Apex Group, the fund and asset servicer, acquired a majority stake in enterprise-grade tokenization solutions provider Tokeny to help catalyse institutional adoption almost a year ago in May 2025. As a result, Apex Group said it is on the way to reaching its target of $100bn in tokenized assets under administration by June 2027.

Agnes Mazurek, global head of digital assets at Apex Group, told Markets Media: “We are certainly seeing momentum. Conversations with clients and the pace of adoption are very significant compared to a couple of years, so that adoption curve is looking really good.”

She described Apex Group’s strategy as bringing the institutional mindset of traditional finance (TradFi) to the decentralised finance (DeFi) environment.

Apex Group expects to eventually have 100% control in Tokeny over the next two years, following an initial investment and strategic partnership formed in December 2023. Luc Falempin, chief executive of Tokeny, said in a statement that becoming part of Apex Group would bring tokenization at scale, and provide institutional distribution and credibility.

Peter Hughes, Apex Group

Peter Hughes, founder and chief executive of Apex Group, established the company in Bermuda in 2003, and it has grown to more than 13,000 people in over 50 jurisdictions. He said in a statement at the time of the Tokeny transaction that the strengthened partnership is key to delivering the vision to become the infrastructure provider in the digital era of finance. He added: “Tokenization is a foundational shift in how assets will be managed, distributed, and accessed.”

For example, launching a fund on a blockchain can democratize access, make record keeping auditable and immutable and allow ownership to be easily transferred.

The Tokeny acquisition was described as a “foundational” step in Apex Group’s strategy to transform asset servicing by using blockchain technology, decentralised protocols, smart contracts and distribution to enhance efficiency, security and transparency.

Mazurek said Hughes started thinking about digitization several years ago as a way to run the business more efficiently and to improve the client experience, and tokenization is the next natural step in the quest for operational efficiencies.

“We started discussing and exploring the operational efficiency angle several years ago, and that led to us initially taking a minority interest in Tokeny,” she added.

Last year the group launched Apex Digital 3.0, a platform based on Tokeny technology. Mazurek described the platform as a “single source”  solution that supports the end-to-end tokenization process. For example, it covers crypto fund servicing, tokenization, stablecoin, and digital distribution that allows clients to apply DeFi style, processes and technologies to TradFi.

“Seamless integration and interoperability are key words,” added Mazurek.

She used the analogy of people with Gmail and Apex Group domain email addresses needing to be able to message one another. Mazurek said: “Imagine a situation where people cannot reach each other because their email domains are different.”

Partnerships

In order to help achieve this seamless integration and interoperability, Apex Group said in March this year that it will adopt the T-REX Ledger as its default multi-chain orchestration infrastructure. The ledger provides a neutral coordination layer for tokenized asset ownership and compliance across multiple blockchain ecosystems.

The T-REX Ledger aggregates and synchronizes investor records, compliance checks, and transfer controls across all connected blockchain ecosystems and traditional financial distribution channels. Compliance is tied to the investor identity rather than the wallet, so that know your customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) controls remain portable and enforceable across every chain and platform without duplication or fragmentation,

In March this year Apex Group said it would expand its digital asset servicing capabilities through a collaboration between the European Depositary Bank (EDB), an Apex Group company, and Zodia Custody, the institution-first digital assets platform, subject to the relevant regulatory approvals for EDB across Luxembourg, Ireland and Malta. This will meet growing demand for secure and compliant access to digital assets so that institutions do not have to build parallel custody infrastructure from the ground up.

Craig Perrin, Zodia Custody

Craig Perrin, managing director FI Solutions at Zodia Custody, said in a statement: “For digital assets to move to the mainstream of institutional finance, the technology and capabilities supporting them must meet the standards of traditional custody.”

Mazurek described forming complementary partnerships as an important part of Apex Group’s strategy. If Apex Group does not  have an internal tool or platform to provide a seamless journey for clients, the firm will look to plug that gap.

“That is why we call ourselves single source,” she added. “We recognize there are players who have already invested a considerable amount of time and brain cells into developing their own enterprises.”

Differentiation

Mazurek argued that a differentiator for Apex Group is being early in technology and a first mover. She added: What makes us unique is that we have already delivered on this value proposition.”

Agnes Mazurek, Apex Group

Back in 2024 Hamilton Lane, the private markets investment management firm, said it would begin to offer tokenized versions of funds via the Allfunds blockchain platform to streamline fund operations and increase investor access. Apex Group is the transfer agent.

Fast forward to March this year and Apex Group helped Coinbase Asset Management launch the tokenized Coinbase Bitcoin Yield Fund using its global transfer agency capabilities to deliver a digitally native share class within a fully compliant framework. Investor onboarding is conducted through the CBAM Investor Portal powered by Tokeny, ensuring every participant is linked to a compliant onchain identity.

Coinbase Asset Management also plans to launch a tokenized share class for its Coinbase US Bitcoin Yield Fund with Apex Group, according to a statement.

Mazurek said: “Our solution is truly single source and already has a track record. We are very focused on making sure that the solutions we deliver at scale are robust and compliant with relevant regulations.”

Apex Group services more than $3 trillion of assets, so Mazurek added that leveraging existing relationships is a priority, but the firm also wants to build on the wider market interest in tokenization.

Nominations for Markets Media Group’s 2026 Women in Finance Asia Awards will close on April 10.

The event will be held as an evening gala at the Mandarin Oriental Singapore on May 21, 2026.

Now in its eighth year, the WIFAA program has come a long way since its inaugural luncheon in Hong Kong in 2019.

WIFAA honors the most talented and accomplished women across the full landscape of Asian financial markets — including buy-side and sell-side trading desks, institutional investors, wealth managers, securities exchanges, technology providers, corporate finance, venture capital firms, and fintech start-ups.

Last year’s winners included Satoko Kobayashi of BlackRock for COO of the Year; Ellie Lai of Instinet for Excellence in Legal & Compliance (Sell-side); and Sue Lee of Citi for Excellence in Leadership.

As with all Markets Media awards programs, nominees are submitted by our readers, with shortlists and winners determined by the editorial team in consultation with the WIFAA Advisory Board.

Nominate here by April 10.

Morgan Stanley Investment Management listed the Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust, MSBT, on NYSE Arca on 8 April 2026. The firm is the first U.S. bank-affiliated asset manager to offer a cryptocurrency exchange-traded product.

Ally Wallace, global head of ETF strategy at Morgan Stanley Investment Management, said in a statement: “ETPs remain a powerful way for investors to gain exposure to new asset classes within a transparent and regulated framework. With MSBT, we’re extending our product offering to meet growing client interest in digital assets.”

