Real-World Asset Tokenization

Startale Japan has begun offering digital retail bonds with a 5% annual interest rate. Interest payments and redemption will use JPYSC, a trust-type yen-denominated stablecoin. The bonds are managed on infrastructure built with Hyperledger Fabric, while JPYSC is issued on Ethereum, meaning the bonds and the funds for interest payments do not sit on the same blockchain. The company sees the connection costs of horizontal specialization as a challenge, and has set out a vertical integration strategy that provides everything from base layers such as Strium, a blockchain dedicated to on-chain finance, through to JPYSC and wallets. This initiative is positioned as the current form of efforts to promote the adoption of JPYSC.

Startale Japan, the Japanese arm of the Startale Group, and Hakuhodo Key3 announced on October 5 that they will begin soliciting subscriptions on October 6 for the "Stablecoin Adoption Bond," a digital corporate bond that pays interest and redeems in JPYSC, Japan's first trust-type yen-denominated stablecoin. The issuer is Startale Japan, the offering amount is 99.9 million yen, and the interest rate is 5% per year, with the bonds offered to individual investors. On October 7, the Financial Services Agency updated its caution page on transactions with unregistered operators, adding the operators of IZAKA-YA and Bybit and others to its warning list of crypto-asset exchange operators. On October 6, nine companies including Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation announced that they had completed the first two phases of Project Trinity, a proof-of-concept experiment to settle digital securities with stablecoins, verifying a delivery-versus-payment method that transfers securities and payment simultaneously. On October 8, the Ministry of Finance held the first meeting of its Study Group on On-Chain Government Bonds, which discusses the tokenization of government bonds, as scheduled, and published explanatory materials organizing on-chain government bond initiatives into three categories. In an October 5 speech, Michael S. Selig, chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, explained the joint interpretation of crypto assets compiled by the CFTC and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, expressing the view that Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP and others are "in principle not securities."

KDX ST Partners announced survey results on real estate digital securities, known as real estate ST, in a press release on the 9th. The survey covered 7,002 individual full members of the KDX ST app, compiling data as of Securities Investment Day on October 4, of whom 2,391 held real estate ST. Among holders, experience with physical stocks was heavily weighted toward long-term investors, with 573 having 10 to 20 years of experience, 511 having 20 to 30 years, and 649 having more than 30 years, while investment experience with real estate ST was most commonly less than one year, at 919 people, suggesting that those with long-term investment experience have recently begun adding it as one of their diversification targets. By income source, real estate ST holders stood at 19.7 percent for pension income, far above the 8.8 percent for full members overall, while interest and dividend income was 10.3 percent versus 5.5 percent and real estate income was 9.0 percent versus 4.0 percent, each roughly double the overall ratio. The most common investment objective was a focus on yield and capital gains, at 57.3 percent, and President Akihiro Nakao said real estate ST is beginning to be accepted as a new option for asset diversification.

On-chain trading volume for tokenized stocks rose 16.4% month-on-month in September to 15.6 billion dollars, a record high. CoinDesk reported the figure in a report published on October 6, noting it surpassed the previous peak of 15.4 billion dollars set in July. US brokerage app Robinhood took the top spot by trading volume, with its volume jumping 407% month-on-month to 6.57 billion dollars, lifting its market share from 9.7% in August to 42.0%. bStocks, which had led the previous month, saw its September volume fall 45.5% month-on-month to 5.42 billion dollars, giving it a 34.7% share and dropping it to second place behind Robinhood. Beyond trading, the market itself expanded, with the total market capitalization of tokenized stocks rising 13.7% month-on-month to a record 4.87 billion dollars.

Stellar has taken first place globally in daily institutional capital inflows into tokenized investment funds, overtaking Ethereum. According to data from RWA.xyz and Token Terminal, net inflows into Stellar-based investment funds totaled $17.1 million over the past 24 hours, compared with $16.0 million for Ethereum and $5.9 million for Polygon. The shift comes amid a $4 billion surge in the real-world asset sector.

