Real-World Asset Tokenization

The European Central Bank has set out three models for connecting central bank money to tokenized finance. ECB Executive Board member Isabel Schnabel explained them on October 1 at "The Future of Money" conference in London, hosted by the Bank of England and others. The first model has the central bank directly issuing tokenized reserve deposits on a programmable ledger, making central bank money itself a native asset on a distributed ledger and using it to settle transactions in tokenized financial assets. The second model keeps existing central bank settlement systems in place while connecting to distributed ledger platforms through bridges or synchronization functions; the reserve deposits themselves are not tokenized, and funding and settlement of transactions on the ledger are carried out with conventional central bank money. In the third model, private intermediaries issue on-chain settlement tokens backed by reserve deposits held in an omnibus account at the central bank, and these tokens represent a claim on a private entity rather than a direct claim on the central bank. Schnabel outlined a vision in which tokenized finance preserves the current two-tier structure, keeping central bank money at the core of final settlement between financial institutions while commercial banks provide money and financial services to customers. On September 21, the ECB launched Pontes, which connects distributed ledger platforms with the existing TARGET Services to settle tokenized asset transactions in central bank money, and its long-term Appia project is examining future architectures for tokenized markets, including a unified ledger and multiple interconnected ledgers.

Bybit announced a collaboration with Franklin Templeton that lets eligible traders use Benji-issued money market fund shares as off-exchange collateral on the crypto platform, extending the asset manager's push into tokenized finance. Franklin Templeton shares trade at US$32.81, with a year to date share price return of 37.86% and a 1-year total shareholder return of 44.68%, while shorter-term momentum has faded with the 30-day share price return down 5.53% and the 90-day share price return down 4.73%. The company is building on its earlier tokenized funds and blockchain enabled products, including the BENJI tokenized money fund, by adding 3.2b of digital asset AUM and acquiring 250 Digital, and by embedding tokenized funds into partner wallets such as MoonPay and Payward. A widely followed narrative pegs fair value at $35.50, above the last close of $32.81, while the stock trades at 22x earnings, below the US Capital Markets industry on 39.7x and peers at 35.9x but above the fair ratio of 12.8x. Franklin Templeton's story could still shift if fee pressure from large platforms intensifies or if integration across its expanded credit and digital franchises stumbles.

Stellar took in $36.4 million of the $96.5 million that flowed into real-world asset tokenization across the top 10 blockchain networks over the past 24 hours, according to RWA Foundation citing Token Terminal. That single-network share amounts to more than a third, or 37%, of the total 24-hour inflow into the top 10 networks. The figures cover only the top 10 blockchain networks by RWA tokenization market capitalization, which rose by $96.5 million in the period.

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation announced the DTCC tokenization service on May 4, 2026, a platform designed to bring Russell 1000 components, ETFs, and US Treasuries onto distributed ledgers. With over 50 firms including BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Circle, Ondo, and Nasdaq participating, the service moved into limited production in July 2026 following a December 2025 SEC No-Action Letter. DTCC CEO Frank La Salla said tokenization will significantly change how markets operate by bringing new levels of liquidity, transparency, and efficiency to investors, while Brian Steele of the DTCC added that the service is designed to provide systemic scale where deep liquidity already lives. The infrastructure shift extends beyond the DTCC: Nasdaq secured SEC approval on March 18, 2026, under Release 34-105047, to facilitate tokenized settlement on the same order book, ticker, and CUSIP as traditional assets, NYSE Arca followed with rule change SR-NYSEARCA-2026-45 effective April 29, 2026, and the broader NYSE received approval for its own related filings on April 17, 2026. The SEC issued a five-year conditional innovation exemption on September 17, 2026, specifically for tokenized NMS stocks, while the CFTC clarified through Staff Letter 25-39 and an updated FAQ on September 24, 2026, that tokenized collateral may be used for derivatives margin. The tokenized asset market tracked by rwa.xyz stood at approximately $38.6 billion as of late September 2026, up from $2 billion in 2022, with tokenized Treasuries accounting for $14.7 billion to $15.65 billion of that total, led by BlackRock's BUIDL at $2.70 billion, Circle's USYC at $2.60 billion, and Ondo's USDY at $2.23 billion. A June 1, 2026, Citi report estimates a base case of $5.5 trillion in tokenized assets and $1.9 trillion in stablecoins by 2030, though it warns of a messy period in which tokenized and legacy systems operate side by side.