Eric Balchunas, senior ETF analyst for Bloomberg, said on X:

Trading day is half over and $MSBT is at $27m in volume so it's def going to clear my $30m estimate. Prob end up around $50m, which is huge, Top 1% of ETF launches, only two I can recall that were in this range in past year are $BSOL, $XRPC and $DRAM (all around $60m) pic.twitter.com/RylAwtAVz9

— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) April 8, 2026

SEMI-SHOCK: Morgan Stanley's bitcoin ETF will charge 14bps, making it the cheapest spot bitcoin ETF on the market and 11bps cheaper than $IBIT. This means none of their advisors will feel conflicted using it and they have shot at getting outside assets. Smart. Launch prob in next… https://t.co/hxg3O1y6tR pic.twitter.com/BEiguHtXzo

— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) March 27, 2026

Nic Puckrin, chief executive of  Coin Bureau, a digital platform dedicated to cryptocurrency education and information, said: “Morgan Stanley has $1.9T in AUM and 15,000 financial advisors. That’s a distribution channel BlackRock doesn’t have. The institutionalisation of Bitcoin just got a new chapter.”

Morgan Stanley just launched the cheapest Bitcoin ETF on the market.

0.14% annual fee.

BlackRock charges 0.25%. Fidelity charges 0.25%. Every major competitor charges more.

The largest wealth manager in the US just entered the Bitcoin ETF race and opened with the lowest price…

— Nic (@nicrypto) April 8, 2026

Phong Le, chief executive of bitcoin treasury company Strategy, said:

In the last month, Morgan Stanley, Charles Schwab, and Citadel — among the world’s largest wealth managers, broker-dealers, and hedge funds — have announced plans to build Bitcoin capabilities. Probably nothing.

— Phong Le (@phongle) April 6, 2026

The ETP tracks the performance of bitcoin as measured by the CoinDesk Bitcoin Benchmark 4PM NY Settlement Rate, which is calculated by aggregating executed trade flow of major bitcoin spot exchanges. The ETP’s delegated sponsor fee of 0.14% is currently the lowest bitcoin ETP sponsor fee, according to Morgan Stanley Investment Management.

Coinbase and BNY are providing digital asset custody services for MSBT. BNY is also the administrator and transfer agent and will provide accounting, recordkeeping and cash management services.

Digital asset strategy

Morgan Stanley Investment Management said the launch reflects a continued, firmwide focus to develop digital asset solutions to meet evolving client demand. For example, Morgan Stanley recently appointed dedicated leadership to guide digital asset strategies across the firm and is making ongoing efforts to expand institutional-grade capabilities across custody, trading and product development.

Amy Oldenburg, Morgan Stanley

Amy Oldenburg, head of digital asset strategy at Morgan Stanley, said in a statement: “Digital assets are increasingly intersecting with traditional markets, and our focus is on helping clients access that evolution through structures they understand and trust.”

Oldenburg was previously head of emerging markets equity at Morgan Stanley Investment Management and took on her current role in February 2026, according to her LinkedIn profile.

In addition, Morgan Stanley’s retail broker E*TRADE is due to launch trading for  bitcoin, ethereum, and solana in the first half of this year, in partnership with Zerohash, a digital asset infrastructure provider.

Crypto ETF demand

Crypto exchange BitGo said in its Market Pulse newsletter that bitcoin spot ETFs accumulated $1.3bn in net inflows in March this year, breaking a four-month streak of outflows. The newsletter said: “Bitcoin spot ETFs recorded their first month of net inflows since October, a notable reversal after several consecutive months of redemptions that saw outflows peak near -35K BTC in November 2025.”

Source: BitGo

Matthew Kimmell, digital asset analyst at CoinShares, said in the European asset manager’s 2026 outlook that last year was transformative as bitcoin became meaningfully integrated into the fabric of the U.S. financial system. He highlighted that bitcoin has been securitised into a preferred product structure, the spot physical ETF; an options market has formed around the top ETF in this structure, which has reduced volatility; and regulators have removed restrictions in retirement plans.

However he still believes that institutions “have not yet arrive“ for bitcoin.

Matthew Kimmell, CoinShares

“Despite Bitcoin securities being green-lit by the SEC, and traded on US exchanges, they are still seriously limited in access along the primary wealth management channels,” said Kimmell. “Those that manage money are often restricted in one form or another — in what they can actively recommend/solicit, which clients can hold allocations, which account types are eligible, or the size of allocations allowed.”

Kimmell’s expectations for 2026 included:

“The four major US wirehouses formally open solicited Bitcoin ETF allocations within discretionary portfolios (Morgan Stanley, Merrill, UBS, Wells Fargo).

– At least one major 401(k) provider allows bitcoin allocations via the ETFs (Fidelity, Empower, Vanguard, Principal).

– At least two major custody banks begin providing services to directly custody and settlebitcoin transactions for institutional clients (JPM, BNY, State Street, Citi)”

Financial services group BBH said in its 2026 Global ETF Investor Survey that investors are embracing active strategies. The report said: “Investors are returning to basics, counting on equities and fixed income for alpha while largely shying away from riskier bets, with downshifts in enthusiasm from last year in areas such as crypto.”

BBH said that as crypto prices have fallen, enthusiasm for the asset type is “chilling.”

Source: BBH 2026 Global ETF Investor Survey

“Last year, crypto was tied for the top spot (26%) for asset classes investors thought would see the best performance over the following 12 months,” added BBH. “Crypto is now fourth in that ranking at 11%.”

In March this year CoinShares said it became the first regulated European asset manager to combine decentralised finance (DeFi) protocol yields with tokenized real world assets in a single institutional-grade product.

Jérôme Castille, head of compliance & regulatory affairs – France at CoinShares, told Markets Media that the asset managers original intention was to launch onchain products and the infrastructure is now ready for tokenized products.

Jérôme Castille, CoinShares

Castille said Coinshares has been waiting for institutions to tokenize assets for a “long time” and the market ha developed to allow portfolio managers to increase onchain allocations. He added: “Now is the time for crypto to grow.”

CoinShares is a traditional regulated asset manager, but Castille said it may also be the only one with an  authorisation under MiCA, the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation. The dual authorizations enable CoinShares to allocate across regulated securities, tokenized financial instruments and native crypto markets under a single compliant framework.

“This is the first vehicle worldwide to bring together traditional and digital assets, and the first European vault,” he added.