JPMorgan Chase has launched JLTXX, a tokenized US money market fund on Ethereum aimed at institutional clients, as the bank moves to build reserve infrastructure for future US stablecoin issuers. The bank is working alongside BlackRock to provide tokenized money market products that could support stablecoin reserves, with both groups building fund infrastructure aligned with new GENIUS Act rules that require regulated backing for US stablecoin issuers by 2027. JPMorgan, a US bank and financial holding company with a reported market value of about $876.1b, already runs a global payments, markets, and custody network that gives it a ready-made base to plug tokenized money market funds into real world transaction flows. The push adds to an already heavy technology and AI expense line, while players like Citigroup and Bank of America are also pursuing digital asset infrastructure.

Securitize has begun offering tokenized US stocks with dividends and voting rights on Solana, and its share price rose more than 11% to trade around $12.70, giving it a market capitalization of about $2 billion. Through the new service, Securitize Stocks, eligible investors can invest in shares of major US listed companies via the blockchain, with the initial lineup including Apple, Nvidia, Microsoft, Tesla and eight other companies. The tokenized securities are backed one-to-one by physical shares, and the right to receive dividends is preserved, along with voting rights where the underlying shares carry them. For now, trading takes place through Securitize's registered broker-dealer platform with extended trading hours, settlement uses USD Coin on Solana, and Jump Trading provides liquidity through market making. Meanwhile, SOL posted the biggest decline among the top ten cryptocurrencies by market capitalization in Thursday trading, falling about 4.39% to $110.

Gulf Labs has announced a strategic partnership with Injective, a blockchain developed specifically to support financial services, and has officially begun operating as an Institutional Validator on the Injective network to lay the infrastructure for an onchain financial system for institutional players in Thailand and to extend growth opportunities across Asia. The two parties will jointly study development in several areas, including tokenization, stablecoins, expanding channels to reach users at the national level, education and events, as well as data centers and infrastructure for AI. Gulf Labs will connect Injective with the business ecosystem of the GULF group, which covers energy, telecommunications, banking, digital assets, cloud services, and data centers. The GULF group currently has a market capitalization of approximately 27 billion US dollars, an energy business portfolio with total installed generating capacity of more than 24 gigawatts, and a telecommunications business serving more than 46 million mobile subscribers. This partnership builds on Injective's Asia strategy after its operations in South Korea and Japan. In South Korea, POSCO International and LG CNS selected Injective for a tokenization pilot project for trade receivables, while Four Pillars launched an Institutional Validator on Injective. In Thailand, there is M-INJ, an Injective fund management strategy by Merkle Capital that invests in INJ and stablecoins such as USDC. Gulf Labs may also partner with Binance TH through Binance TH Academy to organize roadshows, university network programs, and campaigns within the digital asset trading platform. The details and direction of the partnership are still to be determined.

Nasdaq CEO Adena Friedman said tokenization could unlock tens of billions of dollars in capital tied up in assets used as collateral across the global financial system. Speaking to CNBC at the TOKEN2049 conference in Singapore, Friedman said tokenizing treasuries, equities, money market funds and the flow of money itself would make collateral far more fluid. She pointed to the passage of the Genius Act in the U.S., which established a regulatory framework for stablecoins, as one sign of growing institutional interest over the past year, and said that interest is converging with retail demand for round-the-clock trading, an ecosystem she described as roughly 10 years ahead. Friedman cautioned that moving to a fully 24/7 market would be a major undertaking, with the exchange infrastructure being the easiest part, and said Nasdaq has launched digital agents within its risk management platform that initially offer recommendations and could eventually take more direct action for banks. Kraken co-CEO Arjun Sethi also told CNBC that non-U.S. companies are showing interest in tokenization and access to American capital markets, citing a company generating roughly $25M in revenue that was exploring ways to access capital markets.

The Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, has opened the way for Crypto ETFs to emerge in Thailand, marking a significant development for the Thai digital asset market as featured in the roundup of top crypto news for October 9, 2026. The news also reported developments related to Bitcoin ETFs as well as Thai Crypto ETFs, along with other notable topics including Samsung Wallet, Securitize, USDC, Bitcoin news, and tokenized stocks. This news roundup was compiled by Chatchaya Angkulee, digital asset news editor at eFinanceThai news agency.