Matt Hougan, chief investment officer of crypto asset manager Bitwise, wrote in a September 30 blog post about why crypto assets rose despite the stalling of the Clarity Act. On September 15, the U.S. Senate voted 49 to 50 against ending debate on a motion to proceed with the bill, after which Bitcoin rose 8% and Ethereum gained 7%. The bill's final wording would have barred exchanges and others from paying stablecoin interest to customers and imposed fines of up to 5 million dollars per violation, but with the bill effectively dead, the GENIUS Act, which regulates only issuers, remains in place, allowing Coinbase and others to keep offering rewards. Meanwhile, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission issued a five-year "innovation exemption" on September 17 permitting on-chain trading of tokenized U.S. equities, and on September 25 it stated that for a functioning network, merely announcing a token buyback does not by itself establish that the token is a security. Hougan acknowledged the risk that a change of administration in January 2029 could lead the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to alter course, but concluded that crypto "got better rules faster at the expense of long-term certainty."

U.S. spot Ethereum ETFs recorded $17.1 million in net inflows on September 28, extending their consecutive inflow streak to seven trading sessions, with cumulative net inflows reaching about $835 million and the $850 million mark now in sight. The seven-session streak includes a $143.7 million inflow on September 18, followed by inflows of $270 million, $162.2 million, $104.5 million, $66.1 million, $87 million and $1.7 million in subsequent sessions, with BlackRock's ETHA accounting for $15.4 million and 21Shares' TETH for $1.7 million most recently. On September 29, Ethereum rose about 1% to $2,745 as traders increased exposure across perpetual futures markets, with open interest up roughly $700 million and total liquidations reaching $83.17 million, of which longs accounted for $38.16 million and shorts $45.01 million. Ethereum's next major upgrade, Glamsterdam, is scheduled to go live on the Sepolia testnet on October 6, with mainnet launch targeted for the fourth quarter of 2026 though no firm date has been set, and it includes enshrined proposer-builder separation, block-level access lists and a revamp of gas fee pricing. The on-chain economy is also expanding: Ethereum DeFi total value locked rose from about $42 billion on August 19 to $53.65 billion on September 28, an increase of roughly $11.5 billion, or 27.4%, in about six weeks; the circulating value of tokenized equities reached about $3.14 billion, up about 947% from roughly $300 million in September 2025; and the circulating value of tokenized U.S. Treasuries reached $14.72 billion, doubling over the past year.

Ripple President Monica Long said tokenization is headed for public blockchains, speaking at Korea Blockchain Week in Seoul. Hussein Zangana (Vet) in a recent X post shared highlights from the Korea Blockchain Week happening in Seoul from September 29 to October 1, 2026. The Korea Blockchain Week is Asia's largest blockchain event, and it kicked off on Tuesday, bringing together industry and technology professionals. The remarks put the question of what comes next for XRP in focus as the industry gathers.

South Korea's Kakaopay Securities announced on September 29 partnerships with Ondo Finance and Dinari. The company aims to build an overseas distribution framework for Korean-listed stocks and is considering issuing tokens backed by equities. It signed memoranda of understanding with Ondo on September 28 and with Dinari on September 29. Under the Ondo partnership, the two sides will jointly study a mechanism covering the sourcing and custody of Korean stocks through to overseas distribution, with Kakaopay Securities operating an omnibus account for foreign investors to source and hold the Korean shares that back the tokens. Under the Dinari partnership, the company will advance a proof of concept for a one-to-one link between underlying shares and tokens, drawing on Dinari's tokenized securities product dShares. Dinari operates infrastructure for tokenizing US stocks and exchange-traded funds, handling 724 securities as of the announcement and offering them to eligible investors in more than 85 countries and regions, including the United States. Through cooperation with both firms, Kakaopay Securities aims to build a new route for overseas individual investors to access Korean stocks.

