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Weekly Briefing
IBM Debuts 'Digital Asset Haven' Platform With Dfns to Ease Institutional Access
On Monday, tech giant IBM announced the launch of Digital Asset Haven, a platform for institutions to custody, manage, and settle digital assets. Built with wallet-infrastructure provider Dfns, the platform runs on the same systems that already process most of the world’s payments and capital-markets operations.
Major Banks Join Forces to Explore Issuance of Digital Money
On Friday, ten major banks, including Santander, BNP Paribas, Bank of America, UBS, Deutsche Bank and Citi, announced they are joining forces to explore issuing a “1:1 reserve-backed form of digital money” on public blockchains, initially focused on G7 currencies.
“Europe Needs a Unified Capital Markets DLT” — The Regulated Layer 1 (RL1) Aims to Deliver It
Last week, Frankfurt-based SWIAT announced the Regulated Layer 1 (RL1), a shared ledger for capital-markets activity that builds on the existing SWIAT network under a new cooperative governance model. The initiative unites ten European financial institutions, including ABN AMRO, DekaBank, DZ BANK, KfW, LBBW, Natixis CIB, and NatWest.
Exclusive: Losing the Regulatory Race, France Pushes to Shift CASP Supervision to ESMA
On Monday, the French financial supervisor (AMF) published an op-ed co-authored with its Italian and Austrian counterparts calling for the supervision of MiCA-regulated CASPs to be transferred to ESMA, the EU’s financial regulator.
Boerse Stuttgart Group Unveils Seturion, a Pan-European DLT Platform for Financial Institutions
The platform builds on technology first deployed in Switzerland, where Boerse Stuttgart’s subsidiary BX Digital — a FINMA-regulated DLT trading venue — already uses Seturion as its settlement layer.
Japanese Crypto Exchange Coincheck Acquires Aplo to Accelerate EU Expansion
On Tuesday, Coincheck, one of Japan’s largest crypto exchanges, announced the acquisition of Aplo, a Paris-based digital asset prime brokerage. The deal gives Coincheck a direct presence in the European market while providing Aplo with deeper liquidity and stronger balance sheet capacity.
Exclusive: The State of Kinexys in 2025 — Scaling Clients, Expanding Networks
Blockchain acceleration: Over the past weeks, Kinexys — J.P. Morgan’s blockchain division — has been accelerating client adoption, adding names like FedEx, clearing house Marex, and payments provider Corpay, among others. Amid these recent developments, we sat down with Zack Chestnut, Head of Business Development at Kinexys.
S&P Issues First-Ever Credit Rating for a DeFi Protocol
On August 7, S&P Global Ratings issued its first-ever credit rating for a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol, assigning Sky Protocol — formerly MakerDAO — a B-. The assessment used S&P’s global scale, placing Sky’s risk profile alongside that of traditional lenders worldwide rather than under a bespoke DeFi framework.