Castille described a vault as a new onchain vehicle that creates a corporate structure for funds. The vault needs a legal structure to put assets onchain with a smart contract replacing the fund structure. The assets in the vault are deployed in lending markets to generate yield by a a curator who selects the markets and risk manages the exposure. In the U.S. Bitwise Asset Management launched its first offering as the curator of a non-custodial vault in January this year.

“In the long term, vaults will become the default mechanism for asset management but this will take time,” said Castille. “This will be the infrastructure for the next decade.”

CoinShares aims to provide the strategy to platforms and fintechs who are sitting on large stablecoin balances, on which they do not earn interest, while they are competing to retain their customers.

“The potential market is huge,” said Castille. “We want to provide yield without them having to use complex DeFi strategies.”

At launch, CoinShares’ vault will allocate assets across four yield buckets – DeFi protocols, tokenized money market funds and ETFs, institutional repo and market neutral strategies.

Smart contracts give CoinShares the ability to actively manage allocations across these buckets with automatic orders flows and automatic calculation of the net asset value, according to Castille. He added: “As an asset manager, we will focus on active allocations through the smart contract.”

JM Mognetti, CoinShares

CoinShares has set some thresholds but will actively manage the exposures and will rebalance every week. Jean-Marie Mognetti, chief executive and co-founder of CoinShares, highlighted in a statement that the strategy is not a single-protocol yield product. Instead, the strategy allocates across multiple independent risk premia – credit, liquidity provision, secured financing, and relative value – in one regulated framework.

Castille explained that DeFi provides the big liquidity bucket that gives investors the ability to subscribe and redeem 24/7. He said: “We will not make any compromises on liquidity, which will be first priority.”

There is a lot of value in bringing together traditional asset management and DeFi, especially for diversification, according to Castille. He argued that  DeFi is very liquid, programmable, and available 24/7 while traditional assets are more secure.

Castille stressed that CoinShares will be “very conservative” in its DeFi allocations, and will only deploy capital on the biggest markets against eligible collateral. He said: “We won’t be playing with fancy coins to get big yields.”

Railnet

CoinShares is partnering with Kiln, the institutional onchain yield infrastructure provider, to launch the strategy.

“We love the separation of duties as Kiln is building the infrastructure to connect the smart contract to the pool of assets, third parties and distribution using its Railnet protocol,” added Castille.

Railnet provides the infrastructure connecting multiple markets and venues, enabling CoinShares to execute its allocation decisions across diverse yield sources in a single auditable framework. Mognetti said Railnet technology allows CoinShares to access yield sources that others cannot reach and combine them in ways others cannot structure, allowing CoinShares to become “the one-stop shop for digital asset investment.”

Laszlo Szabo, Kiln

Laszlo Szabo, chief executive and co-founder of Kiln and Railnet, said in a statement that Railnet was built as the foundational layer for the next era of finance. CoinShares can focus on identifying value, managing risk, and designing new investment products while Railnet can handle the complexity of financial time, settlement, and constraints, providing the rails for a more trustworthy, efficient, and institution-ready financial system.

Szabo said: “As blockchains increase the velocity of global capital, verifiable and programmable constraints become essential.”

Growth potential

CoinShares said the launch of onchain asset management represents the third pillar of its investment platform alongside its crypto exchange-traded products and its active alternative strategies designed to generate alpha, Mognetti said: “Onchain is not another crypto product. It’s a new distribution rail.”

Bitwise said in its 10 Crypto Predictions for 2026 that a wave of high-quality vault curators will enter the market this year drawing billions of dollars of capital into the vaults they manage. Vaults emerged in a meaningful way in 2024, according to Bitwise, with assets rising from less than $0.1bn to $2.3bn.

Soource: Bitwise

“Interest surged in 2025, with assets under management peaking at $8.8bn before the October 2025 volatility spike led to losses across poorly managed strategies,” said Bitwise. “Since then, the assets under management  in vaults has retracted. But that won’t last for long.”

CoinShares’ 2026 Digital Asset Outlook said ‘hybrid finance’ is merging crypto ecosystems with traditional financial systems.

“As public blockchains prove their robustness, scalability and efficiency, traditional financial institutions are increasingly adopting them for settlement, liquidity, custody and product issuance,” said the report. “It is visible in the strong growth of stablecoins, decentralised exchange activity, tokenized real world assets and revenue generating on chain applications.”

Mognetti said in the report that if 2025 was the year of the graceful return, 2026 looks positioned to be a year of consolidation into the real economy. The 2026 outlook forecast that major wirehouses would formally open Bitcoin ETF allocations, at least one major 401(k) provider would enable crypto access, and custody banks would provide direct institutional settlement services.

Dimensional Fund Advisors launched the first actively managed share class ETF in the U.S. on 20 March 2026. The US Micro Cap ETF is a share class of the firm’s first mutual fund, the US Micro Cap Portfolio, which launched in 1981 to systematically invest in the smallest U.S stocks. The fund has since delivered 1.44% of annualized outperformance over its benchmark since its first full month, according to Dimensional.

Gerard O’Reilly, Dimensional Fund Advisors

Gerard O’Reilly, co-chief executive and co-chief investment officer of Dimensional Fund Advisors, said in a statement: “Broader adoption of the share class structure can offer millions of American investors potential benefits of increased tax efficiency and cost savings from economies of scale.”

Financial services group BBH said in its 2026 Global ETF Investor Survey that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s approval of Dimensional adding ETF share classes broke a long-running market impasse. Previously, only Vanguard had been able to create ETF share classes from its mutual funds via a unique patent which lapsed in 2023, according to the report.

BBH added: “Its decision could trigger the creation of a wave of new ETF share classes of mutual funds.”

Source: BBH

BBH’s survey found that over three quarters of respondents would invest in an ETF share class of a mutual fund.

Dimensional has been engaging the SEC on ETF share class exemptive relief since 2019 and filed its application in 2023. Rob Harvey, co-head of product specialists at Dimensional Fund Advisors, told Markets Media that the firm wanted to launch an active ETF share class to empower investors and give them more choice. He said the SEC’s concerns included fair treatment  of investors in both the mutual fund and ETF share class in terms of fees and trading costs, and differences in transparency, as ETFs disclose their holdings on a daily basis.

Rob Harvey, Dimensional Fund Advisors

Mutual fund-class shareholders can gain from lower transaction costs and greater tax efficiency, while ETF-class shareholders may benefit from more efficient rebalancing using mutual fund cash flows and lower total portfolio transaction costs.