Brazilian financial-market infrastructure provider CSD BR has moved to integrate the XRP Ledger into its regulated securities infrastructure, according to a local media outlet. The move would connect the XRP Ledger to Brazil's securities market, which the report values at $4 trillion. CSD BR is the country's financial-market infrastructure provider, and the integration targets its regulated securities operations. The report did not specify a timeline or the terms of the integration.

Avalanche's AVAX token climbed to a six-month high Tuesday after Goldman Sachs made its roughly $100 billion Treasury money-market fund available through Lynq, an institutional settlement network built on Avalanche blockchain technology. AVAX rose as high as $11.99 and was recently up about 10% for the day, following Monday's announcement that Goldman Sachs' Financial Square Treasury Instruments Fund, known as FTIXX, can now be accessed by qualified U.S. participants through Lynq. The Goldman fund itself has not been tokenized; instead, tZERO Securities, an SEC-registered broker-dealer, is facilitating access to the existing fund through Lynq, which tZERO described as roughly a $100 billion fund. Lynq was developed by Arca Labs, Tassat and tZERO as a real-time settlement network for institutional digital assets, launching in July 2025 with its first transaction recording client assets on the Avalanche blockchain, while Avalanche provides the open-source Layer 1 infrastructure and U.S. Bank serves as Lynq's qualified cash custodian. Lynq said in February that assets on the platform had surpassed $89 million and that it had partnerships with more than 30 institutional digital-asset firms, with existing partners and participants including Galaxy, Crypto.com, FalconX, Fireblocks, Wintermute and B2C2.

Morgan Stanley has launched a Digital Asset Lab to explore stablecoins and tokenization, continuing the Wall Street banking giant's expansion into the blockchain ecosystem. The move extends a push that the firm may not be backing down from anytime soon. The lab will focus on digital asset research areas including stablecoins and tokenization. No financial terms or launch timeline were disclosed.

Amaze Holdings has signed a binding letter of intent to acquire BullionFX's assets, including its Alchemy platform, in an all-stock deal valued at approximately $155 million. BullionFX develops gold-backed digital-asset and decentralized finance infrastructure, and its Alchemy platform supports gold-linked payments, lending, borrowing, yield products, cross-chain interoperability and an Ethereum-based Layer 2 network, with its $GOLD token designed to be backed one-to-one by vaulted physical gold held by independent custodians. The deal marks BullionFX's second buyout attempt this year, after Functional Brands planned to buy the same assets for around $140 million in May 2026, a deal that fell through in late June. Amaze, whose market cap was a little over $5 million as of Monday's close, would issue a significant amount of common stock to BullionFX, potentially diluting existing shareholders, and after closing plans to prioritize Alchemy's self-custody retail wallet and proprietary yield engines while pursuing a listed Stable Asset Treasury vehicle for gold and U.S. dollars subject to regulatory approvals. Interim CEO Joel Krutz said crypto's renewed momentum and gold's enduring role as a store of value have opened a rare window for infrastructure built on both, adding that bringing Alchemy into the public markets can create meaningful long-term value for stockholders. The LOI contains certain binding provisions, but definitive agreements still need to be negotiated, with final terms subject to due diligence, regulatory review, approval by both boards and other customary closing conditions.

