Keith Grose, UK CEO of Coinbase, said tokenised collateral is moving from pilot projects into core financial infrastructure as central banks and institutions deepen real-world deployment. He noted that 62% of institutions have maintained or increased crypto exposure since October and argued that UK policy on stablecoin rewards will be key to scaling tokenisation in areas such as liquidity and collateral management.

On 6 February 2026, a coalition of European tokenization and market infrastructure operators warned that the EU's current framework for tokenized securities is hindering the growth of regulated onchain capital markets. They argue that issuance caps, narrow asset eligibility and temporary licenses are diverting liquidity to more agile jurisdictions and could erode Europe's long-term role in digital capital markets without targeted technical adjustments.

Several European tokenization and financial infrastructure firms have urged the EU to amend its DLT Pilot Regime, arguing that tight asset categories, issuance caps, and a 6-year license limit are stalling blockchain-based market growth. They warn Europe could fall behind the US, where regulators have issued a DTCC no-action letter and clarified tokenized securities rules, paving the way for larger-scale tokenized trading and faster settlement.

A group of European tokenization and market infrastructure firms has asked EU legislators to rapidly amend the DLT Pilot Regime, arguing that current asset limits, volume caps and license durations are holding back regulated onchain markets. They warn that without a narrow technical fix, tokenized asset activity may shift to the United States, where regulators and major exchanges have already moved to clarify how tokenized securities can be issued, custodied and settled within existing frameworks.

On 5 February 2026, Circle announced a strategic partnership with prediction market platform Polymarket to embed its fully reserved USDC stablecoin infrastructure into onchain markets. The collaboration is intended to make USDC a core settlement layer for prediction-based trading, aiming to enhance reliability, capital movement, and scalability as market activity and liquidity increase.

The Aster decentralized exchange and perpetual futures platform announced on Thursday that its new layer-1 blockchain testnet is open to all users, with a mainnet release targeted for Q1 2026. The project, which rebranded in March 2025 into a perpetual futures DEX and competes with Hyperliquid, plans to roll out fiat on-ramps, open-source its code and expand token utility as perp DEX volumes surged into the trillions of dollars in 2025.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has criticized the launch of new generic EVM-based Layer 1 chains, calling them a dead end and arguing that Ethereum's base layer will already provide substantial EVM blockspace. He now promotes a broader spectrum of designs, including deeply integrated app-chain models and institutional Layer 2s, urging developers to focus on differentiated features such as privacy, app-specific efficiency and ultra-low latency. While questioning the rollup-centric roadmap, he still assigns Layer 2s a role in delivering extreme scalability for demanding use cases like AI.

As of February 5, 2026, Swiss private bank Maerki Baumann & Co. Ltd. is regulated in the UAE by the FSRA of ADGM, according to a press release. Its Abu Dhabi Middle East Hub, operating under the ARCHIP brand, will provide liquidity management, trading, custody, staking, and other digital asset services to blockchain and crypto firms.