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Fintech NerdCon is back in San Diego from 18 to 20 November 2026, and Tokenized readers get 20% off with the code TOKENIZED20.
The Tokenized team will be there. Will you?
In This Week's Edition:
💬 Simon's Market Readout. Simon on Rain's new wallet and the trust bank charter they've filed for.
📰 The Big Story. Citadel borrowed cash from BNY against a tokenized US Treasury.
🗞️ Things You Need to Know.
Simon’s Market Readout 💬
A pixelated Simon gives you his market readout for the week.
Is Rain now the hottest growth fintech company? One that just happens to use stablecoins.
Two months ago Rain bought stored-value platform Ansa.
Eight days ago it filed with the OCC for a national trust bank.
Today it put a wallet at the center of its platform, keeping more of the customer relationship away from other full-stack players like MoonPay and the Stripe family.
Rain is best known as the stablecoin-linked card company. It is becoming an alternative model for card issuing. Period.
The new Rain wallet holds the balance and plugs into the Rain stack:
- USDC, USDT and other assets across 12 chains, Base and Solana included
- A Rain-issued Visa or Mastercard card accepted at 175m merchant locations
- USD in through a virtual account, local currency out through payouts to 80+ countries
- Non-custodial today; custodial wallets and earning on balances before year-end
Now add the OCC charter (if approved), and they can monetize the custody of assets.
Now add Ansa and Uptop and they can make unique loyalty with stablecoins happen.
Now add wallets, and they're more of a one-stop shop.
But in a lot of ways the magic of Rain is that it's a modern tradfi stack, licenses, and just enough stablecoin capability to benefit from them.
Under the hood, Rain has folks like:
- Credit Coop (helping finance receivables)
- Lithic, Episode Six and Paymentology for auths with the schemes
- And it holds the Visa and Mastercard memberships itself,
- And now packaged the wallet the way they did with the issuer processors.
- Now the trust bank adds custody and issuance.
That's a lot of TradFi work they've done.
I think this is going to be a pattern.
The winners of the next decade in finance will understand where TradFi partnerships unlock much more scale than being stablecoin-only.
🏦 Citadel Borrows Cash From BNY Against Tokenized Treasury
BNY announced this week that Citadel Securities had used a tokenized US Treasury as collateral to borrow cash overnight. BNY say it's the first time tokenized assets have been used on a major triparty repo platform.
Citadel bought a 2-year US Treasury note through BNY on Tradeweb. BNY recorded it as a token on their own private ledger, and it settled in minutes instead of the usual next day (T+1).
Citadel then put that tokenized note up as collateral in an overnight repo, and BNY lent them the cash.
For the uninitiated, a repo is a short-term loan against collateral. You hand over a Treasury, you get cash, and you buy the Treasury back the next day at a slightly higher price. Triparty means there's a third party in the middle holding the collateral and moving the cash, which here was BNY.
BNY say they'll add digital cash and tokenized deposits next. They're also extending their settlement platforms for Fed-eligible securities and US triparty repo into European and Asian trading hours in 2027.
💳 Mastercard and BVNK Launch One Platform for Fiat and Stablecoins
Mastercard and BVNK have launched the Mastercard Global Money Platform, their first joint product since Mastercard acquired BVNK in August. Through one API, banks, fintechs and businesses can offer accounts that hold fiat and stablecoins, convert between the two, issue stablecoin-linked cards and pay out to local bank accounts under their own brand.
Stablecoin balances can be spent anywhere Mastercard is accepted. Payouts run through Mastercard Move, which Mastercard expect to cover more than 40 currencies in over 200 countries and territories in 2027. Nuvei, Marqeta, Ontop, Beem and Almond FinTech are among the first to integrate, and tokenized deposits and agentic commerce are planned next.
🏛️ USDC Becomes the EU's First Significant E-Money Token
The European Banking Authority (EBA) has classed Circle's USDC as a significant e-money token (EMT) under the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation. It's the first of the 45 EMTs notified in the EU to get the label.
From 12 November, the EBA takes over direct supervision of USDC's capital, reserves, liquidity and redemption plans from France's ACPR, which keeps governance and fit and proper checks. The EBA has also signed a memorandum of understanding with the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS), which regulates Circle in New York.
💸 Federated Hermes Will Issue Its Own Tokenized Money Market Funds
Federated Hermes, who manage $911.6 billion, are going to issue their own tokenized funds through Prometheum's broker-dealers, starting with money market funds in Q1 2027.
Prometheum's ProFinancial will handle issuance and distribution, with Prometheum Capital managing custody, clearing and settlement.
Kevin Barr, Director of Digital Assets at Federated Hermes, said "Tokenized funds are the logical next step for our broker-dealer and RIA [registered investment adviser] clients."
🏦 Standard Chartered Now Holds RLUSD for Clients in Dubai
Standard Chartered can now hold Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin for institutional clients, through their branch in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), regulated by the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA).
The bank, Ripple and LMAX Group also want RLUSD to count as collateral on LMAX. The tokens would stay with the bank and LMAX would see a mirror of their value. That part isn't live yet, and still needs documentation, testing, internal approvals and regulators to sign off.
