tZERO Plans Public Listing via SPAC

Tokenisation infrastructure-as-a-service pioneer tZERO Group is listing as a public company via a merger with FG Imperii Acquisition Corp, a special purpose acquisition company. The transaction values tZERO at a pre-money equity valuation of $350 million. The combined entity plans to list on the NYSE American exchange under the ticker “TZRO”.

Existing shareholders will roll their equity into the new public company, which stands to gain up to $231 million from FG Imperii’s trust account, subject to redemptions and fees. Proceeds will support tZERO’s tokenisation infrastructure, balance sheet, and commercial growth under current CEO Alan Konevsky.

“We have talked about the next phase of tZERO’s evolution requiring a more independent footprint. This transaction delivers that objective, unlocks growth paths and strengthens our ability to scale market infrastructure required for an increasingly tokenised financial system,” says Alan Konevsky, CEO of tZERO. “Our infrastructure-as-a-service capabilities are complete, hard to replicate individually and, in many cases, are unique in the marketplace. These capabilities are built, ready and already commercialised with Tier 1 institutional customers. With this step, we will continue to grow that infrastructure and deepen our diversified institutional and strategic relationships across asset classes.”

The merger, unanimously approved by both boards and backed by some 62% of tZERO’s stockholders, is targeted to close in early 2027 pending regulatory approval.

S&P Global Ratings Taps Chainlink for Vault Risk Service

S&P Global Ratings has partnered with blockchain oracle Chainlink to make S&P Global Vault Risk Assessment data available on chain. The integration gives institutions and investors direct access to independent vault risk analysis, enabling market participants to evaluate lending vault risks and make more informed decisions about where to deploy capital on chain.

The integration leverages Chainlink DataLink, an institutional-grade data publishing service, with the Chainlink Runtime Environment (CRE) orchestrating the retrieval of S&P Global Ratings’ assessment data and its publication on chain. A Chainlink decentralised oracle network retrieves the source data, reaches consensus on the reported values, and delivers them on chain, with Base as the initial supported

S&P Global Ratings’ Vault Risk Assessment provides a forward-looking opinion on the relative risk of impairment to an investor’s position in a lending vault. Its analysis considers portfolio credit quality and liquidity mismatch, alongside risks related to the curator, blockchain, protocol, and vault security and governance. A Vault Risk Assessment is not a credit rating and does not comment on yield levels.

By bringing S&P Global Ratings’ assessments on chain, the integration makes institutional-grade risk analysis available directly to lending platforms and their users. Institutions gain access to independent opinions to support due diligence and investment governance, while developers can build applications that let depositors compare assessed vaults and monitor changes in their risk profiles.

The integration builds on Chainlink’s existing collaboration with S&P Global Ratings, which brought its Stablecoin Stability Assessments on chain. Extending this model to lending vaults gives S&P Global Ratings a new distribution channel for its analysis within the applications where digital assets are managed and deployed.

TT Adds Bitstamp by Robinhood Digital Asset Access

Trading Technologies now supports trading on Bitstamp by Robinhood’s digital asset markets. Institutional market participants can access Bitstamp by Robinhood’s crypto spot and derivatives markets alongside other asset classes, including futures, fixed income and foreign exchange within TT’s multi-asset environment.

TT becomes the first major traditional-markets order/execution management system (O/EMS) to connect directly to Bitstamp by Robinhood, expanding Bitstamp’s connectivity beyond predominantly crypto-native trading platforms and into established multi-asset trading workflows.

Nicola White, VP of Institutional Crypto and GM of Bitstamp by Robinhood, says: “Connecting with Trading Technologies continues our rapid expansion of institutional distribution partners. As a leading multi-asset trading platform with deep roots in traditional markets, TT extends our venue to a global network of sophisticated institutional traders, proprietary desks and buy-side firms. Market participants, through Trading Technologies, can access Bitstamp by Robinhood’s deep liquidity and institutional execution services within their primary daily workflow seamlessly.”

Standard Chartered to Acquire Zodia Custody; Spin Out Zodia Solutions

Standard Chartered has entered into definitive agreements to acquire Zodia Custody, including 100% of Zodia Custody UK Limited, the parent company of its regulated operating entities in Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, the United Arab Emirates and Luxembourg.

Post completion, Zodia Custody’s regulated digital asset custody business will be integrated into Standard Chartered’s existing digital asset custody activities within Securities Services. The move will consolidate Standard Chartered’s digital asset custody businesses and will drive value by unlocking revenue synergies, further strengthening the Group’s digital asset capabilities and supporting its ambition to build a unified client offering that integrates both traditional and digital asset securities services for institutional clients, globally.

As part of the transaction, Zodia Custody will separate its digital asset software and professional services business and transfer the assets relating to that business to Zodia Solutions, an independent entity to be established under SC Ventures. Zodia Solutions will continue to provide bank-grade infrastructure to financial institutions, including Standard Chartered, as they launch and scale digital asset services.

tZERO to Provide Broker-Dealer and ATS Services to Temple Digital on Canton

tZERO Group’s tZERO Securities will provide broker-dealer and alternative trading system (ATS) services to Temple Digital Group to power Temple’s tokenised securities trading platform on the Canton Network.

Under the agreement, Temple will support its trading technology with tZERO Securities’ regulated operating infrastructure, including client onboarding and transaction services. This lets Temple bring tokenised securities trading to its clients without building its own broker-dealer and ATS capabilities.

