The world's most important settlement infrastructure is going digital. On 4 May 2026, the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation confirmed it will begin limited production trades of tokenised securities in July 2026, with a full commercial launch planned for October. The announcement confirms wha

On 15 May 2026, the Prudential Regulation Authority sent a letter to the chief executives of all UK-regulated banks and designated investment firms setting out how it expects them to treat tokenised assets, stablecoins and other cryptoasset exposures from a prudential perspective. Published jointly

There are events that generate press releases. And then there are the conversations that actually move markets forward, held away from the noise, where the people building real infrastructure say what they genuinely think.

FCA's perimeter from October 2027. The seven regulated activities covered include issuing qualifying stablecoins in the UK, safeguarding qualifying cryptoassets, operating a qualifying cryptoasset trading platform, dealing in qualifying cryptoassets as principal or agent, arranging deals in qualifying cry

For UK founders and investors watching the tokenisation of equity markets, one of the clearest signals yet that this space is being given a real regulatory foundation arrived from Washington on 18 May 2026. Bloomberg Law reported that the US Securities and Exchange Commission, under Chair Paul Atkin

On 15 May 2026, the FCA and Bank of England published something the market has been waiting for. Not a pilot. Not a sandbox update. A shared vision — and a roadmap.

On 14 May 2026, the United States Senate Banking Committee passed the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act in a 15-9 vote. Two Democrats joined Republicans to advance the bill, marking the first bipartisan approval of comprehensive US digital asset regulation at committee level. The vote moves the legis

18 May 2026 | Category: LAW, REGULATION, POLICY

Today the US Senate Banking Committee sits down to vote on the Digital Asset Market CLARITY Act, a 309-page piece of legislation that would do something Washington has been promising for years: draw a clear line between which digital assets are securities and which are commodities, and assign regula

A leading global law firm has laid out the structural design problems facing tokenised private fund interests. The UK is now solving the same problems, faster, with a regulator that has just published the rules.

On 30 April 2026, the Financial Conduct Authority finalised its rules for tokenising UK authorised funds. The rules took effect immediately. The UK now has one of the clearest regulatory frameworks for tokenised funds anywhere in the world and the clock is now ticking. Most regulatory milestones arrive with consultation papers and long phase-in periods. PS26/7 did not. On 30 April 2026, the FCA published its policy statement on fund tokenisation and the rules entered force th

The UK government confirmed today that a Financial Services Bill will form part of the 2026 to 2027 parliamentary programme, following the King's Speech delivered this morning. The bill has been anticipated for months. It will fold the Payment Systems Regulator into the Financial Conduct Authority,

The US administration has attached a specific deadline to its push for digital asset market structure legislation. Patrick Witt, executive director of the President's Council of Advisers for Digital Assets, stated on 6 May 2026 that the White House is targeting July 4 for Senate passage of the Digit

The annual Consensus conference, held in Miami Beach this week, has long been the place where digital asset ambitions are announced. In 2026, something has shifted. The institutions arriving in Miami are not announcing plans. They are reporting results.

What ESMA Said ESMA's April 2026 statement sets out the authority's expectations in direct terms. Any entity providing crypto-asset services to EU clients after 1 July 2026 without a MiCA authorisation will be in breach of EU law and must stop providing those services. The statement covers the full scope of regulated activity under MiCA: issuance of crypto-assets including asset-referenced tokens and e-money tokens, and the provision of crypto-asset services including custod

On 29 April 2026, the Financial Conduct Authority published Policy Statement PS26/7, confirming its final rules and guidance for fund tokenisation in the UK. The document follows the regulator's consultation paper CP25/28, published in October 2025, and marks a significant step forward in the UK's digital securities strategy. The policy statement does two things of immediate practical consequence. First, it sets out how authorised fund managers can use distributed ledger t

The informal deadline for the US Senate Banking Committee to schedule a markup of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act — the CLARITY Act — came and went on Friday 25 April without any action from Committee Chairman Tim Scott. The bill, which passed the House 294 to 134 last July, now faces an extended wait before it can move toward a Senate floor vote.

Time is almost up for European crypto-asset businesses operating under MiCA's transitional grace period. On 17 April 2026, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) issued a formal statement — document reference ESMA75-113276571-1679 — making clear that the transitional periods under the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation will definitively end on 1 July 2026. There will be no further extensions.

For UK founders sitting on illiquid equity, the landscape for secondary share trading just quietly got bigger. On 22 April 2026, Asset Match Limited became the third operator to receive FCA approval to run a trading venue under the PISCES framework - the Private Intermittent Securities and Capital Exchange System - Britain's regulated sandbox for trading shares in private companies. This follows approvals for the London Stock Exchange's Private Securities Market (PSM) and

Ctrl Alt Ltd, a subsidiary of Alt Ltd, has been placed on the FCA's official register as a directly authorised investment firm. The UAE-regulated firm now holds its own FCA permissions, allowing it to operate independently rather than as an Appointed Representative under another firm's licence. The authorisation enables Ctrl Alt to expand its digital capital markets services and support the end-to-end lifecycle of tokenised assets — from issuance and primary distribution thro