Highlights of this issue
The statistical period of this weekly magazine covers September 25, 2026 - October 2, 2026.
This week, the RWA track fell slightly to US$38.55 billion, a month-on-month decrease of 0.94%. However, the total number of asset holders continued to climb to 5.0182 million, a month-on-month increase of 51.6%, reflecting the accelerated entry of new users, which differentiated from the asset market value; the total market value of stablecoins recorded 2940.4 billion, the user base continues to expand, but the monthly transfer volume has declined, showing a pattern of accumulation of existing users and marginal cooling of on-chain transaction activity.
At the regulatory level, the U.S. SEC plans to optimize the KYC mechanism for tokenized securities and explore the ZK identity to achieve one-time certification across multiple platforms. The CFTC recognizes tokenized assets as customer compliance funds and blockchain certificates; the European Central Bank proposes three settlement models for currency on-chain; South Korea plans to expand the coverage of tokenized securities and include stocks and bonds as tokenized targets; Hong Kong introduces Hong Kong dollar tokenized deposits in the primary issuance of digital green bonds, and HSBC Hong Kong dollar stable currency HSBC RedCoin Relevant research and implementation plans are also disclosed.
At the project level, Aave V4 launched the Equities Hub on the Base network, supporting for the first time the lending of tokenized U.S. stocks to USDC as loan collateral, opening up the path from RWA to DeFi lending; Ethena incorporated tokenized stocks into USDe’s income support strategy and completed delta neutral hedging through stock perpetual contracts; Open Standard’s U.S. dollar stablecoin OUSD was officially launched, which is regarded as Stripe’s own stablecoin.
At the financing level, DTCC strategically invests in iCapital, and both parties will jointly explore the application potential of DLT and tokenization in the private equity market.
Pivot data
RWA track panorama
The latest data from RWA.xyz revealed that as of October 2, 2026, the total market value of the RWA chain dropped to US$38.55 billion, down 0.94% from the same period last month. The total number of asset holders climbed to 5.0182 million, a significant increase of 51.6% from the same period last month. In the short term, the asset size has made a slight correction, but the number of holders has jumped significantly, indicating that the pace of entry of new users has accelerated significantly.
Stablecoin Market
The total market value of stablecoins reached US$294.04 billion, an increase of 0.71% from the same period last month; the monthly transfer volume recorded US$6.82 trillion, a decrease of 7.67% from the same period last month; the total number of monthly active addresses reached 60.34 million, an increase of 5.81% from the same period last month; the total number of holders rose to 2.9 300 million, an increase of 3.04% from the same period last month. The overall market value and user base continue to expand, but the monthly on-chain transfer and settlement demand is marginally weakening. This reflects that the underlying users of stablecoins continue to accumulate and new addresses are steadily entering the market, but the activity of short-term on-chain transactions and fund transfers has cooled down.
The top stablecoins are USDT, USDC and USDS. Among them, the market value of USDT increased by 0.45% compared with the same period last month; the market value of USDC increased slightly by 0.02% compared with the same period last month; the market value of USDS increased significantly by 5.3% compared with the same period last month.
regulatory news
Sources: The U.S. SEC plans to revise KYC requirements so that users can access tokenized securities on the chain with only one identity verification.
Andy, the founder of The Rollup, tweeted that sources revealed that the US SEC is preparing to revise KYC requirements so that users only need to perform KYC certification once to access tokenized securities on the chain. This move will enable composability between different on-chain trading venues and tokenized platforms, allowing users to utilize an identity system based on zero-knowledge proof (ZK) to split orders to multiple venues for execution, thereby completing larger transactions.
CFTC: Allow tokenized assets to be used for client fund compliance, endorse blockchain record keeping
According to the CFTC official announcement, the three departments of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) recently jointly updated the crypto-asset FAQ, clarifying that registered derivatives dealers can treat compliant customer fund investment products such as tokenized money market fund shares as traditional forms of asset holdings; CFTC staff stated that they have no objection to relevant entities using blockchain and other distributed ledger technologies to save records to meet federal record keeping requirements.
The European Central Bank proposes three central bank currency on-chain models to support tokenized securities and stablecoin transaction settlement
The European Central Bank proposed three models for introducing central bank currency onto the chain, including direct issuance, establishing a bridging mechanism, and implementing it through private intermediaries. These models enable central bank currencies to provide settlement support for transactions such as tokenized securities, bank deposits and stablecoins on distributed ledger technology networks.