Crypto asset exchange Coincheck announced on October 8 that it has begun handling NOT A HOTEL COIN (NAC), issued by NOT A HOTEL DAO. In addition to trading at its sales desk, the coin will also be available through Coincheck Tsumitate. NAC is a crypto asset issued by NOT A HOTEL DAO, a subsidiary of NOTA, the company that develops accommodation facilities. Holders can lend out their NAC for a set period to receive accommodation rights and other benefits, and can also use it to pay for lodging. An IEO was conducted through GMO Coin in December 2024, raising the target of 2 billion yen, and trading on GMO Coin began on the 13th of that month. With Coincheck now handling the coin, the number of places to buy it in Japan has expanded. While some domestic IEO tokens trade below their public offering price, NAC was still around 1,060 yen as of October 6, roughly one year and ten months after listing, above its IEO sale price of 1,000 yen. Coincheck and NOT A HOTEL DAO announced in December 2025 that they would consider new handling of NAC and strengthen collaboration in the RWA area, and the start of handling is part of these efforts.

Intercontinental Exchange and crypto platform OKX have filed with the SEC to launch a joint venture called OKXICE, seeking approval for 24/7 trading of tokenized U.S. stocks in which each token represents underlying traditional equity ownership. The filing relies on a new SEC exemption program that would allow blockchain-based equity trading outside standard market hours. The OKXICE plan plugs tokenized equities directly into Intercontinental Exchange's established capital markets toolkit rather than standing as a standalone crypto experiment, extending its existing trading and data rails into tokenized equities in the same way management has routed activity through electronic platforms such as MarketAxess and fixed income. The venture adds another project that must earn its keep against rivals including CME Group and Nasdaq, which are also investing in digital-asset infrastructure, and comes as analysts have flagged higher spending on data centers and product development as a risk if usage does not keep pace.

Tether, a leading stablecoin issuer, announced on October 7 that it has signed a memorandum of understanding with Kazakhstan's National Bank and the Alatau city authorities. The three parties will jointly study the concept and a pilot rollout for a stablecoin pegged to the national currency, the tenge. The cooperation covers not only stablecoins but also tokenization, the issuance and management of local assets on a blockchain, with the three parties examining overseas issuance models to pin down concrete use cases. For asset tokenization, they will select the assets to be covered and run a pilot project in Alatau, a city aiming to become a digital finance hub under a special legal regime, with the use of Tether's Hadron by Tether platform under consideration. Beyond its US dollar-pegged token, Tether has been expanding its involvement in the digitalization of national currencies, including announcing plans on May 25 to issue GEL₮, a stablecoin pegged to Georgia's lari, with backing from the Georgian government.

Ripple has released version 1.43 of its institutional platform, Ripple Custody, adding support for the Canton Network. The release allows banks and funds to custody the native Canton Coin (CC) and CIP-56 tokens within a single secure environment, marking a major strategic move by the company to dominate the Wall Street tokenization market.

The SEC has approved Apple for tokenization on a NYSE-affiliated crypto-native platform, allowing blockchain-based equity tokens that mirror the underlying US-listed shares to trade around the clock outside traditional market hours. The approval makes Apple one of the major US stocks cleared for tokenized trading, with the NYSE parent receiving the green light to issue the digital tokens. Apple, a US tech giant with a market cap of about $4.9 trillion, earns its weight through a hardware ecosystem spanning iPhones, Macs, iPads, wearables and accessories tied to integrated software and services. The new structure creates a parallel venue for Apple exposure, one that could sharpen price reactions to any missteps in AI-centric devices or regulatory questions around Apple Intelligence or the App Store. Simply Wall St's analysis points toward a $328 fair value for Apple.

