institutions

According to Cryptopolitan, the Central Bank of Russia (CBR) has released a draft of regulatory rules for the cryptocurrency market, covering the registration and operational requirements for cryptocurrency exchanges, digital custodians, and token issuers. The draft stipulates that the minimum net assets for digital custodians must be between 50 million and 250 million rubles (approximately 600,000 to 3 million USD), with the specific amount depending on the nature of the business.These rules will complement the "Digital Currency and Digital Rights Law" passed by the State Duma of Russia earlier this month, which is expected to officially take effect on September 1, 2026. Under the new framework, non-qualified investors can only purchase mainstream assets such as BTC, ETH, and USDT up to a limit of 4,000 USD per year; industry participants will have a transition period until March 1, 2027, to complete compliance and approval procedures.

According to Jin Shi reports, on Wednesday, Korean retail investors faced forced liquidations of approximately 1.7 trillion won (about 1.2 billion USD) in positions.Jung In Yun, CEO of Fibonacci Asset Management, stated, "Today there are many cases of forced liquidations, and we need to wait until the selling sentiment of retail investors eases before taking action."

According to official news, Ripple announced the launch of Ripple Mint, a unified platform for institutional users to access, mint, redeem, and manage RLUSD.The platform provides both a user interface and application programming interface access, supporting institutional automation of stablecoin operations, integrating RLUSD into existing systems, and achieving cross-chain digital dollar liquidity management. Currently, this service is open to existing RLUSD users.

Fox Business crypto reporter posted on the X platform stating that the bill outlines the rules for handling digital assets in the event of bankruptcy of exchanges or custodians.The bill helps ensure that customer assets receive the same protection as traditional financial assets and remain the property of the customers, rather than becoming part of the company's bankruptcy estate. This could help prevent a situation similar to FTX from occurring again.

According to CoinDesk, a survey by financial technology service provider Broadridge of 200 North American financial services executives shows that 84% of the responding institutions believe that tokenization is of significant importance to their business, indicating that Wall Street is transitioning from the experimental phase of blockchain to preparing for the integration of tokenized assets into everyday market infrastructure.The survey reveals that 68% of respondents believe that tokenization will partially reshape financial markets in the next 3 to 5 years, with nearly one-third of institutions planning to increase their investment in tokenization projects by 26% to 50% or more over the next 2 years. Meanwhile, 92% of institutions expect digital assets and traditional assets to coexist in the foreseeable long term, and 69% plan to integrate tokenization into existing infrastructure rather than building a native on-chain system from scratch.

Michael Saylor posted on the X platform, stating that fiat currency is the problem, and strengthening companies, institutions, securities, and technologies related to Bitcoin is part of the solution. People can discuss viewpoints, and allies should not be mistaken for enemies.

According to Cointelegraph, ARK Invest's research director Lorenzo Valente published a rebuttal to a16z crypto's view that "traditional finance will adopt blockchain rather than DeFi," arguing that institutions will increasingly rely on DeFi infrastructure in the future.Valente stated that public chains are leading private chain projects in actual development, with the growth of tokenized assets on open networks like Ethereum as an example. He also believes that crypto-native companies like Circle and Coinbase are better positioned than traditional financial institutions to build the next generation of financial infrastructure.a16z crypto previously stated that banks and asset management institutions would not directly adopt DeFi but would choose blockchain technologies that comply with existing regulatory, governance, and operational requirements, including features like tokenization and atomic settlement, while continuing to maintain licensing and institutional control.Sentora co-founder Jesus Rodriguez also disagreed with a16z's viewpoint, suggesting that institutions might adopt the underlying infrastructure of DeFi and overlay compliance, custody, and other enterprise-level controls on top of it.

The U.S. securities settlement infrastructure DTCC began live production trading of tokenized stocks and government bonds on Wednesday, advancing its tokenization work from a testing environment to actual operation. According to The Wall Street Journal, nearly 40 financial institutions and technology providers are participating, including JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, BlackRock, Vanguard, and the New York Stock Exchange.DTCC's subsidiary DTC custodies over $114 trillion in securities. The first day of trading covers use cases such as collateral, repurchase agreements, stocks, margin, and asset transfers, with tokenized assets including Microsoft and Circle stocks, Invesco QQQ Trust, SPDR S&P 500 ETF, iShares Short-Term Treasury ETF, and government bonds of various maturities.JPMorgan Chase will tokenize part of its QQQ holdings. DTCC stated that this is currently the initial limited production trading phase, with a full service plan set to launch in October, at which time institutions holding assets at the clearinghouse will be able to convert some securities into tokens. This service is built on DTCC's ComposerX platform, relying on the no-action letter granted to DTC by the SEC last December.

According to Coindesk, Giselle Lai, Director of Fidelity International for the Asia-Pacific region and Digital Asset Strategist, stated that the most attractive long-term use case for tokenized funds for large global institutions is not 24/7 liquidity, but balance sheet management.Lai pointed out that global institutions often need to hold cash in multiple jurisdictions, manage currency exposure, and meet regulatory requirements, while these bank deposits often do not generate returns. Compared to traditional account systems, tokenized tools can provide 24/7 interest, enhance fund transfer efficiency, and better serve institutional liquidity and collateral management needs.He also mentioned that current tokenized products are primarily applied in investment scenarios, with the most popular being tokenized money market funds that primarily use U.S. Treasury bonds as the underlying asset. What institutional investors are truly concerned about is not the "token" itself, but whether it can help asset management become faster and cheaper.