Harvey said Dimensional first launched the US Micro Cap ETF due to demand from advisors, and because the asset manager wanted to first add the share class to mutual fund strategies that did not already have a standalone ETF. He added: “We have more than 100 mutual funds, so we have a lot to do.”

ETF servicing

State Street was the service provider for Dimensional Fund Advisors’ approved ETF share class structure. Support includes custody, fund accounting, ETF basket creation, create / redeem order management, ETF settlement, transfer agency and reporting. The firm supports more than 3,000 ETFs and $8.1 trillion across 15 countries.

Jeff Sardinha, head of ETF solutions – Americas State Street, told Markets Media that Dimensional wanted one service provider to make the overall operating model work better. He said that when State Street launched the first ETF and supported the first operating model, it created technology that allowed ETFs to live side by side with mutual funds to provide a seamless operating model around the globe.

Jeff Sardinha, State Street

Sardinha added: “Being able to support both mutual funds and ETFs in the U.S. on a single platform from order taking to the transfer agency makes it easier to get the products up and running.”

He continued that the whole industry has been discussing the operational challenges of adding an ETF share class to a mutual fund since Dimensional made its filing. For example, mutual funds break down individual expenses while ETFs have just one si combined fee; and there are also differences in their accounting treatments.

One of the biggest challenges was exchange privileges, which allows shareholders of a mutual fund to exchange shares of their mutual funds for the equivalent value of ETF shares in the same fund on a non-taxable basis. In addition, ETFs also operate intra-day and subscription/redemption activity is completed by 4pm ET, while this is not the case with mutual funds.

“There are existing industry utilities and DTCC and its Fund/SERV offering did quite a bit of work with the industry to bring ETF share classes into this existing capability,” added Sardinha. “That was very helpful.”

For example, Fund/SERV is due to deliver technology later this year to automate and standardise exchange privileges which will connect the necessary intermediaries.

Active ETF growth

Global assets in actively managed ETFs climbed to a new record of $2.15 trillion at the end of February this year, according to ETFGI, an independent research and consultancy. Net inflows into active ETFs in the first two months of this year were also a record $167.6bn.

Two thirds, 66%, of investors prefer active management over passive in the next 12 months, according to the BBH survey. Nearly all the survey respondents, 94%, also believe active ETFs will reach $10 trillion in assets within 10 years, an expected annual growth rate of 20%.

Deborah Fuhr, managing partner and founder of ETFGI, said in the BBH report that the 20% growth rate for the active ETF market seems realistic, and may be an understatement following the SEC approval of ETF share classes.

Deborah Fuhr, ETFGI

“There’s strong investor demand in the US for mutual fund managers to convert their mutual funds, private funds, and SMAs, or offer strategies in the ETF wrapper,” she added. “We’ve already seen significant mutual fund to ETF conversions, and this could accelerate flows further – $10 trillion assets under management within the next seven years is possibly a conservative estimate.”

There are approximately 98 SEC filings for ETF share classes including new ETF issuers, according to Sardinha, with five or six prospectuses for products. Sardinha added there are firms that are looking at the ETF share class as an entry point. He said State Street is having many conversations about ETF share classes and he expects to see more firms to make filings with real products.

“A year from now, I don’t think 98 firms will have added an ETF share class but there will definitely be more than Dimensional,” added Sardinha.

Harvey said other firms will be able to use Dimensional’s approved filing as a template to launch ETF share classes. Although there have been a large number of applications, managers will still need to address the SEC’s concerns such as the disclosure of holdings and ETF fees versus mutual fund fees. He said: “They will have to do some soul searching.”

Dimensional is the largest active ETF provider in terms of assets with $286.3bn, reflecting 13.3% market share, according to ETFGI. JP Morgan Asset Management is second with $268.7bn and 12.5% market share, followed by BlackRock’s iShares with $128.5bn and 6% market share.

In October last year Dimensional Fund Advisors launched its first ETFs in the UK and Europe – the Global Core Equity UCITS ETF and the Global Targeted Value UCITS ETF.

Crypto trading has traditionally relied on pre-funding transactions, which traps capital across venues. To restore capital efficiency, institutions are migrating toward credit-first execution models and T+0 atomic settlement on trade date, according to a report from Finery Markets, a crypto electronic communication network (ECN).

The report, Would Anyone Miss Banking Rails? : The Next Institutional Crypto Cycle, 2026–2030, said 2026 could be the trigger for a new institutional cycle.

“Regulation is in place, and major industry participation is real, not projected,” added the report. “Speculative growth driven by price momentum no longer delivers actual adoption; instead, use cases and infrastructure provide the scalable foundation igniting the transition to mature capital markets.”

The historical “pure” exchange model, where a customer custodies assets into an exchange’s omnibus wallet, is being rapidly dismantled, according to Finery Markets.  Instead execution has been separated from custody, driven by events such as the failure of crypto exchange FTX and the institutional demands of traditional finance (tradFi).

“This forced a migration toward off-exchange custody and settlement networks,” added Finery. “Today, tier one institutions are aggressively migrating away from ‘pre-funding’ models in favor of capital-neutral execution.”

ECNs act solely as an execution layer to connect liquidity takers and market makers, while settlement happens bilaterally or via a third-party clearing or settlement layer, according to Finery. The report added: “In this new ecosystem, the venue that wins is not the one that hoards the most assets, but the one that connects the most efficiently to the rest of the stack.”

Source: Finery Markets

Finery argued there is a ‘fragmentation tax’ as prefunding requirements lock up capital at venues. In contrast, in tradFi there are sophisticated credit-check frameworks for trading with custody, clearing, and execution operating independently. Finery said this ‘Chinese Wall’ approach prevents localized defaults from causing systemic contagion.

“We believe that in 2026, the search for profitability in institutional crypto may shift from “spread-chasing” to a sophisticated focus on capital efficiency,” added Finery. “As the market matures and regulatory clarity solidifies, the reduction of the cost of capital will emerge as the most viable path to sustainable return on investment for large-scale players.”

Digital asset custody

Nearly all, 89%, of banks and asset managers exploring the tokenization of financial assets said digital asset storage and custody is a top priority, according to a survey from Ripple, the financial technology company that offers crypto solutions for businesses.

Ripple surveyed 1,000+ global finance leaders in 2026. A few things stood out: https://t.co/414dTO9Qit

→ 72% say digital assets are now table stakes to stay competitive
→ 74% see stablecoins as a cash-flow tool, not just a payment rail
→ 89% of those surveyed say digital…

— Ripple (@Ripple) March 19, 2026

Ripple said early three quarters of respondents, 72%, said finance leaders must offer a digital asset solution to remain competitive. Token servicing/lifecycle management also ranks highly for banks at 82%, while asset managers place greater emphasis on primary distribution at 80%.

