Tokenisation news, 15 September 2026
Nasdaq and Börse Stuttgart lead a coalition asking Brussels to scrap the EU's tokenisation pilot cap, the SEC proposes letting blockchain ledgers stand as the official record of stock ownership, and BlackRock launches its first blockchain-settled Hong Kong dollar money market fund with Standard Chartered.
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Key takeaways
- Nasdaq, Börse Stuttgart, Adan, the Crypto Council for Innovation and the European Ethereum Institute have asked the EU to scrap or raise to €1.5 trillion the cap on its DLT Pilot Regime — currently €6 billion, against a European Commission proposal of €100 billion, even as existing projects under the scheme already total around €350 billion.
- The SEC has proposed letting blockchain ledgers serve as the official legal record of stock ownership for the first time, shrinking transfer agents' routine mail-processing windows from three-to-five days down to one; the plan is open for public comment for 60 days, into early November 2026.
- BlackRock has launched its first Hong Kong dollar money market fund settled on blockchain, with Standard Chartered acting as trustee, custodian and administrator, and investors able to subscribe or redeem using HKDAP, a regulated HKD stablecoin issued through Standard Chartered's Anchorpoint Financial venture.
- Across all three stories, blockchain is moving from a faster settlement rail to the system of record itself — from a €350 billion pilot regime, to a shrinking legal-processing window, to a bank-issued stablecoin settling fund flows directly.
Nasdaq and Börse Stuttgart ask the EU to scrap its €6 billion tokenisation cap
Nasdaq, Germany's Börse Stuttgart, the French digital asset association Adan, the Crypto Council for Innovation and the European Ethereum Institute have asked EU lawmakers to scrap the cap on the bloc's DLT Pilot Regime, the regulatory sandbox that lets exchanges test settling stocks and bonds directly on blockchain. The regime currently limits participation to €6 billion in tokenised securities, and the European Commission has proposed raising that ceiling to €100 billion — but the coalition argues even that figure is too low, pointing out that European projects already operating under the scheme total around €350 billion between them. They want the cap removed entirely or, failing that, set at €1.5 trillion, fifteen times the Commission's own proposed figure, arguing that comparable US platforms face no ceiling at all.
The Investre take: This isn't abstract for us: Investre's own listing partner, 21X, operates under this exact DLT Pilot Regime, so wherever this cap lands directly shapes how much volume our jointly issued and listed funds can carry. A cap that moves from €6 billion to a genuine no-limit regime is the difference between a pilot and a real market.
SEC proposes letting blockchain ledgers become the official legal record of stock ownership
The US Securities and Exchange Commission has proposed rewriting decades-old rules for transfer agents — the firms that keep the official record of who owns a company's shares — so that record can be a blockchain ledger itself. Today, a tokenised stock typically carries two parallel records: an on-chain token and an off-chain shareholder register, and lawyers must treat the off-chain database as the legal record even when the on-chain version is more current, creating reconciliation costs and legal uncertainty if the two ever disagree. Under the proposal, transfer agents would keep handling non-digital functions such as shareholder deaths, inheritance and legal notices, but routine processing windows would shrink from three-to-five days down to one. The SEC is taking public comment on the plan for 60 days, into early November 2026.
The Investre take: It's a good sign when the SEC starts moving toward a principle Luxembourg's Blockchain Laws established years ago: a blockchain register can be the legal record in its own right, not just a mirror of one held elsewhere. It's exciting to watch the rest of the world catch up to where European fund law already stands.
Standard Chartered's Hong Kong dollar stablecoin becomes the settlement rail for a new BlackRock money market fund
BlackRock has launched its first Hong Kong dollar money market fund built to settle using blockchain, the BlackRock HKD Digital Liquidity Fund. Standard Chartered acts as the fund's trustee, custodian and administrator, and eligible investors can subscribe or redeem using fiat, digital cash, tokenised deposits, or HKDAP — a regulated Hong Kong dollar stablecoin issued through Standard Chartered's Anchorpoint Financial venture. The fund invests in short-term, high-quality Hong Kong dollar money market instruments, giving institutional investors a local-currency, blockchain-settled cash management option without taking on foreign exchange exposure.
The Investre take: BlackRock has proven a portable model: pair a tokenised money market fund with a trusted local custodian and a compliant stablecoin rail, and currency stops being a barrier to on-chain cash management. Europe's asset managers already have the legal clarity to build the same pairing in euros — what's been missing so far is will, not law.
What this means for European fund managers
Luxembourg's fund managers already have the legal basis for this. Under the Blockchain IV Law, an authorised Controlling Agent can maintain a fund's share register directly on distributed ledger — no transfer agent, no CSD required. Investre was the first firm authorised for this role.
Further reading: Investre becomes the first Controlling Agent under Blockchain IV Law, or The Final Block podcast.
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