The Ethereum institutional privacy technology company EthSystems has officially launched and received strategic funding support from ecosystem backers such as Bitmine, Sharplink Gaming, Joe Lubin, and SNZ Holding.EthSystems focuses on developing privacy technologies for banks, asset management companies, and other regulated entities, enabling institutions to execute financial transactions on the Ethereum network at scale while protecting sensitive information such as transaction details and client identities.The company was founded by the core team of the Institutional Privacy Task Force (IPTF) of the Ethereum Foundation. The team has previously conducted a year-long open-source research and development publicly on the EthSystems website and has established partnerships with several central banks, regulatory agencies, large banks, and asset management institutions. EthSystems stated that while institutions have begun exploring stablecoins, tokenized assets, and Ethereum-based settlement solutions, large-scale adoption still faces privacy and compliance challenges.Financial institutions need more than just access to blockchain networks; they require a complete infrastructure that meets business confidentiality protection, regulatory requirements, and compatibility with existing financial systems. The goal is to create a "selective disclosure" privacy architecture that allows transaction participants to view only the information they are authorized to access, while retaining the core advantages of Ethereum's decentralization, security, and openness, and complementing two other organizations: Ethlabs, which focuses on the research and development of Ethereum's core protocol and infrastructure; Ethereum Institutional, responsible for institutional collaboration, education, market research, and ecosystem coordination; and EthSystems, which focuses on application layer technology, transforming institutional needs into practical privacy protocols and financial systems.

According to Gate Ventures' latest weekly report, the global market continued to be influenced by high interest rate expectations and geopolitical factors last week, with the cryptocurrency market overall maintaining volatility. BTC rose 0.2% over the week, ETH increased by 1.2%, and market sentiment saw a slight recovery. Meanwhile, BTC spot ETFs ended eight consecutive weeks of net outflows, recording a net inflow of approximately $197 million, and ETH spot ETFs also resumed net inflows, with institutional allocation demand showing marginal improvement.On the industry front, traditional financial institutions are continuing to accelerate the construction of on-chain infrastructure. Swift officially launched a blockchain-based shared ledger and partnered with 17 global banks to initiate a tokenized deposit pilot; fintech platform Toss is collaborating with Optimism to advance the infrastructure development for the Korean won stablecoin; Robinhood Chain, which launched only two weeks ago, has surpassed a total locked value (TVL) of $132 million.In terms of investment and financing, a total of 8 financing deals were disclosed last week, amounting to $381 million, with the infrastructure (Infra) sector dominating. Prime Intellect completed a $130 million financing round to accelerate the construction of enterprise-level AI infrastructure; Gauntlet received a $125 million strategic investment from Japan's SBI Holdings to further expand its institutional-level DeFi treasury business. Gate Ventures believes that stablecoins, on-chain finance, and institutional-level infrastructure are continuing to become important development directions for the industry, with institutional capital further increasing its investment in digital asset infrastructure.

According to CoinDesk, the UK government is accelerating the process of tokenizing financial markets, with 54 financial institutions including BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, HSBC, and UBS joining the wholesale digital market working group supported by HM Treasury.The working group, supported by the City of London Corporation, will explore practical tokenization application scenarios in the UK financial market over the next year, initially focusing on tokenized repurchase agreements (tokenised repo).Chris Woolard, head of the wholesale digital market at HM Treasury, stated in the report that the tokenized financial market is a "network competition," and the UK must advance as quickly as possible, or it may miss the opportunity to participate in the construction of global digital financial infrastructure.

According to a post by CoinMarketCap on X, Geoff Kendrick, the Global Head of Digital Assets Research at Standard Chartered Bank, expects that the number of announcements related to traditional financial institutions accessing DeFi may increase by 10 to 20 times in the next 3 to 12 months.

Sharplink Research Director Steven Ehrlich published an analysis pointing out that Ethereum started strong in July 2026, with an increase of about 11% so far this month. Historical data suggests that investors should pay attention to ETH's performance in July. Steven Ehrlich noted that the core advantage of ETH's July performance is not merely volatility, but the asymmetry between rises and falls: when July sees an increase, the average rise is about 43%, while in years of decline, the average drop is only about 5% (from 2020 to 2025).Historically, months of significant gains for ETH are usually driven by "Ethereum-specific catalysts + supply-demand imbalance." The current market environment also presents similar opportunities, such as: institutional infrastructure is being built, the Ethereum roadmap is continuously upgrading, and corporate funds are consistently increasing their holdings of ETH. Currently, Ethereum is entering a new development phase, where institutional adoption, technological upgrades, and capital allocation may become important factors driving ETH's market performance.

According to CoinDesk, the Genlayer Foundation, in collaboration with 27 companies including OKX, MetaMask, and Matter Labs, has launched the "Internet Court" protocol, aimed at providing a unified dispute resolution mechanism for payments, custody, and contract disputes between AI agents.The project seeks to address the current issues of fragmentation in payment, identity, and interoperability standards within AI business systems, providing a more suitable adjudication infrastructure for transactions between machines.