“This emphasis on custody extends into crypto-enabled payments adoption,” added Ripple. “Among respondents actively exploring stablecoin collections (accepting stablecoins on behalf of customers) or payments, 57% want a partner that offers integrated custody, orchestration and compliance services so they can avoid holding stablecoin balances directly.”

The Ripple survey also found that more than half of fintechs and financial institutions want a provider that offers a one-stop-shop solution, which rises to 71% among corporates. Ripple argued that managing multiple vendors across support areas introduces complexity at a time when governance standards are tightening.

“Institutions want partners capable of delivering cohesive systems that reduce integration overhead while maintaining high security and compliance standards,” said Ripple.

Post-trade

Market participants view the most powerful innovations of tokenization in post-trade operations. More than half, 55%, of respondents said continuous clearing and settlement was the biggest benefit of tokenization due to the increase in capital efficiency, according to a survey from consultancy Crisil Coalition Greenwich.

Source: Crisil Coalition Greenwich

For example, digital assets can be used 24/7 so if a firm receives a margin call over a weekend when the banking system is closed, tokenized assets can be used as collateral  immediately.The report, How the capital markets feel about tokenization, cited Tradeweb recently moving U.S. Treasuries and U.K. gilts a collateral  outside traditional market hours via the Canton network for repo transactions.

David Easthope, Crisil Coalition Greenwich

David Easthope, senior analyst in the market structure & technology practice at Crisil Coalition Greenwich, said in a statement: “The ability to tokenize stocks, bonds and other traditional assets, transfer them instantaneously and post them as collateral is going to be a potent force for positive change.”

The survey said fixed income will lead tokenization and one third of study participants believe the asset class will benefit the most from tokenization.

Finery Markets said in its report that adapting to a 24/7/365 infrastructure requires solving highly fragmented price discovery and a “strategic infrastructure policy” to drive back-office efficiencies.

“By integrating automated, onchain compliance, institutions can dismantle fragmented silos and radically reduce the bloated $2,598 average cost per client onboarded,” said Finery.

Plume, the blockchain for tokenized real world assets, has launched a “first-of-its-kind’ pilot to use shares of a tokenized money market fund from asset manager WisdomTree to pay employees.

The pilot has been developed with Toku, the stablecoin payroll provider that can integrate with existing payroll software. Plume employees have the option to receive a portion of their pay in shares of a regulated tokenized money-market fund, WTGXX, rather than receiving all compensation in cash. Participation is voluntary and subject to employees meeting WisdomTree Prime eligibility requirements, including wallet verification.

James Huang, Plume

James Huang, head of operations at Plume, said in a statement: “By allowing employees to receive part of their salary directly into regulated, yield-bearing money-market funds, we’re showing how real world assets can move beyond investment products and become everyday financial infrastructure.”

The pilot removes the need for employees to buy crypto themselves, interact with exchanges, or manually move funds onchain. They will earn yield on the compensation received in fund shares from the day it is paid onchain.

Plume purchases the corresponding fund shares via WisdomTree Connect and delivers those shares to participating employees, who will hold the shares in verified wallets linked to their WisdomTree Prime account.

Source: WisdomTree

Maredith Hannon, head of business development, digital assets at WisdomTree, said on X:

A real-world use case for tokenization: payroll.

Today we announced a pilot with @plumenetwork + @usetoku:

• Plume (employer) buys our tokenized MMF (WTGXX) via @WTConnect
• Employees (@WisdomTreePrime users) opt to receive part of pay in WTGXX
• Shares are delivered…

— Maredith (@MaredithH1) March 31, 2026

Plume pilots payroll that pays part of salary in WTGXX fund shares, yielding from payday via automatic token conversion and wallet delivery. Smart, pragmatic step that lowers onchain friction and could nudge tokenized assets toward mainstream use.

— Nifty (@nifty0x) March 31, 2026

Plume pilots tokenised payroll with WisdomTree funds. This is the consumer entry point that was missing. NYSE tokenises equities. Circle tokenises dollars. Midas tokenises Treasuries. Now Plume tokenises your salary. Once payroll is in everything follows. @CoinDesk @WSJ

— Nikhil Chalasani (@nikhilchalasani) March 31, 2026

WisdomTree’s tokenized funds

in February this year WisdomTree was granted relief by the Securities and Exchange Commission to launch 24/7 trading and instant settlement capabilities for its tokenized Treasury Money Market Digital Fund (WTGXX)  The asset manager said this structural innovation via regulatory relief has not been seen since the introduction of exchange-traded funds.

Will Peck, head of digital assets at WisdomTree, told Markets Media at the time that this marks the first time registered tokenized mutual fund shares have been permitted to trade and instantly settle 24/7 within the U.S. regulatory perimeter via a dealer-principal liquidity model.

In its fourth quarter results WisdomTree said tokenized assets under management reached $770m by the end of 2025, up from essentially zero at the end of the previous year, which the firm said reflects real adoption and growing client trust. WisdomTree Connect grew from four onboarded institutions to 29 in 2025 and the number of wallets holding WisdomTree assets rose to more than 3,500.

Source: WisdomTree

In the results presentation WisdomTree said the early growth curve of tokenized real world assets exceeds the early ETF adoption in the 1990s and the firm is looking to expand the adoption of its total tokenized product lineup further including gold, equities, and more.

Northern Trust is aiming to launch servicing for exchange-traded funds this year as the growth of ETFs is expected to continue and more mutual funds are looking to enter the space

Phil Nanof, head of ETF Services, Americas at Northern Trust joined the firm in December 2024 to build the new capability. Northern Trust already services ETFs in Europe and Asia Pacific so Nanof told Markets Media that this is an extension of what the firm does “very well” today.

Phil Nanof, Northern Trust

He told Markets Media: “We are investing significantly in the build out of proprietary infrastructure to support the unique aspects of U.S. ETFs.”

Nanof said ETFs continue to benefit from some very powerful structural and regulatory tailwinds. Assets invested in U.S. ETFs reached a record $14.3 trillion at the end of February this year, surpassing the previous high of $13.9 trillion in January 2026, according to ETFGI, the independent research and consultancy firm. In February this year net inflows were $192.3bn, bringing year‑to‑date net inflows to a record $359bn.

“There is a lot of innovation with over 1,000 ETFs launched last year in the U.S. and there is no indication this will slow down,” Nanof added.