Ondo Finance announced on October 5 a new service, Ondo Private Markets, that offers investment opportunities in private companies on the blockchain. It tokenizes financial products linked to the equity value of private companies so that investors can buy and sell them, with pre-IPO AI companies as the first target. The company name has not been disclosed, and trading on the secondary market is scheduled to begin in the week of October 5, with round-the-clock trading available to investors outside the United States who meet eligibility requirements. Behind such efforts is the growth of the market for buying and selling shares of pre-IPO companies. According to Nasdaq Private Market, the transaction value handled by its transfer and settlement division rose from 372 million dollars in 2024 to 673 million dollars in 2025, and the number of companies with settlement records increased from 12 to 31. In the UK, the London Stock Exchange has been building out a private share market, and on July 22 Moneybox announced a transaction worth 45 million pounds. In Japan, HiJoJo Partners announced on January 23 an additional investment in Nasdaq Private Market, and on August 25 completed registration for its private securities brokerage business.

Universal Safety Products said on Oct. 7, 2026 that it will change its name to DeFi Capital Markets effective Oct. 19, 2026, with its common stock expected to begin trading on the NYSE American under the ticker symbol "DCM" on that date. The company said the new name reflects where its business is headed: tokenization, digital assets, quantitative trading and blockchain-based financial markets. As those new initiatives gain traction, Universal Safety Products anticipates discontinuing its legacy business of designing and marketing a variety of safety products. Through its wholly owned subsidiary, Universal DeFi LLC, the company has spent over a year building technology that allows companies and asset owners around the world to tokenize real-world and financial assets so they can be issued, held and, where permitted, traded on blockchain infrastructure.

The SEC granted temporary, conditional exemptive relief on September 17 allowing approved venues to trade tokenized exchange-listed stocks onchain, sending Robinhood Markets Inc. shares up just over 9% on September 18 after a 5% gain the previous session. The relief exempts qualifying venues from the Exchange Act's definitions of "exchange" and, for certain liquidity providers, "dealer," but it requires full shareholder rights including voting and dividends, meaning Robinhood's existing stock tokens, which are synthetic products offering economic exposure rather than actual ownership, do not qualify. The order also lets listed companies object to third-party tokenization within 30 days, a provision directly at odds with the public stance of CEO Vlad Tenev, and the relief remains temporary and subject to public comments, with Coinbase and the NYSE's planned 24/7 digital venue potentially entering the compliant space first. Robinhood traded roughly 31.7 million shares, about 1.37 times its one-month average, though the stock sits about 28% below its 52-week high, with a forward P/E of 45.46x against a sector median of 10.88x. Hedge fund holders rose from 84 at the end of the first quarter of 2026 to 87 at the end of the second quarter of 2026, and short interest stood at 4.54% of float as of August 31, 2026.

Coinbase has completed its integration of Deribit, the world's largest crypto options exchange, which it acquired for about $2.9 billion, creating Coinbase Global Exchange, the first and only crypto exchange with a unified global liquidity pool. Liz Martin, co-CEO of Coinbase Institutional, announced the completion of the integration at Token2049 in Singapore, saying the new exchange brings US and international customers into one place and combines the company's US retail base with its international base alongside an upgrade of its professional trading tools, Coinbase Advanced. Martin said Coinbase is launching spot margin and options for pro traders in a unified portfolio offering maximum buying power and lower fees, and that the company has "super ambitious" volume growth plans. She said Coinbase is diversifying revenue through an "everything exchange" that now includes equities, equity options, perpetual futures, pre-IPOs, commodities and prediction markets, and that the company announced last week a clearing platform for prediction markets in the US along with intentions to launch its own prediction markets. On tokenization, Martin said Coinbase recently launched tokenized equities for customers outside the US, giving holders the same shareholder rights as actual stock ownership, and cited a survey finding that about 60% of its institutional clients are excited about tokenization and investing in tokenized assets. She said Coinbase sees the APAC region as a major growth area, having opened a new headquarters in Singapore about two months ago and acquired licenses in Australia and India.

