What Morgan Stanley Has Announced. In mid-April 2026, Morgan Stanley named tokenisation of real-world assets "the next major step for upgrading financial infrastructure" and identified it as a top global business focus. The firm is targeting the second half of 2026 to launch a dedicated institutional digital wallet — a product that would allow its institutional clients to hold, transact, and receive tokenised RWAs directly within Morgan Stanley's existing wealth management i

Lise received authorisation from French regulator AMF in late 2025, becoming the first institution in Europe licensed to operate a fully tokenised equity exchange. Unlike hybrid models that tokenise existing securities while keeping legacy infrastructure in place, Lise has built a single on-chain system that combines issuance, trading, settlement, and share registry. There is no parallel paper record, no T+2 clearing cycle, no intermediary custodian between the exchange and t

What Is Being Said, and By Whom On 2 April 2026, the International Monetary Fund published a note describing tokenisation as a fundamental reconfiguration of financial architecture, not an incremental improvement to existing systems. At Davos in January, BlackRock's Larry Fink told the World Economic Forum that tokenisation is necessary and that markets need to move rapidly. In a survey published in March by Funds Europe and CACEIS, more than 60 per cent of asset managers sa

The Old Infrastructure Is Building the New One. That Is the Point. Two pieces of market structure news from the same week, neither individually dramatic, together illustrate something important about how tokenisation actually enters the financial mainstream. What Happened On 31 March 2026, DTCC launched a new business line, DTCC Digital Asset Solutions, with a mandate to tokenise assets currently held in custody by its depository arm, DTC. On the same day, Apex Group anno

The world of digital assets has seen rapid growth over the past decade, attracting a wide range of investors from retail traders to large institutions. Yet, this growth has not come without challenges. One of the most significant factors shaping investor behaviour in this space is regulatory change. As governments and regulatory bodies around the world adjust their stance on digital assets, investor adoption patterns shift accordingly. Understanding how regulatory changes inf

The British Business Bank recently announced that the British Growth Partnership Fund I has reached its first close with £200 million raised. This fund marks a significant moment as it brings pension money into UK startups, a move that has long been discussed but rarely executed at this scale. The question many are asking is whether this is a one-time effort or the start of a lasting change in how UK pension schemes invest in venture capital. Why Pension Money Matters for UK

UK Investors Left Out as Fundrise and Kraken Launch Onchain VCX Fund for Global Access. The tokenisation of venture capital funds is reshaping how investors access private markets. Recently, Fundrise and Kraken’s xStocks platform introduced an onchain version of the Fundrise Innovation Fund (NYSE: VCX), enabling global investors to trade a token representing shares in this venture capital vehicle. This development marks a significant milestone in the integration of traditiona

For many years, UK startup founders have faced a persistent challenge: how to offer investors a clear exit strategy if their company never goes public. On 24 March 2026, the UK made a significant move to address this issue with the first trade completed under the PISCES framework. This new private share market opens fresh opportunities for founders, employees, and early investors to access liquidity without relying solely on an IPO.

Monument Bank, a Bank of England-regulated institution serving the UK’s mass-affluent market, has announced plans to tokenise up to £250 million in retail customer deposits on Cardano’s privacy-focused Midnight network, making it the first UK-regulated bank to bring retail deposits onto a public blockchain.

For decades, early stage investing has operated within a relatively closed system. Founders raise capital from angel investors, venture funds or family offices. Shares are issued, the cap table grows, and investors typically wait years for a liquidity event such as the next raise, an acquisition or public listing. This model has produced remarkable companies and enormous value creation. Yet it also has well understood limitations. Access to early stage investment opportuni

The concept of tokenising startup equity can sound abstract. Yet at its core, the idea is relatively straightforward. London Private Markets A tokenised investment structure does not replace traditional legal ownership. Instead, it introduces a digital layer that represents ownership rights while existing corporate and regulatory frameworks remain in place. To understand how this might work in practice, it is helpful to imagine a typical early stage investment scen

Major banks, asset managers and market infrastructure providers are increasingly exploring tokenisation as a way to modernise how financial assets are issued, traded and settled. For institutions responsible for managing trillions in global capital, the attraction is not ideological. It is operational. For the UK, the stakes are particularly high. The country is the second-largest asset management centre in the world, holding 12% of global assets under management. The UK i