Source: ETFGI

Northern Trust’s strategy of launching U.S. ETF servicing is fundamentally about supporting existing mutual fund clients as they expand into ETFs. They want to use the same service model and operational discipline they trust, according to Nanof. He said the business is having a number of conversations with existing asset management clients who are not yet in the ETF space.

“Our timeline, in terms of going live, depends upon our clients’ ability to get themselves ready,” said Nanof. “I am optimistic that we will be live in the U.S. in the third quarter.”

ICE ETF Hub

In March this year Northern Trust said in a statement it had entered into an agreement with Intercontinental Exchange to use the ICE ETF Hub as the order‑taking platform for its U.S. ETFservicing capability.

ICE ETF Hub provides a secure, scalable technology infrastructure that streamlines ETF primary market workflows and connects directly with authorized participants, market makers, distributors, and other essential participants in the ETF ecosystem.

Creating and redeeming ETFs requires the negotiation of large baskets of securities between issuers, authorized participants and market makers. Historically, the processes for custom negotiations were extremely manual with market participants using a combination of phone, email, chat or spreadsheets to agree to baskets. The need to manually copy and paste data led to errors and made the process take much longer.

Peter Borstelmann, ICE

Peter Borstelmann, president of ICE Bonds, said in a statement: “Following a playbook that ICE has used since its founding of moving markets from analog to digital, the ICE ETF Hub, with over $5 trillion in order notional processed since inception, was designed to standardize and automate the ETF creation and redemption process to provide workflow efficiencies and connectivity that ETF issuers and service providers can rely on,”

Nanof described integrating ICE ETF Hub as a key component of the U.S. ETF servicing strategy. He said the collaboration is an important step in deploying Northern Trust’s end‑to‑end, fully automated ETF servicing solution that spans fund administration, custody, and transfer agency.

“Partnering with ICE gives us immediate scale, credibility and connectivity across the ecosystem,” he added. “This would not have been an option 10 years ago but ICE did a great job partnering with other ETF service providers, particularly authorized participants to develop a central utility relatively quickly.”

 Growth prospects

Northern Trust’s asset manager clients are listening to their investors who want to access their strategies, particularly active strategies, via ETFs. Nanof said: “More than 80% of ETFs launched last year were actively managed, so there is no better time to do this.”

The 2026 Global ETF Investor Survey from financial services group BBH found that two thirds, 66%, of investors prefer active management over passive in the next 12 months. Nearly all, 94%, think active ETFs will reach $10 trillion in assets within 10 years, equating to an expected annual growth rate of 20%.

In March this year Dimensional Fund Advisors launched the US Micro Cap ETF, the first actively managed share class ETF in the U.S. The ETF is a share class of the firm’s first fund, the US Micro Cap Portfolio, which launched as a mutual fund in 1981 to use a systematic approach to investing in the smallest stocks in the U.S.

“The launch of the ETF share class for mutual funds in the U.S. also means we are very well positioned to meet and anticipate client needs,” added Nanof. “We are doing this at a time when mutual funds and ETFs are coming together so we can build a support model that suits this convergence.”

Source: BBH

Nanof acknowledged that Northern Trust is entering a competitive market for U.S. ETF servicing. For example, State Street was appointed as service provider for Dimensional Fund Advisors’ ETF share class structure. He argued that Northern Trust’s differentiator is its client-centric approach.

“There is a tried and true playbook for those coming late to a space, which is making a significant capital investment, hiring experience and building something that clients are asking for, and that is what we are doing,” he said.

Northern Trust is establishing a team in Boston, which Nanof said has significant ETF experience that complements the existing servicing teams and relationships as clients are looking for common practices, simplification, governance and oversight. He added: “We are a bolt-on SWAT team of ETF experts.”

The business believes there are opportunities with asset managers in the $2bn to $20bn range who may be looking for differentiation and a better client experience. Although the team is focused on the U.S., Northern Trust will look at ways to harmonize its global operating models and technology.

“This was a great opportunity to build something new to handle the scale and the complexity of the U.S. ETF market,” added Nanof. “Once we demonstrate our expertise with clients we will be able to compete for more global, and more complex, mandates from managers looking for a single service provider.”

Matt Hougan, chief investment officer at Bitwise Asset Management, said at the Digital Asset Summit in New York on 26 March 2026 that all fund management will eventually be carried out through onchain vaults. Bitwise is a crypto fund manager with more than $15bn in client assets.

Bitwise CEO @Matt_Hougan on Digital Asset Management:

"Eventually all asset management will be done through vaults."

Bitwise currently custodies over 193,000,000 $XRP in its ETF Vault pic.twitter.com/yZ77wNjCuf

— ChartNerd (@ChartNerdTA) March 26, 2026

Vaults are similiar to onchain investment funds that accept deposits of a single asset, such as a stablecoin, and deploy the asset in lending markets to generate yield, primarily across decentralised finance (DeFi). They can be described as a portfolio of lending positions that combine liquidity, strategy execution, and risk constraints in one transparent structure, rather than just replicating traditional financial products onchain.

Jonathan Galea, partner at law firm Cahill Gordon & Reindel (UK) LLP, said on LinkedIn that the model is interesting because each vault has a curator, who selects the lending markets and risk manages the exposure.

“The curator also tends to act as allocator, handling the day-to-day capital allocation within those parameters, though the two are technically distinct roles,” Galea added. “Crucially, neither carries custody over deposited assets, as the smart contract enforces the rules, and all allocations are visible onchain.”

Bitwise vault

In January this year Bitwise launched its first offering as the curator of a non-custodial vault powered by Morpho, an onchain platform that provides programmable and non-custodial infrastructure for lending and borrowing.

Dennis Bree, head of institutional sales at Morpho, told Markets Media that vaults are almost programmable mandates. Traditional institutional credit strategies might define eligible collateral, loan-to-value (LTV) ratios or concentration limits but these parameters can be executed automatically and transparently onchain. Morpho’s vault uses a set of smart contracts to programmatically invest funds on behalf of its clients with the aim of generating digital yield. At this point in time, Morpho vaults are native to, and only allocate to, Morpho markets.

The Bitwise strategy on Morpho’s vault currently targets an annual percentage yield of 6%, and the firm could expand into curating other lending strategies or real world asset exposures.

