpretive Letter 1174, confirming that federally chartered banks and thrifts may participate in independent node verification networks and use stablecoins for payment activities, validating, storing and recording transactions. Acting Comptroller Brian Brooks said the letter "removes any legal uncertainty about the authority of banks to connect to blockchains as validator nodes and thereby transact stablecoin payments", subject to Bank Secrecy Act programmes tailored to those risks.
The Financial Stability Board published ten high-level recommendations for the regulation, supervision and oversight of global stablecoin arrangements, applying the principle of same business, same risk, same rules and requiring that such arrangements meet applicable standards before they begin operating. The FSB set December 2021 for completion of international standard-setting work and July 2022 for national frameworks consistent with the recommendations.
The European Commission adopted a digital finance package containing digital finance and retail payments strategies and legislative proposals on crypto-assets and operational resilience, including the proposed Regulation on Markets in Crypto-Assets. The proposal became the basis of the EU authorisation and reserve regime for asset-referenced and e-money tokens that entered application in 2024.
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency published Interpretive Letter 1172, stating that national banks and federal savings associations may hold reserves on behalf of customers who issue stablecoins backed one-for-one by a single fiat currency in hosted wallets, with daily verification that reserve balances match tokens outstanding. Acting Comptroller Brian Brooks said banks were already handling such activity involving billions of dollars each day and the letter was meant to provide regulatory certainty.
The Securities and Exchange Commission of Nigeria issued a statement setting out that "virtual crypto assets are securities, unless proven otherwise", placing the burden on issuers to file an initial assessment showing an asset is not a security before registration is required. The statement brought dealers, portfolio managers, investment advisers and custodians of digital assets within the registration perimeter, and gave existing offerings three months from implementation to comply.
The Securities and Futures Commission published a position paper allowing centralised virtual asset trading platforms in Hong Kong that trade at least one security token to be licensed, on terms comparable to those for securities brokers covering custody, market surveillance, know-your-client, anti-money-laundering and cybersecurity. Licensed platforms could serve professional investors only, and the SFC acknowledged that platforms trading no security tokens fell outside its jurisdiction.
Societe Generale SFH issued €100m of covered bonds as security tokens registered on the Ethereum public blockchain, rated Aaa by Moody's and AAA by Fitch and fully subscribed by Societe Generale itself. It was the first covered bond tokenized on a public network by a large European bank, though no third-party investor took the paper.
Circle launched USD Coin as the first issuance under CENTRE's standard, which required members to back all tokens on a fully reserved basis, publish monthly attestations of reserves by certified public auditors, and hold a banking, money transmission or trust licence. Circle stated at launch that while it might be the first USDC issuer it would "certainly not be the last", establishing a multi-issuer model for a single dollar token.
The New York State Department of Financial Services authorised Gemini Trust Company and Paxos Trust Company each to offer a dollar-pegged token, requiring that it be fully exchangeable for a US dollar and subject to monitoring, recordkeeping, anti-money-laundering controls and independent audit under departmental examination. The approvals placed two New York trust companies, rather than an offshore issuer, between holders and the reserve assets.
The Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Abu Dhabi Global Market brought spot crypto asset activities inside its rulebook, covering exchanges, custodians and other intermediaries operating in the free zone, with requirements on financial crime, technology governance, custody and consumer protection. Crypto asset exchanges were made subject to a daily value trading levy on a sliding scale.
In circular DBR.No.BP.BC.104/08.13.102/2017-18 the Reserve Bank of India directed that entities it regulates "shall not deal in VCs or provide services for facilitating any person or entity in dealing with or settling VCs", covering account maintenance, clearing, lending against tokens and transfers connected to virtual currency purchases. Institutions already providing such services were given three months, to 6 July 2018, to exit those relationships.
Holders of the MKR token voted to activate single-collateral Dai, bringing into operation a dollar-denominated token created against ether locked in collateralised debt positions rather than against bank deposits. A year after launch the system reported close to 80 million Dai in circulation and more than 5,000 collateralised debt positions opened, having held its peg through a roughly 90% fall in the price of ether.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore announced the first phase of Project Ubin, a proof of concept placing a tokenized Singapore dollar on a distributed ledger for interbank payments, run with R3 and a group of banks. The phase concluded on 9 March 2017 and was followed by four further phases covering real-time gross settlement redesign, delivery versus payment and cross-border payment versus payment.
Ethereum's first release, Frontier, went into operation at 15:26:13 UTC on 30 July 2015, producing the genesis block of the network on which most later tokenized securities, funds and dollar tokens were issued. Blocks were capped at 5,000 gas until the Frontier thawing upgrade of 7 September 2015 lifted the limit.
A message signed Satoshi Nakamoto posted a paper titled "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System" to the Cryptography mailing list, describing a payment system that is "fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party" and that orders transactions by hash-based proof-of-work. The design assumed that honest nodes controlling a majority of computing power would extend the longest chain and so prevent double-spending.
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