🏛️ Singapore Issues Its Second Tokenized MAS Bill
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has issued its second tokenized MAS Bill. It's a two-week S$10 million bill that settles in wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) on the Singapore dollar Test Network, and only institutional investors can buy it.
The first one, last month, was S$1 million for a week.
🏦 Citi and Wells Fargo Back Tokenized Deposits in Their Earnings Calls
In Citi's Q3 earnings call, CEO Jane Fraser said "Citi token services and the tokenization of deposits is the area we've been most excited about", and that it's "now operating in seven markets around the world". She was less keen on stablecoins, calling them "a bit more clunky, with more complexity and compliance"
Wells Fargo CEO Charlie Scharf said "Use cases in the US for stablecoins remain unclear, but we're building solutions to be prepared." Wells launched tokenized deposits for corporate and commercial clients last month, and the bank stablecoin consortium they announced is aiming for a product in the first half of 2027.
🗓️ Morgan Stanley Tokenized Stocks play; Q1 2027
Morgan Stanley have pushed tokenized stocks on their alternative trading system (ATS) back to Q1 2027, head of digital asset strategy Amy Oldenburg told The Block. Earlier this year they were pointing to the second half of 2026.
"We need product in order to be able to support them within the ATS," she said. "And the client demand really isn't there because the product doesn't exist." She also pointed to DTCC's tokenization service, which is due to launch at the end of this month.
🏛️ The FSB Writes to the G20 About Stablecoins
The Financial Stability Board (FSB) sent the G20's finance ministers and central bank governors a note on global stablecoins, ahead of their meeting this week.
It wants regulators to share more information across borders, to monitor risks and to get its 2023 stablecoin recommendations implemented. FSB Chair Andrew Bailey wrote that "cross-border cooperation in this area is still in its infancy".
🏦 Tokenization, Stablecoins & Finance
DRW and Marex complete OTC swap referencing tokenized S&P iBoxx Index (Read more here)
IMF finds demand for tokenized stocks, says the market is still volatile, illiquid (Read more here)
ESMA asks if tokenized collateral is safe for central counterparties (Read more here)
Lagarde signals ESM plans tokenized issuance on Pontes (Read more here)
Ripple adds Stripe-owned wallets to XRP Ledger as AI payments pass 14 million (Read more here)
Rain introduces wallets, putting the account at the center of its stablecoin payments platform (Read more here)
US accounting overhaul could make stablecoins more attractive to corporations: Tempo (Read more here)
StoneX raises Securitize price target 50% as tokenized stock platform opens new revenue stream (Read more here)
XRP Ledger adds new controls for banks, stablecoins and tokenized funds (Read more here)
Standard Chartered unlocks direct bitcoin and ether trading for affluent UAE clients (Read more here)
Interactive Brokers expands crypto services with Ethereum staking via Zerohash (Read more here)
South Korea just got its first traditional bank loans backed by bitcoin (Read more here)
Russia's largest bank Sberbank secures approval to trade crypto (Read more here)
THORChain dev accuses Tether of temporarily freezing USDT vaults (Read more here)
Dutch central bank grants Qivalis e-money license for MiCA-compliant euro token (Read more here)
BNY expands digital asset custody to EU under MiCA (Read more here)
VersaBank initiates commercial phase of tokenized deposit program in the United States (Read more here)
Standard Chartered pushes $2 trillion stablecoin market forecast to 2030 as supply growth stalls (Read more here)
Proof launches x401, giving AI agents a way to prove who they represent and what they're authorized to do (Read more here)
🤑 Funding and M&A
Tether invests in EFY Finance to accelerate institutional stablecoin usage in LatAm (Read more here)
Sam Altman-backed bitcoin insurer Meanwhile secures $37.5 million in Bain Capital Crypto-led round (Read more here)
Evernorth Completes Business Combination with Armada Acquisition Corp. II (Read more here)
Ironlight Markets Announces Agreement with FundBridge Capital for Delta Wellington Ultra Short Treasury On-Chain Fund (Read more here)
Kraken parent to acquire EU bank, putting the crypto-banking question to the ECB (Read more here)
Pantera Capital-backed startup Fission raises $10 million to help investors cash out of tokenized funds faster (Read more here)
IMMIX raises $3.5 million to make global stablecoin payments easier to exchange across currencies (Read more here)
💼 Government & Policy
EU Council wants only significant crypto firms supervised by ESMA (Read more here)
EU finance ministers want DLT Pilot Regime cap raised to €300bn, Lagarde objects (Read more here)
Top Democrat among Senate investigators probes ties between Cantor Fitzgerald, Tether (Read more here)
CFTC's new crypto framework could face 2028 election deadline, says TD Cowen (Read more here)
Bank of Korea won't issue stablecoins: Here's why (Read more here)
UK slaps sanctions on three crypto exchanges over alleged Russia links (Read more here)
South Korea blocks 27 crypto exchanges, including Bitmart and Kucoin (Read more here)
Thailand SEC issues bitcoin and ether ETF rules set to take effect Oct. 16 (Read more here)
Proposed 31.4% French tax on regulated stablecoins could drive crypto traders offshore (Read more here)
Patrick Witt exits White House crypto role as Clarity Act stalls (Read more here)
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