Innovations in asset management only come along every so often:

* 1770s: Closed-end mutual funds
* 1920s: Open-end mutual funds
* 1940s: Hedge funds
* 1970s: Money-market funds, index funds, SMAs
* 1990s: ETFs, target-date funds
* 2020: Vaults

You could quibble around the… https://t.co/4dEs9UqvLQ

— Matt Hougan (@Matt_Hougan) January 26, 2026

Paul Frambot, co-founder and chief executive of Morpho, said in a statement that its vaults are built for institutional use and enable professionally defined risk parameters to be expressed directly onchain. He added: “As major institutions like Bitwise recognise the value in diversified fixed-income strategies in digital assets, vaults are emerging as a core building block of onchain finance strategies.”

Jonathan Man, portfolio manager and head of multi-strategy solutions and DeFi strategies at Bitwise is responsible for the underlying strategy. As the curator of the vault, Bitwise also oversees the vault’s risk framework, including collateral requirements, exposure limits, and allocation parameters.

Man told Markets Media that Bitwise’s launch of a vault is a convergence of two things. He said: “The first is a much more constructive regulatory environment and the second is the explosive adoption of stablecoins.”

The GENIUS Act was passed by the U.S. administration in 2025 and set the first federal framework for stablecoins, but also restricted stablecoin issuers from paying yield. Stablecoins are being used for transactions, such as payments, but holders such as corporate treasuries will want to generate returns.

Jonathan Man, Bitwise

Most of the current stablecoin issuers are crypto-native firms but Bitwise expects the biggest growth factor will be general adoption. Man said: “We want to be part of that, and made that a priority for the firm. Being here early is important for us.”

Morpho’s platform provides different yield-generating and lending mechanisms, which are then evaluated by Bitwise, who allocate assets based on their risk appetite. Man said: “We have built in a lot of real-time risk monitoring and wrote an  algorithm that encodes asset movements automatically.”

Off chain, in traditional finance, there are currently concerns about credit quality and possible defaults in the world of private credit. Man highlighted that he spent 17 years in traditional finance at CIBC Capital Markets which included CMBS, credit and fixed income derivatives trading, so he is familiar with credit issues.  He argued that, as a curator, Bitwise tries to understand the risks associated with each opportunity that could go into the vault and would not sacrifice risk management just for higher yield.

“We are fiduciaries so we treat risk management very seriously and bring that to the vault business as well,” added Man.

Man continued that even though crypto assets are volatile, the lending markets have not suffered any bad debt, as there is always an automatic liquidation mechanism. Bitwise technology constantly monitors the health of the lending markets, and allocations will be decreased automatically if leverage increases. He said: “It runs fully automatically but we have alerting systems to wake up personnel around the world if necessary.”

Morpho’s onchain lending platform

Man said Bitwise chose Morpho as the firm is “one of the category definers.”

“Until Morpho came to market there really wasn’t the idea of a risk curator so they kind of created this whole category,” added Man. “We see them as one of the highest executing teams in DeFi and they also have a great track record from a security standpoint.

Dennis Bree, Morpho

Bree continued that Morpho invites invite banks and financial institutions to access onchain credit using their own risk parameters and strategies that align with their current investment mandates.

“You can think about us as a modular AWS for onchain credit,” Bree added. “We have transparent, programmable tools that allow institutions to understand the flow of funds and who owns those funds.”

In February this year Morpho was integrated into Taurus-PROTECT, a digital asset custody and servicing technology solution to enable banks, asset managers, and other financial institutions to access onchain lending strategies and develop yield products. Taurus’ integration will be made available to more than 40 financial institutions across four continents. Bree said that before this integration, institutions wanting to access DeFI had to move their assets out of their traditional custodian which created risk and operational complexity. Now, their assets do not have to leave a regulated environment.

Victor Busson, CMO at Taurus, said in a statement: “Custody technology providers are becoming the critical access layer between traditional finance institutions and onchain markets. Taurus’ integration with Morpho marks a structural shift – we allow institutions to engage at scale with Morpho onchain credit markets and develop innovative products on top of banking-grade financial infrastructure.”

Morpho has a “very strong” pipeline with traditional institutions, according to Bree.

FalconX’s private credit vault

In March 2025 digital asset prime broker FalconX said in a statement that it had launched the first institutional structured credit facility that was structured and tokenized onchain. The statement said: “This facility transforms institutional lending by packaging FalconX-originated loans into a structured product that investors can now access through a private credit vault.”

FalconX originates institutional loans, packages them into a structured product that institutional investors can access through a private credit vault launched by Pareto, a DeFi protocol specializing in onchain credit markets. M11 Credit, the credit investment arm of digital asset investment firm Maven 11, serves as the vault curator. The prime broker uses  a multi-layered risk framework with real-time collateral monitoring, automated margin calls, and a cross-exchange liquidation engine designed to safeguard institutional credit.

Craig Birchall, head of lending, Americas at FalconX, told Markets Media that the vault is a bankruptcy remote entity  which is essentially an over-collateralized pool of loans, for which there will be regular reporting.

Craig Birchall, FalconX

Birchall said different vaults will offer different yields and liquidity structures. He said: “From a risk management standpoint it is relatively safe.There are tried-and-tested partners, relatively straightforward liquidation methodologies and custodial frameworks.”

He said it was important to launch the private credit vault last year for the firm to scale its lending business and create financing partners and relationships.

“We thought we should be at the forefront of bringing the benefits of efficiency and transparency of tokenization and onchain markets to ourselves and to lenders,” added Birchall.

He described the vault as a “win-win for everyone.” FalconX needs funds to grow its financing business and can provide lenders with access to onchain yield.

Birchall highlighted the balancing act required in private credit where onchain money is able to be used 24/7 and lockups.

“We think we have found something that is nicely in the middle,” he said. “It’s not a quarterly lock up, but you also cannot redeem in five minutes, so we think that model has worked.”

In August last year DeFi firm Gauntlet launched a levered strategy for FalconX Credit Vault (CV) tokens in partnership with Pareto and powered by Morpho. The strategy uses FalconX CV tokens as collateral to borrow USDC stablecoin and purchase more CV tokens within strict risk parameters set by Gauntlet’s optimization engine. Gauntlet said in a statement that this collaboration further bridges traditional finance and decentralized finance and showcases how onchain real world assets can operate as composable building blocks for institutional portfolios.

Birchall said: “The lenders into the vault have found ways to leverage tokens that are representative of their investments into different strategies. It is interesting to see a secondary market related to our vault, which starts a flywheel.”

He continued that having first mover advantage is helpful and the firm has received a lot of interest in porting onto different chains or supporting different assets in a vault. For example, in December last year FalconX’s lending desk integrated Kamino, a  decentralized fixed rate lending protocol on Solana, into its lending and structured product offerings.