The Clearing House, the bank-owned US payments system operator, has selected Quant to supply software for its planned tokenized bank deposit network. The September 24 agreement gives Quant a role in moving digital representations of bank deposits between institutions, but it does not specify whether those transactions require Quant's QNT utility coin. The Clearing House announced its On-Chain Money Initiative in June as a way for banks to clear and settle tokenized commercial bank deposits between institutions, and Quant's technology is also intended to connect the network to RTP and CHIPS, The Clearing House's two existing payment systems. The network is expected to be ready for participating institutions in the first half of 2027, but no timeline has been published for transaction volumes or service revenue. Meanwhile, QNT hit an intraday high of 373 dollars on September 27 before falling to an intraday low of 195.35 dollars on September 28, then rebounding. Neither The Clearing House nor Quant has said that participating banks will need to buy or hold QNT, pay network fees in QNT, use it as a settlement asset, or burn any coins.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, has updated its policy on how securities laws are enforced against certain crypto assets and certain related transactions, following in the footsteps of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission, or CFTC, which issued similar guidance last week. In an update to a set of frequently asked questions first published in March, the SEC said its latest interpretation of crypto regulations is not legally binding, does not alter or amend existing law, and creates no new obligations for any person. The guidance applies to how the SEC views digital asset products that fall under the Howey test for investment contracts. Under it, token issuers may run buyback programs for customers if the crypto system is genuinely functional and has no central party, which would not be treated as a representation or promise to undertake significant managerial efforts and would not count as an investment contract under federal securities law. Staking receipt tokens, meanwhile, will not always be classified as securities. The SEC's update came after the Senate failed to pass a crypto market structure bill, with SEC Chairman Paul Atkins and CFTC Chairman Michael Selig issuing statements signalling that the two agencies will handle crypto oversight without waiting for legislation passed by Congress. Meanwhile, SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce, known as Crypto Mom, announced on Friday that she plans to resign on October 2 after eight years in the role, and is expected to join the law school of Regent University in Virginia as an associate professor in November. That will leave the agency under the leadership of Atkins and Commissioner Mark Uyeda, both Republican commissioners. As of Monday, President Donald Trump had not yet announced a successor to Peirce or filled the two other Democratic seats vacant at the SEC.

Crypto exchange giant Bybit announced on the 28th a strategic partnership with asset management giant Franklin Templeton, which has 1.7 trillion dollars in assets under management. As the first phase of the partnership, eligible institutional investors can now use shares of a tokenized money market fund issued through Franklin Templeton's proprietary blockchain-integrated record-keeping system, the Benji Technology Platform, as off-exchange collateral for trading on Bybit. By depositing the fund shares as collateral through the institutional custody platform ByCustody, investors can access USDT or USDC trading credit lines while keeping the underlying assets held off-exchange, supporting trading activity while maintaining yield on their holdings. The partnership also extends to wallet-based individual investors, with plans to offer tokenized asset management products that provide access to Franklin Templeton's investment strategies on the Bybit exchange and the Mantle blockchain, as well as educational content to help users understand goal-based investing and diversification. Yooyi Wang, Bybit's global head of the real-world assets and traditional finance division, said that as institutional adoption of digital assets accelerates, investors are increasingly demanding the same level of flexibility, capital efficiency, and risk management standards from the crypto industry as they get from traditional markets.

TruGolf Holdings, Inc. provided a summary of recent corporate developments as it advances its previously announced acquisition of Polymath Research Inc., a developer of institutional-grade infrastructure for regulated digital securities and tokenized real-world assets. Brenner Adams, TruGolf's Chairman, was appointed Interim Chief Executive Officer after founder Chris Jones resigned, and Jay Heller, Chief Executive Officer of K Lab and former Vice President and Head of Capital Markets and IPO Execution at Nasdaq, joined the Board of Directors. TruGolf Links and Polymath announced plans to develop an equipment leasing program funded through tokenized securities and fractional franchise ownership opportunities for qualified franchisees, targeted for the first quarter of 2027. Polymath partnered with High Ridge Trust, a regulated U.S. trust company specializing in institutional digital assets, and joined the STO Foundation, which becomes the Tokenized Asset Foundation on October 1, as Founding Partners. TruGolf also announced a 1-for-10 reverse stock split of its Class A common stock, effective September 29, 2026, with the Class A common stock trading under the new CUSIP number 243733607.