“Institutions building tokenised markets need a regulated operating foundation that can work with their technology and business model,” says Alan Konevsky, CEO of tZERO. “Temple has developed one of the most powerful trading systems on Canton. By bringing our broker-dealer and ATS capabilities to that system, we can help Temple deliver its offering to clients while expanding the reach of tZERO’s Infrastructure-as-a-Service footprint as we focus on powering broker-dealers and other financial institutions at scale.”

Temple’s trading system includes a proprietary matching engine, an RFQ module and a central limit order book for tokenised National Market System (NMS) securities and exchange-traded products. It also includes a front-end user interface and settlement infrastructure designed to support atomic delivery-versus-payment and repurchase agreement settlement on Canton. Temple has executed over $1.6B in volume for Canton and is the largest platform by transaction volume on the network.

“We’re focused on developing regulated, on-chain trading technologies for tokenised assets,” says Evan Varsamis, CEO of Temple Digital Group. “Working with tZERO allows us to combine our solutions with an established broker-dealer and ATS operator, providing the regulated infrastructure needed to support securities on our platform at scale.”

Ripple and BNY Expand Partnership to New Blockchain Use Cases, Including Tokenised Trade Finance

Ripple and BNY have expanded their strategic partnership to broaden institutional digital asset custody capabilities and explore new blockchain use cases, including tokenised trade finance.

Building on BNY’s existing role as the primary reserve custodian for Ripple’s stablecoin (RLUSD), BNY’s Digital Asset Custody platform now supports both XRP and RLUSD. This integration allows eligible institutional clients to securely safekeep, hold, and transfer these digital assets within BNY’s established governance and resiliency controls.

The collaboration aims to transition institutional blockchain use from basic asset issuance to functional application within capital markets. Beyond custody support, the two companies plan to enable BNY clients to directly mint and redeem RLUSD.

Monica Long, President of Ripple, and Carolyn Weinberg, Chief Innovation and Market Transformation Officer at BNY, both emphasise that connecting traditional financial infrastructure with the XRP Ledger (XRPL) will drive greater connectivity, continuous efficiency, and broader adoption across payments, liquidity, and collateral workflows.

A key future focus of this expanded partnership is the advancement of tokenised trade finance on the XRPL to simplify how assets like receivables are managed and distributed. As an initial step, Ripple and BNY are exploring a supply chain finance initiative with the global working capital platform C2FO. This initiative will leverage the XRPL, and its three-to-five second transaction settlement times, to explore new financing models for approved receivables, aiming to expand investor access to the asset class while maintaining trusted customer relationships.

AWS Blog Post Documents Digital Assets CEX Reference Architecture

A blog post authored by three Amazon Web Services technologists documents a reference architecture for a centralised exchange (CEX) for digital assets.

The blog post, titled “Build a digital assets exchange on AWS: A reference architecture“ notes that the reference architecture “aggregates the architectural decisions that recurred across CEX deployments that AWS Solutions Architects have supported in the field.” The blog post documents “how the stack fits together on Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS),Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), and Amazon Aurora,” and explains the rationale behind each component choice.

The blog post can be viewed here.

Texture, Obsidian Announce Tradecraft ATS on Canton Network

Broker-dealer Texture Capital and financial systems developer Obsidian Systems have announced the development of Tradecraft ATS, which is set to become the first US-regulated trading platform for tokenised securities built on the Canton Network. While Canton already supports asset issuance and settlement, this new venture introduces a fully regulated venue specifically designed for trading. Tradecraft ATS aims to bridge institutional finance with blockchain technology by featuring a continuous central limit order book that provides a transparent, “lit” display of the best available bids and asks.

The upcoming platform is engineered around institutional efficiency and security, offering tokenised equity, debt, and fund interests. A key innovation of Tradecraft ATS is its integration of atomic settlement against USDCx, meaning both the digital security and the cash move simultaneously within a single on-chain transaction to eliminate counterparty risk. Furthermore, the platform supports a strict self-custody model, ensuring that subscribers maintain full control of their securities and stablecoins in their own wallets right up until the exact moment of trade execution.

OKX Raises Funding at $25 Billion Valuation

Digital assets exchange OKX has raised new funding at a $25 billion valuation from stablecoin issuer Circle, payments service Ripple and Standard Chartered’s investment arm, SC Ventures.

“Through strategic investment and partnership, OKX is aligning some of the most critical builders of financial infrastructure behind its vision for the next generation of on-chain markets,” OKX said in a statement.

Solana Foundation and Samsung Bring USDC to 82 Million Users This Month

The Solana Foundation has announced that Samsung Wallet and Samsung Pay will support stablecoins on Solana. Samsung Wallet users in the United States will be able to send money using Circle’s USDC by month end.

Some 82 million US Galaxy device users will be able to send a remittance from the same wallet interface they already use for cards, boarding passes and IDs, with integrated fiat on- and off-ramps converting to and from local currency.

“For a decade, stablecoins have proved the technology works,” says Lily Liu, President, Solana Foundation. “What they lacked was a way to reach the mainstream. Samsung’s decision to work with Solana puts digital dollars into everyday life through one of the world’s most trusted technology brands. This level of adoption is what we built Solana for, and we’re seeing the moment when stablecoins stop being a crypto product and start being how people move money.”