“We have expanded our onchain presence in the last year,” said Birchall. “FalconX bridges the onchain and offchain worlds and we pride ourselves on marrying all those pools of liquidity to be able to service clients for their trading.”

FalconX is also looking at different strategies which it could bring into vaults onchain.

“We are always going to have a nexus to the digital asset ecosystem, but we also have to be cognizant of the types of risks that our lenders are expecting,” added Birchall.

Source: Bitwise

Growth predictions

Man said Bitwise believes vaults will end up being like the equivalent of an ETF wrapper in this new digital world. He added: “As more people warm to this idea, they are going to see this is a fast growing area, and that the types of strategies that you can achieve in DeFIi are unique and compelling.”

Galea said his law firm is seeing “notable” interest from asset managers and financial institutions in vault structures. He added: “As more exotic implementations emerge, the legal questions will become more nuanced. An interesting year lies ahead for DeFi, with the U.S. CLARITY Act still working through the Senate and, hopefully, edging closer towards reality.”

Bitwise said in its 10 Crypto Predictions for 2026 that a wave of high-quality vault curators will enter the market in this year drawing billions of dollars of capital into the vaults they manage. Vaults emerged in a meaningful way in 2024, according to Bitwise, with assets rising from less than $0.1 bn to $2.3bn.

“Interest surged in 2025, with assets under management peaking at $8.8bn before the October 2025 volatility spike led to losses across poorly managed strategies,” said Bitwise. “Since then, the assets under management  in vaults has retracted. But that won’t last for long.”

Tradeweb Markets, an operator of electronic marketplaces for rates, credit, equities, and money markets, launched its U.S. trading platform for exchange-traded funds 10 years ago and adoption of automated trading has continually increased.

Adam Gould, global head of equities at Tradeweb, told Markets Media that when the firm opened the platform, it was clear that ETFs were here to stay as they provide efficiency, intraday liquidity and favorable tax treatment relative to other products. He said: “It was a calculated gamble, but I don’t think anybody could have anticipated just how much ETFs would take off in terms of the body of clients and exposures to different asset classes and strategies in the wrapper.”

Global ETF assets reached a record $21.2 trillion at end of February this year, according to ETFGI, an independent research and consultancy firm. Since launching, Tradeweb’s U.S. ETF trading platform has executed $3.8 trillion in total trading volume, including a record $930bn in 2025 across a growing base of close to 200 clients globally according to a blog from Gould.

Source: Tradeweb

In the blog Gould described ETFs as the “Swiss army knife” of institutional investing as they provide instant exposure to a broad range of securities with lower transaction costs. Spreads may widen in the underlying constituents when volatility picks up, but spreads can be lower in ETFs as so many market makers are willing to quote prices and provide liquidity. The creation and redemption mechanism at the end of each day through Authorized Patrticiants allows market makers to take on a big position without having to hold it overnight.

Gould gave the example of the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020 when ETF volumes on Tradeweb’s U.S. platform rose 242% year-over-year. A similar pattern occurred in April 2025, following the ‘Liberation Day’ tariff announcements from the U.S. administration and total notional volume on the platform rose by 110% year-over-year as clients responded to the market shock.

“Data certainly backs up that ETF volumes tend to spike when the market is volatile,” said Gould. “The last few months have been super busy as volumes continue to go up.”

Electronic trading

There has been an increase in orders executed on the platform using Tradeweb’s Automated Intelligent Execution (AiEX) tool, which allows clients to pre-define execution parameters and automate how orders are routed and timed based on market conditions.

Over the past five years, AiEX volume on the Tradeweb platform has grown by 306%, including a 257% increase from 2024 to 2025, according to Gould. Over the same period, the number of clients using AiEX rose 281%, with 116% growth between 2024 and 2025. The number of large trades comprising orders over 100,000 shares executed via AiEX increased by 95% from 2024 to 2025, which Tradeweb said underscored growing client comfort and trust in the platform for higher-value executions.

In January and February this year nearly half, 49%, of U.S. ETFs were executed using AiEX, up from just 15% during the same period last year, according to Gould.  He said: “We are definitely a leader in rules-based automated trading, having launched AiEX nearly fifteen years ago, and that continues to grow at an unbelievable rate, so we are on the right side of history.”

Adam Gould, Tradeweb

Gould argued the increased use of AiEX is due to trading desks being asked to do more with less and the number of ETFs is dramatically higher. In addition, AiEX provides traders with best execution, an audit trail and optimization of data to make sure their request-for-quotes (RFQs) go to the right people.

The ETF SNAP functionality has expanded to include tools such as dealer selection, which dynamically selects dealers based on criteria defined by buy-side clients, which can include real-time axes, historical hit and quote rates and size buckets, to provide more consistent execution outcomes across varying market conditions.

“We expect rules-based automated RFQs to continue to grow,” added Gould. “When we first started the parameters were fairly simple, such as a certain size range, going to certain dealers and needing a certain amount of responses.”

He expects the rules to become more granular, such as applying to a certain amount of the average volume, or level of volatility. Tradeweb will continue to expand that functionality and “make it even more powerful,” said Gould.

Source: Tradeweb

Growth

Gould claimed that the touch point between the client and Tradeweb is a big differentiator, and the firm’s goal is to be able to integrate with any order management system.

Billy Hult, chief executive of Tradeweb, said on the fourth quarter 2025 earnings conference call that in equities, ETFs posted strong double-digit revenue growth as the firm continues to deepen integration with clients. Hult added that the efforts to broaden its equity presence beyond the ETF franchise continue to pay off, with record institutional equity derivatives revenues, up 18% year-on-year. In the fourth quarter, Hunt said the fourth quarter had the highest level of ETF market maker participation ever across the institutional credit business.

Billy Hult, Tradeweb

“Looking ahead, the pipeline remains strong as the benefits of our electronic solutions continue to resonate with our clients,” said Hult. “We believe we are well-positioned to capitalize on the long-term secular ETF growth story, not just in equities, but across our fixed income business.”

Gould said one of the things Tradeweb is planning is to make it easier for clients trading ETFs to hedge their positions. For example, a client trading a credit ETF on the platform would be able to link to Tradeweb’s rates platform.

“We are in a good position to scale the business,” Gould added. “Mutual funds were once apprehensive about launching ETFs but most now use them and are now launching their own products.”

He argued there are a lot of tailwinds with ETF usage, integrated and automated workflows, and data optimization, that line up nicely with Tradeweb’s offering.