The Eurosystem, made up of the European Central Bank and the national central banks of the euro area, began operating Pontes on September 21, 2026, a mechanism for settling large-value transactions in tokenized assets on distributed ledgers using central bank money. From the first day, 13 financial institutions including Deutsche Bank, Santander, Société Générale and the European Investment Bank, along with four companies that operate distributed ledgers such as Clearstream, are able to use it. Pontes connects T2, the euro area's real-time funds transfer system, with private distributed ledgers, and settles transactions in T2 central bank money through cash tokens transferred on the ledger. Two settlement methods are available and can be chosen for each transaction: one completed entirely on the ledger, and one that moves funds directly in T2. The ECB positions this as an initial version, and plans to extend settlement hours in 2027 to match T2 at 22.5 hours a day, five days a week, then in 2028 to advance next-day carryover of cash tokens and support for other currencies before consolidating on the cash token method, with 24-hour, 365-day operation planned for mid-2028. Behind this is the rapid growth of tokenized assets. According to figures presented by ECB Executive Board member Piero Cipollone in an August speech, tokenized assets on public blockchains grew about fivefold in the year to the end of March 2026, reaching 23.3 billion euros.

The Division of Corporation Finance of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission published an FAQ on September 25 regarding the application of federal securities laws to crypto assets, setting out staff views on how token buybacks, network upgrades, marketing and other factors affect the investment contract analysis. According to the FAQ, announcing a buyback program for a non-security crypto asset on an already functional crypto asset system would not by itself constitute a statement or promise of "essential managerial efforts" under the Howey test used to determine whether an investment contract exists, while it could constitute such a statement or promise if, on a system that is not yet functional, an issuer presents buybacks as generating yield or returns for token holders. As for development after a network becomes operational, the FAQ states that if the system is already functional, ensuring and maintaining security, improving and enhancing functionality, and promoting network effects do not constitute "essential managerial efforts"; merely promoting current uses and functions would not normally constitute a statement that essential managerial efforts are being undertaken, and the same thinking applies where future uses and functions are presented as vague future goals without promoting the possibility of profit. This FAQ is based on interpretive guidance on the application of federal securities laws to crypto assets that the SEC published in March, but it represents the views of the SEC's Division of Corporation Finance staff, is not a rule or official statement of the SEC, and has no legal force. Meanwhile, staff of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission also updated a crypto-related FAQ on the 24th, setting out views on investing customer funds in tokenized versions of permitted investment assets and on record-keeping using blockchain.

Quant's QNT token surged about 58% by 11:35 a.m. ET Sunday as investors continued to react to the company's selection by The Clearing House to provide technology for a new blockchain-based banking payments network. The Clearing House said Thursday that it selected Quant to power key parts of its On-Chain Money Initiative, which is being developed to let banks clear and settle transactions involving tokenized deposits, with the network expected to become available to participating financial institutions in the first half of 2027. QNT traded around $160 Sunday after climbing above $190 earlier in the session, though the price has been highly volatile since the partnership was announced. The Clearing House operates payment networks that clear and settle more than $2 trillion each day, and its On-Chain Money Initiative is backed by financial institutions including Bank of America, BMO, U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo, while The Clearing House itself is owned by 25 large U.S. financial institutions. Quant will provide technology handling interoperability, transaction management and orchestration, connecting the blockchain-based network with traditional payment systems including The Clearing House's RTP real-time payments network and CHIPS, which handles large-value payments. The announcement did not disclose the financial terms of the agreement or specify how adoption of the new network would translate into demand for the QNT token.

