Stan Chart, Brevan Howard To Join Tokenization Trend With OKX

In the latest crypto news update, financial leaders Standard Chartered and Brevan Howard are gradually adopting tokenization.

As revealed in a partnership update with top crypto exchange OKX, these firms plan to enter the real-world asset tokenization niche.

By making this move, these companies plan to offer their users, particularly their institutional clients, a new opportunity to utilize the growing niche of cryptocurrencies and tokenized money market funds.

Crypto News: Mutually Beneficial RWA Tokenization Alliance

On April 10, OKX announced that it had piloted a world-leading collateral mirroring program.

It achieved this in collaboration with Standard Chartered and supported by Brevan Howard.

According to its description, this platform allows institutions to use crypto and tokenized assets as trading collateral.

As part of their agreement, Standard Chartered will serve as an independent collateral custodian, enhancing capital efficiency and client protection.

OKX sees the mirroring program as a core alternative for institutions, offering them significantly enhanced security and capital efficiency.

To deliver this feature to institutional clients, it utilizes a Globally Systemically Important Bank (G-SIB) as the custodian for collateral.

Star Xu, the CEO of OKX, described this new development as a means for the exchange to bridge Traditional Finance (TradFi) and crypto assets.

The crypto news also hinted that the program will remain within the framework of the Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA). Xu added,

“This is our commitment to build solutions with high regulatory standard that make industry stronger and we will continue to work hard to keep improve.”

BlackRock BUIDL And Franklin Templeton BENJI

The concept of tokenization is fast gaining traction among top institutions. One thriving tokenized fund is BlackRock’s USD Institutional Digital Liquidity (BUIDL).

It played a key role in the booming market value of tokenized treasuries last year, taking the market value from $719 million to $1.44 billion.

It is worth noting that BlackRock first introduced BUIDL on the Ethereum blockchain on March 20, 2024.

Within a short time, it rose significantly in terms of market cap and holders, and by May 20, BUIDL’s treasury market cap was $40 million.

With this tokenized fund, the asset management firm planned to launch new use cases, which has led to conversations with Binance, OKX, and Deribit.

A few months ago, Franklin Templeton launched its Benji blockchain-integrated system on Coinbase’s Layer 2 network, Base.

This made the firm the first asset manager to offer a tokenized fund on the Coinbase-backed platform.

The Benji Fund is a stable investment fund based on blockchain technology. It invests in low-risk assets backed by the government and allows investors to use tokens representing a traditional money market fund.

How is the US Catching up?

Standard Chartered and Brevan Howard’s decision to trail this part reflects the growing demand for tokenized products and the favorable crypto atmosphere in the United States.

The crypto regulatory landscape has changed since Donald Trump stepped into power as the US President.

Trump was recently accused of intentionally manipulating the stock market through his tariff saga.

Critics like Senator Elizabeth Warren and those in support of his recent actions are accomplices to undermining the potential of risk on assets.

With tokenization, some of the pain points related to transparency are eliminated, as real-time vetting of products is possible.

While other countries have regulations guiding these products, as seen with OKX and VARA, the US also needs to step up in this regard.