The Solana Foundation announced Solana DvP, a settlement platform for financial institutions, in New York on October 6. It aims to execute asset delivery and payment simultaneously on the Solana blockchain, completing securities trade settlement in seconds. J.P. Morgan advised on the practices and requirements of securities settlement at financial institutions. The Solana Foundation is offering it as an open-source settlement platform that companies can use in common. DvP stands for Delivery versus Payment, a settlement method that links the delivery of securities with payment of the purchase price. According to the Solana Foundation, institutional investor transactions on conventional blockchains have often relied on individually built smart contracts, but Solana DvP aims to standardize this settlement processing and will be released under the MIT license, allowing use and modification. The platform supports Solana's major token standards and also offers functions such as issuer control over transfers and the ability to pause them. It envisions banks, asset custody companies, exchanges and others acting as settlement agents. However, it is limited to transactions in which both the assets and the payment instrument are tokens on Solana. Technical documentation from the Solana Foundation explains that while simultaneous settlement removes principal risk between parties, the credit risk and redemption risk of token issuers remain. Efforts to link the delivery of digital securities with payment are also advancing in Japan. Nine companies including Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation announced on October 6 that they had completed the second phase of a proof-of-concept experiment for simultaneous settlement of digital securities using stablecoins. The Solana Foundation says Solana DvP has undergone an external security audit and is ready for use with real funds. Meanwhile, it is recruiting partner companies and initial participants ahead of the full release.

The United Kingdom has named six large banks as a pilot group to issue digital government bonds, with operations expected to begin in early 2027. The trial falls under the UK's Digital Securities Sandbox framework, a program for testing the settlement and trading of securities using distributed ledger technology, or DLT. HSBC is among the institutions taking part in the testing. The digital government bond is called the Digital Gilt Instrument and is seen as a major step in applying tokenization technology to the UK government bond market.

Major cryptocurrency exchange OKX announced on the 6th that it has completed a strategic investment from Circle, Ripple, SC Ventures under Standard Chartered, and asset manager Cube Research and Technologies, at a pre-money valuation of $25 billion, or just under 4 trillion yen. The investment is an extension of the March round led by Intercontinental Exchange, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange. OKX framed the move as an effort to bring together companies handling each segment of the financial infrastructure, including stablecoin issuance, liquidity, collateral and custody, to build a next-generation on-chain market in which these core elements work in concert. Founder and CEO Star Xu said the funds would serve as capital for tokenizing real-world assets, adding that the exchange is a starting point and is evolving into a broader global financial technology platform.

Strive purchased 2,000 bitcoin for approximately $169 million, nearly six times the 334 bitcoin that Strategy announced buying the previous day, bringing Strive's total holdings to 29,462 bitcoin at an average price of $84,422 per coin. CEO Matt Cole said SETA preferred stock sales accounted for 61.5% of the capital raised, with warrant exercises generating another $56.7 million, and Strive now carries roughly $1.29 billion of SETA preferred stock with about $168 million in annual dividend obligations. Separately, the SEC approved the CBOE's request to list the first US products delivering three times the daily returns of bitcoin and ether, to be operated by Volatility Shares using regulated bitcoin and ether futures rather than the tokens themselves, doubling the previous 2X cap on US crypto funds. The CFTC also floated a new federal framework for leveraged retail crypto trading, proposing a crypto asset market registration category with token listing standards, market surveillance and anti-manipulation rules, proof of reserves for pooled customer assets, capital requirements, segregation of customer assets, risk disclosures, and KYC and anti-money laundering controls, while stating it cannot require crypto to trade on its platforms without Congress. Treasury withdrew a 2020 self-hosted wallet rule and a 2023 crypto mixer reporting rule, citing concerns over a chilling effect on legitimate activity, and Rain filed an application with the OCC to establish Rain National Trust Bank, following similar moves by Modern Treasury as community banks sue the OCC over federal trust charters for crypto companies. Ondo Finance also launched Ondo private markets with tokenized pre-IPO AI exposure, beginning with an unnamed pre-IPO AI business, offering tokenized notes linked to the company's economic performance rather than actual shares.

South Korean IT giant LG CNS announced on October 6 that it has begun offering KITL, a blockchain platform for financial institutions. It is being provided as a common foundation for banks, securities firms, card companies and others to build services using stablecoins, security tokens, and real-world assets. KITL includes functions needed to custody digital assets, such as electronic wallets, transaction processing on the blockchain, and collection of transaction histories, and its electronic wallet uses technology employed in Project Hangang, the digital currency pilot led by the Bank of Korea. LG CNS has also formed business partnerships with five companies: Circle, the issuer of the US dollar-pegged stablecoin USDC; Securitize, which operates a digital securities platform; Canton Foundation; Chainalysis; and Chainlink. By combining these companies' technologies with KITL, it will support financial institutions in building digital asset services. South Korea is also moving forward with regulatory groundwork to allow stocks, bonds, funds and other assets to be issued and traded on the blockchain, with the relevant law scheduled to take effect on February 4, 2027, and LG CNS says it will prepare an environment in which financial institutions can launch services in step with the law's implementation.

