Some conclusions from the @FirstCitznInnov report & event in NYC yesterday: -fintech didn’t shrink, AI just made it look small. ~$40B is going into fintech this year, almost 2x last year, yet its share of venture $ fell from ~20% at peak to ~6% -a ~$300b stablecoin mkt is basically a top-25 US bank that nobody calls a bank. The surprise is who’s adopting it now: banks, asset managers, payment networks & corporates, vs crypto natives. The instis that spent years treating stablecoins as a threat are now integrating them -5 yrs of fintech startups are worth ~$1.1T on paper, but only 1% have IPO’d. 16% have exited & ~20% have shut down. Most of the rest (65%) are still VC-backed, & half of those haven’t raised in 2 yrs. VCs’ answer is to pair those founders with AI engineers & start new cos. They’re backing the founders again, vs the old companies -the bigger regulatory risk is old rules, not new ones. This admin is deregulating by not enforcing, not by changing the law. Best line of the day: “the current teacher is not collecting homework doesn’t mean the homework’s not due.” Any business model built on an enforcement gap is effectively a bet on the 2028 election. Only statute holds -the next big problem for banks: transactions the customer authorized thru an agent. For 10+ yrs the consensus on “self-driving money” was that no one would ever hand over the keys. Now ppl are handing AI agents full account access, & banks can’t easily tell an agent acting on instructions from an account takeover. Liability, identity & personhood are all unsolved, which is why banks like Citi want to fund that infra layer

Every no to a TSV elucidates what a yes requires. Issuers want to choose the venue, preserve shareholder rights, & keep the transfer agent’s record authoritative. Builders now have a clear spec to work from.

Despite the negativity around TSV objections, tokenization infra keeps moving. The same day’s news feed has DTCC bringing $30t in securities closer to blockchain with major banks; DBS reports that ~90% of large businesses are adopting tokenized cash. Tokenization is being built out regardless of how 1 venue’s roster turns out.

This is false Read the full JPM quote: they're encouraged by tokenization, careful about representation, & open to opportunities as the market develops. That’s a “not yet” on just 1 novel venue.

JPMorgan said no to this venue but yes to tokenization in the same breath. Its spokesperson said the bank will keep evaluating as the market develops.... suggesting issuers are rejecting the specific, novel setup & keeping the door open

Cross-border digital identity has stalled on one question: who holds the list of trusted issuers. @avax blockchain answers it by giving every country the same list, control over its own entries, & no operator to appoint. > The issue: Credentials that work @ home fail abroad bc verifiers can’t confirm who issued them or whether they’re still valid, & building a shared registry has always meant one country trusting another to run it. > Solution : put the issuer list onchain, where each country edits only its own entries, holds a full copy of everyone else’s, & stores no personal data, so nothing sensitive crosses a border. > Proof in @Blerify_ID : In Uruguay, AGESIC published its issuer list on @avax via Blerify, and a revoked credential reached every verifier at home and abroad in ~2 seconds, vs. weeks today. Learn more here:

Read the bottom half of the ad: global investor access, longer trading hours, direct shareholder engagement. Those are reasons for a company to tokenize. Issuer demand is what will scale this market, & issuers need a business reason before they need a blockchain.

3 questions for any tokenized stock: -Does the issuer know it exists? -Does the holder get the vote and the dividend? -Is the token the record of ownership, or a claim on someone else’s record? Plenty of products on the market fail at least 1!

Banks want to be the cash leg for tokenized assets. @WellsFargo named “digital asset settlement” as a use case. The cash leg is the missing piece for atomic settlement of tokenized securities, & banks want to supply it

At the @Equiniti x @Bullish tokenization event yesterday, Chris Zuehlke of DRW Cumberland named privacy as the next hurdle for tokenized markets. His point was that if anyone can watch a fund's wallets, they can see it slowly exiting a position and trade against it before it finishes. He's right. Institutions need privacy from the market and transparency to regulators and issuers. On @avax, encrypted ERC (eERC) keeps balances and transfers confidential while giving regulators auditor access. Institutions get the customization they need without being isolated from the rest of the market.

My takeaways from the excellent @Bullish x @Equiniti tokenization event yesterday at the @NYSE: -blockchains are the next upgrade in mkt tech, & Bullish wants issuers at the center of it. In the NYSE boardroom (the old bond room!), @ThomasFarley traced the line from horses and telegraphs to pneumatic tubes & electronic ledgers. Bullish wants the product ready before the market is; its 1 non-negotiable is the issuer’s central role -multiple versions of the same stock won’t last. Asset managers present don't expect today’s multiple types of tokenized stock (DTCC, custodial, synthetic, issuer) to all survive, since fragmented liquidity hurts everyone -the @SECGov Innovation Exemption gives issuers a narrow veto. Before a tokenized securities venue can trade a 3rd-party token of a company’s stock, the issuer gets 30 days to object, venue by venue. Bullish’s pitch is that issuer tokens give companies more control, since the transfer agent’s smart contract decides where they can move, including NYSE, Nasdaq, defi -tokenization gives issuers control & data they don’t have today. It solves 3 problems now: 24/7 trading with instant settlement, a live view of who holds your stock + for how long, transfer rules coded into the token. Shares can only move to KYC’d wallets, & RSUs can stay locked in an employee’s wallet until they vest -shareholders can become customers. an airline could give shareholders their own boarding group or lounge access. A coffee chain could give a free coffee to anyone who votes their proxy, regardless of how they vote. -the transfer agent holds the keys. Bullish told issuers “you’re in control,” but the TA runs the smart contract + decides which wallets can hold the token. That’s where the leverage sits & it’s why Bullish is buying Equiniti -tokens can make deal closings instant. On stage, Bullish moved 61M reserved shares (the purchase price for its $4.2B Equiniti acquisition) as tokens into a BitGo-custodied wallet. When the deal closes, the tokens move to the seller, & anyone can watch it happen onchain -a token is only as good as the market around it. 1 broker bought $60M of Figure’s February offering, issued as an SEC-registered token. With no market maker for the first few hours, trading was so bad that clients sent ~1k complaints. Once one stepped in the next morning, the token became as liquid as the regular stock. Utility matters too: $10k of Nvidia in a brokerage acct is good for little beyond a margin loan, but on chain it could back a car loan -once the infra is built, mkts will switch over quickly, & underwriters could lose the most. Issuing tokens straight into investor wallets cuts out much of the 4-7% IPO fee. Bund futures show the pattern: electronic trading competed with LIFFE’s floor for years, then took nearly the whole mkt in ~1 yr once liquidity tipped. 1 panelist expected most of the S&P 500 to trade as tokens within 2-4 yrs -tokenization is a big upgrade for a small group of investors. 1 asset manager said it’s only ~5% better for most, which isn’t enough to beat inertia. For some it’s 100% better: people who want 24/7 trading + instant settlement, DeFi / stablecoin users, & offshore investors with poor access to US brokerage -instis need privacy before they’ll move at scale. The tech already works: Cumberland helped execute a Saturday repo of tokenized Treasuries against USDC, in + out in ~20 minutes. That said, no fund wants competitors watching its wallets while it builds or exits a position. Onchain trades need to be private to the market but visible to regulators, issuers