On September 17, the SEC approved a temporary framework for trading tokenized US equities, called the Innovation Exemption, potentially giving Coinbase Global a new avenue to expand its Everything Exchange beyond crypto. Baird reiterated a Neutral rating on Coinbase with a $130 price target, saying the change could let the company offer tokenized stocks and bring its asset mix closer to Robinhood Markets. Coinbase is not starting from scratch: in June it announced plans to introduce tokenized US stocks for eligible non-US customers, and the product went live on Base in August, initially covering mega-cap names including Apple, Nvidia, and Alphabet, with tokens issued by Coinbase and backed 1:1 by the underlying assets. The SEC's permission is temporary, lasting five years, and conditional on tokenized stocks providing the same rights and privileges as the underlying shares, so Coinbase must satisfy those conditions, adapt its international tokenization infrastructure to the US market, and demonstrate enough domestic demand to meaningfully boost results. In Q2, 88% of Coinbase's net revenue came from non-Bitcoin spot trading, while prediction market contracts and revenue increased 106% quarter over quarter; hedge funds holding the stock fell to 62 in Q2 from 65 in Q1, though Cathie Wood's ARK Investment Management raised its stake 6% to about 2.5 million shares and Southpoint Capital Advisors lifted its position 50% to nearly 1 million shares, while short interest stood at 12.5% of the float as of August 31.

The CFTC's Division of Market Participants, Division of Market Oversight, and Division of Clearing and Risk announced on the 24th that they have updated their FAQ for registrants on cryptocurrency and blockchain technology, adding new content that permits the investment of customer funds in tokenized forms of investments permitted under the rules and the use of blockchain for recordkeeping. In the newly added Question 12, holding permitted investments under Commission rules in tokenized form is conditioned on the underlying asset meeting the requirements of those rules and granting holders legal and economic rights equivalent to those of the traditional form. Questions 13 through 15 newly set out ways to satisfy recordkeeping obligations using blockchain technology. These FAQs were first published on March 20 and are intended to supplement CFTC Staff Letters 25-39 and 26-05, which provided guidance on accepting cryptocurrency as margin. Michael Selig, the division's chairman, expressed support for the staff's FAQ update as part of efforts to provide regulatory clarity for the industry.

Seven of the UK's largest banks, including Lloyds, NatWest, Barclays and HSBC, completed the world's first interbank blockchain transactions using tokenized deposits on September 24, 2026, clearing and settling remortgage completions and marketplace peer-to-peer payments on Quant's Overledger platform with support from EY and Linklaters. The program, formally the Grantham Business Tokenized Deposits initiative, connected the seven banks to the Bank of England's RTGS, Faster Payments and Open Banking infrastructure, with the deposits functioning as commercial bank money rather than a separate asset class. The same Quant platform was selected by The Clearing House for its US On-Chain Money Initiative, which will bring tokenized deposits to 25 of the largest US banks, including Bank of America, Citi, JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, HSBC, BNY Mellon, PNC, US Bank and Truist, targeting an H1 2027 launch aligned with the GENIUS Act enforcement cliff of January 18, 2027. Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey said in a July 2025 interview with The Times that he could not understand the need for stablecoins and believed tokenisation offered more value, a stance favoring tokenized deposits over stablecoins for wholesale settlement. Three digital bonds are planned for early 2027 settled with tokenized deposits, a dedicated company is being formed to govern the program, and a governance framework is being established to manage the transition from pilot to production.

Krungthai Bank has launched PromptFund, a real-time fund service that applies blockchain technology to real-time fund trading. Customers can buy and sell funds with the bank instantly at any time, every day, including holidays. Sell and receive money immediately; buy and receive fund units immediately. This helps reduce the time constraints of the past, when customers had to wait overnight or several days. Customers can also see real-time trading prices to make decisions before placing orders. Mr. Payong Srivanich, President and Chief Executive Officer of Krungthai Bank, said the launch of PromptFund is a major transformation of Thai investing, building on the Digital Bond, Gold Wallet, and Global Savings services under the concept "60 Years Krungthai, Every Step for a Million Futures." Ms. Pornanong Budsaratragoon, Secretary-General of the SEC, said the SEC supports applying Distributed Ledger Technology and Blockchain in the capital market alongside Use Case testing under the Regulatory Sandbox, and is pushing for amendments to the Securities and Exchange Act, which the House of Representatives already approved in principle in the second quarter, to support the issuance of securities by electronic means. The launch of PromptFund is another step in applying the Tokenization policy to real financial services, in line with the SEC's efforts to drive the Digital Securities Ecosystem, or DSE.