FinCity.Tokyo is advancing economic and investment opportunities for Thai investors and financial businesses by connecting Japanese capital, expertise, and innovation, while opening the way for Thai businesses to expand investment into the Japanese market and extend cooperation into ASEAN markets. Japan's financial sector is currently transitioning to a digital financial system, including crypto assets, yen-pegged stablecoins, tokenized deposits, and tokenized securities, reinforcing Tokyo's position as a key market for Thai asset managers, banks, and fintech firms. IMARC Group forecasts that Japan's fintech market will grow to 33 billion US dollars by 2034, while A.T. Kearney estimates that Japan's Web3 economy will expand 20-fold to 2.4 trillion yen during 2021-2027. Meanwhile, Japan's three major banking groups plan to issue yen-pegged stablecoins by March 2027 and are considering using blockchain technology to settle share and government bond transactions. Tokio Morita, Executive Director of FinCity.Tokyo, said Thailand is well positioned to become a key area for the development of modern financial infrastructure in ASEAN. FinCity.Tokyo was established in 2019 through cooperation between Japan's public and private sectors, and currently has more than 50 member organizations, with a key program called the Attraction U Program that provides support of up to 30 million yen to foreign fund management companies and fintech businesses. Japan has household financial assets of approximately 15 trillion US dollars, and the Tokyo Stock Exchange has a market capitalization of approximately 7.1 trillion US dollars.

Sumitomo Mitsui Banking and eight other companies announced on October 6 that they have completed the second phase of "Project Trinity," a proof-of-concept experiment to settle digital securities using stablecoins. The second-phase trials ran from April to September 2026 between Daiwa Securities and SBI Securities, using security tokens issued by SBI VC Trade and trust-type stablecoins issued by Sumitomo Mitsui Banking for the purpose of this verification. Assuming trading on the Osaka Digital Exchange's security token trading market "START," two transactions were settled. Progmat handled the issuance and management infrastructure for the security tokens, while Progmat and Datachain provided the technology linking security tokens and stablecoins on different blockchains. In the trials, in addition to purchasing and redeeming stablecoins and ordinary settlement, the participants also tested responses for cases where stablecoins were insufficient or transaction details did not match. The companies said the results met expectations within the anticipated scope, and explained that they have set a near-term goal of delivery-versus-payment settlement at T+2, two business days after execution, and have confirmed to a certain degree that this is achievable.

More than 60 US stocks are preparing to be brought onto the blockchain for round-the-clock trading with Stablecoin, with Nvidia and Tesla leading the group. Companies mentioned in the report include Apple, Microsoft, OKX, ICE, Uniswap and XLayer. The trading mechanism relies on the AMM system and Tokenization, or Tokenized Stocks, part of the broader push to move traditional assets onto blockchain infrastructure.

Strategy added 334 bitcoin for $28.7 million while spending $176.3 million to buy back its STRC preferred stock, a sum roughly six times larger than its latest bitcoin purchase. The bitcoin purchase was funded with $15.7 million from issuing and selling MSTR shares and $13 million from Strategy's flexible USD cash pool, while the STRC buyback was funded with $154.1 million of its USD cash pile and $22.2 million of interest earned on its dollar holdings. Strategy now holds $4.88 billion in protected USD reserve and $833.4 million of flexible USD cash, and has spent about $64 billion in total on bitcoin at an average cost base of $75,440.70. Separately, a joint venture between OKX and Intercontinental Exchange, the parent of the New York Stock Exchange, has filed to offer 24/7 tokenized US stock trading under the SEC's proposed five-year innovation exemption, with an initial list of 63 stocks including Strategy, Apple, Nvidia, Coinbase, Robinhood and Circle. Trading would run continuously through Uniswap liquidity pools on OKX's X Layer in USDC, USDG and USDT pairs, with assets held in self-custodial wallets and backed one-for-one by actual shares held through a registered broker-dealer. Bloomberg Terminal has also begun carrying Hyperliquid data, and the Independent Community Bankers of America is suing the OCC over national trust bank charters granted to crypto companies. Ethereum Layer 2 network Blast will shut down with an October 26 withdrawal deadline, after assets on the network fell from $2.2 billion to $32 million and its token lost 98% of its launch value, while the IMF approved funds for El Salvador after a waiver for its bitcoin breach.

