Seven UK banks (Barclays, HSBC UK, Lloyds Banking Group, Monzo, Nationwide, NatWest and Santander) completed the first live customer transactions using tokenized sterling deposits that moved between separate institutions, under the Great British Tokenised Deposit (GBTD) initiative convened by UK Finance. The transactions ran on a platform built by Quant as shared UK industry infrastructure for tokenized commercial bank money, with EY handling project management and Linklaters drafting the legal framework and rulebooks. The first set included two remortgage completions, where funds were locked and released automatically at completion, and a consumer marketplace payment in which money was released only once the goods changed hands.

The Federal Reserve proposed its first regulatory framework for payment stablecoins, implementing the GENIUS Act signed into law in July 2025. The proposal would require issuers to hold reserves sufficient to meet redemptions, limited to eligible assets such as short-dated Treasury bills, alongside capital and risk-management standards. A second proposal sets out application, hearing and appeal procedures for banks that want to issue through a subsidiary. Governor Michael Barr said a token deserves the name stablecoin only if holders can get par value back promptly under different market conditions, and the Fed sought comment on interest-rate and foreign-currency risk. Meanwhile, the CFTC moved on tokenization from the other direction, clarifying when tokenized versions of already-eligible investments can be used for customer funds and margin when legal equivalence holds. The two tracks now divide by function: the Fed defines dollar redemption, the CFTC governs assets on-chain.

Bitwise has tokenized real-world assets through Ember Protocol, enabling those tokenized assets to serve as collateral on the Bluefin lending platform. The move brings traditional asset classes into DeFi lending frameworks and is seen as a step toward institutional DeFi lending that goes beyond crypto-native assets. It lands amid rapid growth in RWA perpetual trading on decentralized exchanges: CryptoRank data shows RWA perpetual DEX volume reached $365 billion in Q3 2026 to date, up 32% quarter over quarter, with public equities generating about $175 billion, or nearly 48%. Monthly volume started 2026 at just $23.1 billion, peaked at a record $141 billion in July (up 513% from the start of the year) and eased 13.5% to $122 billion in August.

Mantle announced back-to-back all-time highs on two core benchmarks: the total number of tokenized assets crossed 1,473, up from 71 at the start of the year, a more than twentyfold increase per Blockworks Research; and Distributed Asset Value for RWAs climbed to $476 million, a 110% increase over 30 days per RWA.xyz. Growth was driven by institutional-grade issuers including xStocks for tokenized equities and ETFs, Securitize for tokenized index funds, Ethena for yield-bearing stablecoins and Paxos for regulated dollar issuance via USDG, which connects Mantle to the Global Dollar Network and more than 150 partners. Milestones include the on-chain listing of tokenized SpaceX equity (SPCXx) alongside the SpaceX IPO and Franklin Templeton’s USPX ETF (USPXx), among the first tokenized ETFs from a top-tier asset manager on an Ethereum Layer 2.

Chainalysis data shows cross-border stablecoin flows rose about 78% to $220.3 billion in the year through June, even as total crypto market capitalization fell 37% to $2.1 trillion. Some 4,708 new cross-border corridors were identified, carrying $2.64 billion combined, though the largest corridors still accounted for 96.1% of total value. Chainalysis said much of the growth came from transfers averaging about $3,000, a pattern more consistent with trade settlement, remittances and savings than speculation. Tether economist Philip Gradwell described a “steady rhythm” typical of business use, while StraitsX CEO Tianwei Liu pointed to demand for dollar access, inflation protection and ways around capital controls.