WisdomTree announced a landmark partnership with crypto infrastructure provider MoonPay on September 17, embedding its tokenized money market fund WTGXX directly into MoonPay's consumer app and stablecoin reserve framework. The deal gives WisdomTree access to a network spanning over 35 million accounts and 1,700 integration partners, a distribution footprint its proprietary broker-dealer, WisdomTree Securities, could not replicate independently, according to Chief Executive Officer Jonathan Steinberg. The digital push builds on a core business that closed the second quarter of 2026 with a record $162.9 billion in assets under management, its sixth consecutive quarterly record and up from $126.1 billion a year earlier, while operating revenue rose 11.1% sequentially to $177.2 million and operating margin expanded 780 basis points year-over-year to 40.5%. Those gains were partly obscured by balance sheet cleanup, as the firm recognized $68.9 million in losses on convertible note repurchases in the first half of 2026, driving a $23.1 million net loss in the first quarter and lifting the six-month effective tax rate to 51.9%. Short interest stands at 17.34% of float and the stock trades at a forward P/E of 17.30 as of September 24, leaving what the article describes as a balanced risk-reward profile with tokenization upside largely unvalued.

Coinbase's tokenized US equities have crossed $1 billion in decentralized exchange volume on its Base network in roughly one month, a milestone the Base team announced on X on September 19, 2026, though the figure is vendor-sourced data from Base itself and the volume is strictly for non-US persons. The activity validates the B20 standard, a native ERC-20-compatible format launched on August 24, 2026 and built on Rust precompiles to handle compliance policies and pausable functions; tokenized stock spot DEX volume on Base has surged approximately 830% month-over-month, with Aerodrome, the Base-native DEX, accounting for roughly 85% of that activity, or about $852.7 million. Coinbase's model relies on direct 1:1 share ownership through Alpaca Securities as a regulated broker-custodian under the Abu Dhabi Global Market framework, giving token holders actual shareholder rights including dividends and voting, subject to eligibility, and it launched with DeFi integrations from day one including Aave, Morpho, Euler, 0x, 1inch, CoW Swap, and Wasabi. The SEC issued an Innovation Exemption, Press Release 2026-90, on September 17, 2026, a five-year conditional relief for tokenized NMS stocks that unlocks the US market provided tokenized stocks offer the same rights as the underlying securities and trading venues operate under permissioned access with OFAC compliance, and Coinbase Institutional said the framework to bring the same regulated onchain market infrastructure onshore just got clearer. Coinbase is not first to tokenize equities: Kraken's xStocks boasts $25 billion in cumulative volume, largely centralized-exchange-matched rather than on-chain DEX volume, Ondo Global Markets holds a $638 million total value locked and roughly a 58% share of the issuer market, and Binance's bStocks has reached $610 million in assets under management in just two months, while the total tokenized public equities market now sits at approximately $2.48 billion. Chainlink Data Feeds provide the pricing backbone with 24/5 continuous feeds, a 0.5% deviation threshold and 24-hour heartbeats reporting Total Return Values that account for dividends, even as Nasdaq, NYSE, and Cboe push back against tokenized equities over liquidity fragmentation and degraded price discovery during the 16 hours of overnight trading that on-chain markets enable, and SIFMA pushes for formal SEC rulemaking rather than exemptions.