South Korea’s Financial Commission plans to relax the scope of tokenized securities: traditional securities such as stocks and bonds may be allowed to be listed on the blockchain
According to Yonhap News Agency, South Korea’s Financial Services Commission (FSC) released a notice of amendments to lower-level regulations related to the institutionalization of security tokens (Token Securities), and plans to expand the scope of securities that can be tokenized to include traditional securities such as stocks, bonds, and funds.
According to the amendment, in addition to fragmented investment securities (non-monetary trust beneficiary securities, investment contract securities), traditional securities can also be tokenized. Relevant electronic securities regulations will also clarify distributed ledger requirements, stipulate that participants must include electronic registration institutions and at least two account management agencies, and prohibit the use of distributed ledgers to pay direct fees for electronic registration purposes.
In addition, the Korean Financial Commission plans to allow securities issuers to become "issuer account management institutions", but they must meet the minimum self-owned capital of 40 billion won, and be equipped with account management, internal control and IT professionals.
In terms of securities token circulation, the amendment proposes to establish an over-the-counter trading system and set the annual net purchase limit for ordinary investors on each over-the-counter exchange to 100 million won. Relevant regulations are expected to be officially implemented on February 4, 2027.
The Hong Kong SAR Government sells 20 billion Hong Kong dollar equivalent digital green bonds and introduces Hong Kong dollar tokenized deposits
According to the press release of the Hong Kong SAR Government, approximately HK$20 billion worth of digital green bonds were successfully priced under the Sustainable Bond Program, covering Hong Kong dollars, RMB, US dollars and euros. In addition to the traditional settlement method and the tokenized central bank currency settlement option introduced last time, tokenized deposits are also introduced through EnsembleTX in the primary issuance and settlement process of Hong Kong dollar bonds this time. It is the first digital bond in the world to introduce Hong Kong dollar tokenized deposits, further improving the digital ecosystem and laying the foundation for exploring the programmability of digital currencies.
Local knowledge
The scope of digital renminbi cross-border connectivity cooperation is steadily expanding
According to Xinhua News Agency, it was recently learned from the Digital RMB International Operation Center that after the first batch of 26 financial institutions signed contracts, as of the end of September, an additional 39 domestic and foreign financial institutions had submitted applications to access the "Digital RMB" cross-border settlement comprehensive service platform (CBETS) as direct participants.
Since this year, the Digital RMB International Operation Center has continued to optimize CBETS services and steadily expanded the scope of cooperation. It not only supports bilateral docking with overseas monetary authority payment systems and legal digital currency systems, but also supports direct access by overseas financial institutions. Relying on this underlying platform, digital RMB cross-border services not only cover trade, but also support cross-border exchanges of personnel.
HSBC names the Hong Kong dollar stablecoin “HSBC RedCoin”
HSBC named the Hong Kong dollar stablecoin "HSBC RedCoin" and announced the results of a survey covering more than a thousand local customers, showing that local consumers are ready for the launch of the stablecoin. Among respondents, 74% recognized at least one use case for stablecoins. Among them, digital asset trading and tokenized investments (57%) ranked first, followed by person-to-person (P2P) transfers (53%), cross-border remittances (52%), and merchant payments (52%). In terms of core cognition, 60% of respondents can accurately define stablecoins as digital assets backed by legal currency. However, there are also some cognitive biases: 26% of the respondents mistakenly believe that stablecoins are issued by the government, and another 10% believe that they have an interest-earning function, which is not included in Hong Kong’s current regulatory framework.
HSBC stated that the first phase will focus on person-to-person (P2P) and person-to-merchant (P2M) payments, starting with use cases that are direct and close to daily life, and gradually expand to the industrial, commercial, financial and corporate levels, closely following the development of digital assets and currencies in Hong Kong. In April this year, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority awarded the first batch of Hong Kong dollar stablecoin issuer licenses to two financial institutions, HSBC and Standard Chartered. HSBC previously stated that it will officially launch the Hong Kong dollar stable currency in the second half of this year.
Project progress
Aave V4 supports tokenized U.S. stock mortgage lending USDC, and 7 stock tokens are the first to be launched online
According to The Block, Aave V4 has launched Equities Hub on Base, allowing eligible non-U.S. users to lend USDC to seven U.S. stock tokens issued by Coinbase as collateral, covering Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla. This means that for the first time, tokenized shares can be used as collateral assets in the Aave lending market, rather than just for holding or trading.