Digital Currency Group founder Barry Silbert said a new U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission initiative to reform accredited investor rules vindicates a prediction he made about tokenization in 2011. Silbert, described as the "King of Crypto," recalled his 2011 interview with the WSJ and concluded that 15 years later Wall Street had effectively capitulated to his long-term prediction about tokenization. He summed up the outcome with the remark, "I Nailed That One Too." The SEC's move to revisit the accredited investor framework is the development that prompted his comments.

Tom Lee, head of research at Fundstrat and chairman of Bitmine, said in an interview with Coinage that Ethereum will set a new all-time high and surge above $5,000 before the end of this year, and he sees the potential for it to reach $60,000 within the next few years, citing past price cycles in which it climbed from below $100 at the end of 2018 to nearly $4,900 in 2021. Lee noted that Ethereum has risen about 80% from its June low near $1,500 to around $2,700 by the end of September, even as the Federal Reserve raised interest rates by 0.25% on September 16, bringing the target range to 3.75%-4% by a 12-0 vote. On the institutional side, money has flowed in through spot Ether ETFs in the United States, with September 22 recording net inflows of $162.2 million, the third consecutive day of positive flows, as BlackRock's Ethereum fund took in $88.1 million and Fidelity's fund added $33.6 million. Lee also pointed to Robinhood's decision to build Robinhood Chain on Ethereum, which attracted as much as $2.1 billion in tokenized assets in its first two months, with $1.5 billion deposited into applications running on the network. At the same time, the Securities and Exchange Commission issued an innovation exemption on September 17 that allows certain tokenized versions of US-listed shares to trade on blockchain networks, after the draft Clarity Act failed to advance in the Senate by a vote of 49-50.

Clearpool's community has approved, with 97.16% voting in favor, an expansion onto the XRP Ledger and the full migration of its native CPOOL token to a new asset, CLEAR. The institutional credit marketplace is bringing infrastructure to XRPL for financing working capital in the real fintech sector, with the platform providing technology rails and smart contracts, credit manager Cicada Partners auditing borrowers and underwriting risk, and Ripple joining the pools as a limited partner. Financing will be conducted exclusively in the dollar stablecoin RLUSD, giving the coin its first organic circulation among institutional investors, while custody provider Hex Trust will provide additional security and compliance bridges. The 1:1 token migration is scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2026, with the initial supply of the new CLEAR asset rising to 1.125 billion tokens from CPOOL's previous supply of one billion, and 70% of the new supply distributed to current holders at launch to protect against dilution. Half of all fees collected by the platform will go to the open market to buy back and permanently burn CLEAR, and the product relies on the ledger's native standards XLS-65 and XLS-66, which are still being tested on Devnet awaiting approval from 80% of validators before full deployment on the XRPL mainnet.

BNB Chain has become the first blockchain to surpass $1 billion in total tokenized stocks and exchange-traded funds. According to Token Terminal data, the market value of tokenized stocks and ETFs rose about 17% from $2.87 billion in August to $3.35 billion in September. As of October 2, the overall market stood at $3.7 billion, with BNB Chain accounting for $1.1 billion, or roughly 30%, followed by Ethereum at $828 million and Solana at $738 million. In January, Ethereum held about 48% of the market, while BNB Chain accounted for just 13%. In a report dated September 29, Binance Research said the number of holders on BNB Chain had reached 1.8 million, noting that Binance's bStocks, launched in late June, is driving the growth.

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.

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.