Securitize Corp. has sealed a deal with ARK Invest to tokenize the ARK Venture Fund, its first tokenization contract since the Securities and Exchange Commission issued what it called the Innovation Exemption allowing tokenized representation of traditional securities. The ARK Venture Fund, an actively managed closed-end interval fund holding private and public companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic, Stripe and Databricks, will become available on Ethereum, with Securitize providing the infrastructure for onchain issuance and the investor experience. ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood said tokenizing the fund puts the firm's conviction in the evolution of capital markets into practice and called the partnership a natural extension of its mission to democratize access to disruptive innovation. Following the SEC's rules issuance on tokenized securities, Cantor Fitzgerald initiated coverage with a buy recommendation and a $21.20 price target, while Rosenblatt raised its price target to $13 from $11, citing the Innovation Exemption as a significant catalyst. Securitize manages around $5 billion of tokenized assets under management across 23 public blockchains, and the article notes that traditional financial assets total $319 trillion worldwide with only $39 billion, or 0.01 percent, currently on-chain.

Bitkub has partnered with Kathi Zero to establish Carbon Credit Tokenization, aiming to drive carbon credits into the world of Green Economy assets. This collaboration brings carbon credits into digital token form through the Bitkub platform together with Kathi Zero. Reports say the initiative aims to open the way for carbon credits to enter the green asset market. This news report was produced by the Thai eFinance news agency, with Prakai Dao Bangsanthia as editor of digital asset news.

Korn Chatikavanij supports amending capital market and digital asset laws to unlock the ability for Thai stocks to be listed on blockchain and to open the door to Stablecoin for payments. The approach aims to drive the official use of digital assets in Thailand's capital market, both through tokenizing securities on blockchain and using Stablecoin as a payment channel. Reports say this push involves the issues of Blockchain, Stablecoin, Thai Baht Stablecoin, Tokenization, and USDT, as well as the role of the Bank of Thailand and Thai financial innovation. The news was reported by the Thai news agency Efinancethai.

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced on September 24 that it had updated its frequently asked questions (FAQ) guidance for registered firms on the use of crypto assets and blockchain technology. The update adds four new items and revises one item in the FAQ published on March 20. The new items state that futures commission merchants (FCMs) and derivatives clearing organizations (DCOs) may use tokenized versions of already-permitted investments to manage customer funds, provided the tokens give holders legal and economic rights equivalent to those of the conventional assets. The update also permits firms to satisfy recordkeeping obligations with records kept on a blockchain, without requiring off-chain copies, though in the case of public chains it requires arrangements to submit records even during outages. CFTC Chairman Michael Selig commented, "I am pleased that we were able to deliver an update consistent with efforts to bring regulatory clarity to the crypto industry." The update came just after the Senate on September 15 rejected, by a vote of 49 to 50, a procedural motion to begin consideration of the crypto market structure bill known as the CLARITY Act. Selig said the following day, September 16, that he would develop rules under existing authority, and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Paul Atkins also said in July that the agency would craft its own rules if the bill stalled.

Fathom Holdings and Neighborhood Intelligence have agreed to explore an alternative transaction that would replace their previously announced merger agreement. Under the proposed structure, Neighborhood would contribute its roughly 38.8% direct and indirect stake in tZERO, Medici-related fund assets, and its GrainChain investment to Fathom, with the contributed digital assets valued at no less than $130M. In exchange, NXH would receive newly issued Fathom shares and is expected to retain a controlling interest in Fathom after the transaction. The companies said the proposed structure would allow Fathom to pursue additional acquisitions while expanding its brokerage and title operations, and they also plan to explore blockchain and tokenization applications in real estate, including potential commercial real estate and single-family rental assets. The previously announced deal, under which Fathom shareholders would have received 0.2236 NXH shares per Fathom share, is expected to be terminated. FTHM shares rose 27% post-market.

Ondo Finance is now packaging three investment portfolios designed by BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, as blockchain-based tokens. The move places a subset of BlackRock-designed portfolios onto blockchain rails through tokenization, with Ondo Finance handling the packaging rather than BlackRock itself. BlackRock is described as the world's largest asset manager, underscoring the scale of the firm whose strategies are being brought on-chain. Neither the specific portfolios involved nor the value of the tokenized offerings was disclosed.