It is reported that the market adopts the Aave Hub and Spoke structure, which integrates 7 types of stock collateral into the same USDC liquidity pool, while setting independent risk parameters for different stocks and isolating the risks that may arise from a single stock. Chainlink will provide on-chain price data for these tokenized stocks. The total initial collateral limit in the market is approximately US$29 million, the USDC supply limit is US$32 million, the borrowing limit is US$21 million, and the mortgage rate for different stocks is 65% to 79%. Currently, 7 stocks can only be used as collateral. Aave said that in the future, more Coinbase tokenized stocks may be added after the governance and risk assessment is passed, and GHO will be included as loanable assets.
Ethena incorporates U.S. stock tokenized assets into USDe support strategy and plans to hedge them through Binance stock perpetual contracts
According to The Block, Ethena is incorporating tokenized U.S. stocks and Binance stock perpetual contracts into USDe’s basis trade support strategy. Among them, Binance bStocks will serve as a tokenized spot-backed asset, and Ethena will be hedged through Binance stock perpetual contracts to maintain delta neutrality. The Ethena Risk Committee has previously approved the inclusion of tokenized equity underlying trades in the allocation strategy. Ethena said that the open interest of Binance's stock perpetual contracts has now exceeded 2.9 billion US dollars, with an average monthly compound growth rate of 105% this year, and the average annualized rate of return of basic stock trading in the past six months was 3.56%; the company expects that as more stock market assets are put on the chain, the opportunity scale of stock perpetual contracts will eventually significantly exceed the cryptocurrency perpetual contract market. Guy Young, founder of Ethena Labs, said that this is the most important expansion of USDe’s funding mechanism since its launch.
Chainlink helps financial institutions access Swift blockchain ledgers and support 24/7 tokenized payments
According to Chainlink’s official announcement, Chainlink is helping financial institutions connect systems and key signature infrastructure to Swift blockchain ledgers through its runtime environment (CRE). Banks can retain control of transaction authorization keys and adopt 24/7 tokenized payment workflows while continuing to use existing security governance and approval processes. The Swift ledger coordinates inter-bank fund transfers between participating institutions based on tokenized deposits, covering overnight and weekend periods. The final settlement is still completed through existing mechanisms such as the Real-Time Gross Settlement System (RTGS). Announced at Sibos 2025, Swift Ledger has connected more than 11,500 financial institutions in more than 200 markets around the world.
Ondo Finance partners with KakaoPay Securities to explore establishing global gateway to Korean stocks
Ondo Finance has partnered with KakaoPay Securities to explore establishing a global gateway to Korean stocks, The Block reported.
Lloyds Bank and Visa complete cross-border settlement pilot of approximately US$750,000 in stablecoins
Visa officially announced that Lloyds Banking Group and Visa completed a pilot cross-border settlement of stablecoins worth approximately US$750,000, with the funds arriving within approximately one hour including weekends. During the 7-day pilot, Lloyd purchased USDC through the British regulated exchange Archax to settle with Visa, and completed verification on the Canton private chain and public chain to test cross-chain interoperability. This is Visa’s first stablecoin settlement trial with a large British banking group.
European stablecoin issuer AllUnity launches U.S. dollar stablecoin USDAU
European stablecoin issuer AllUnity is expanding its MiCA regulatory-compliant offerings with the launch of its fourth fiat-backed stablecoin, USDAU, Cointelegraph reports. Stablecoins for the euro, Swiss franc and Swedish krona have previously been launched. The new token, called USDAU, will maintain a 1:1 peg to the U.S. dollar via a segregated reserve and will launch on the Ethereum, Solana, Base, Tempo, Arc, and Polygon networks.
StraitsX plans to natively issue XSGD and XUSD on Monad in early 2027
The Monad Foundation announced that StraitsX plans to natively deploy the Singapore dollar stablecoin XSGD and the U.S. dollar stablecoin XUSD to Monad in early 2027, and explore using the network to support stablecoin payments and financial services. Relevant deployments must still meet technical, regulatory, compliance and partner requirements and have not yet been launched.
The U.S. dollar stablecoin OUSD launched by Open Standard is officially online and has been deployed on Base, Ethereum, Solana and Tempo chains
According to the Open Standard announcement, the U.S. dollar stablecoin OUSD, supported by more than 100 companies including Visa, Stripe, and Mastercard, has officially been launched. It has been deployed on Base, Ethereum, Solana, and Tempo chains. Companies can access it through Visa, Stripe and other channels. Coinbase will follow up on October 1 and support free minting and redemption at 1:1 USD. OUSD is issued by Bridge, a subsidiary of Stripe, and reserves are held by BlackRock, Lead Bank and Bank of New York Mellon. According to Bloomberg, Visa, Stripe, BVNK, Coinbase and Shopify have committed to mint approximately US$1 billion in OUSD.
Open Standard CEO Zach Abrams said: Trading platforms include Kraken, CB, Uniswap and Orca. We also have dozens of product integrations coming soon, such as Ramp, Deel, Securitize, Meow, and more.
U.S. stock token trading platform Maitong MSX lists a new U.S. stock token spot
US stock token trading platform Maitong MSX has launched spot trading on the global online travel platform $EXPE.
Financing dynamics
DTCC makes a strategic investment in iCapital and will cooperate to explore the application of DLT and tokenization in the private market
According to official news, the United States Securities Depository and Clearing Corporation (DTCC) and iCapital announced a strategic cooperation to jointly promote private market infrastructure. DTCC will also make a strategic investment in iCapital. The two parties will integrate DTCC's market infrastructure, processing capabilities and network with iCapital's technology platform and investment workflow to connect data, operations and market participants in the private investment life cycle and reduce operational friction.
As an initial area of cooperation, the two parties plan to further integrate DTCC's alternative investment products (AIP) with iCapital's alternative investment platform, and explore the application of technologies such as blockchain DLT and tokenization in the private market. Talia Klein, head of wealth and investment solutions at DTCC, will join the iCapital board of directors as an observer.
Insights Collection
Behind AAVE’s surge: Aave bets on tokenized stocks, and U.S. stocks can also be used to borrow money
PANews Overview: Aave launched Equities Hub on Base's V4, allowing non-U.S. users to mortgage 7 Coinbase tokenized U.S. stocks to lend USDC, and plans to expand more RWA assets in the future; the sector's risk control is conservative, with a total mortgage upper limit of approximately US$29 million, but the loan utilization rate is only 5.34%, and it also faces liquidation risks caused by mismatches between U.S. stock market closures and around-the-clock trading on the chain.
Aave's lending market share and protocol revenue have been eroded by Morpho and Spark. Although the AAVE currency price has increased by about 2.6 times since the low point, it is dragged down by the rsETH incident and the protocol needs to prioritize repairing the balance sheet. Although the founder is considering introducing a destruction mechanism in Aavenomics3.0, restarting repurchase and destruction still depends on revenue improvement. Tokenized stocks enter DeFi lending, bringing new sources of collateral to the chain, but whether this model can translate into real lending demand remains to be seen.
IOSG: Circle issues and Coinbase controls users, who makes the money for stablecoins?
PANews Overview: The IOSG report points out that the profit pattern of the stablecoin industry has changed. Issuers rely on reserve interest to make profits, but profits are squeezed by falling interest rates and high channel sharing; distribution channels that control user entrances have strong bargaining power. For example, even if Circle obtains a federal license, the sharing agreement with Coinbase will still extend to 2029. The "GENIUS Act" prohibits issuers from holding currency to pay interest, prompting products such as USDG and Open USD to directly transfer reserve income to the channel; the public chain transfer fee income is meager, and the U.S. Treasury Department indirectly benefits from the demand for U.S. debt purchases brought by stablecoins. The report believes that the stablecoin itself will become commoditized, and businesses such as deposits and withdrawals, foreign exchange, and compliant custody will be more profitable, and the value will be transferred to scarce control points such as distribution channels and customer relationships. At the same time, we must be wary of the statistical trap that transaction volume does not equal true income.
In addition to stablecoins, banks are moving “money” to the blockchain
PANews Overview: As traditional assets such as treasury bonds and stocks are put on the chain, "money" for on-chain settlement has become a new pain point. Financial institutions in various countries are exploring different paths: the United States, Britain and Canada are promoting tokenized deposits, the United States plans to launch an inter-bank network in 2027, the United Kingdom has completed conditional payment transactions for real customers of tokenized pound deposits, and Canada is exploring inter-bank transfers; the European Pontes project uses central bank currency to complete the settlement of tokenized asset wholesale transactions.
Tokenized deposits are the digital expression of bank deposits and can release financial conditions. The core challenge lies in interoperating across institutions, connecting with traditional payment systems, and avoiding data islands. It has different positioning from stablecoins and central bank currencies. It will not replace stablecoins in the short term. In the future, it will tend to coexist in layers. The focus of the next stage of blockchain finance is to achieve reliable delivery of assets, funds and the existing financial system.