So, by way of introduction, my name is Marissa TR from Aptos Labs and I am joined today by Graham Rodford, CEO of Archax, the first FCA regulated global digital securities exchange, and Ryan Zer, head of structured finance at Aptos Labs. So, we are currently spanning three time zones. We're in the UK, Singapore, and New York. What we're going to do is kick off with some pretty big news. Archax has just announced its integration with Aptos to expand its range of RWAs onchain. So Graham, can you tell us more? Like what does this integration actually look like in practice? Who's it for and why does it really matter?
Yeah, sure. So thanks for having us again. So Archax is a regulated securities exchange, broker, custodian. We live in that world somewhere between traditional securities and digital products and where they cross over, digital securities. That's our expertise really. We've worked with a number of financial institutions over the eight years we've been around, notably abrdn, BlackRock, Legal & General, Fidelity, and we've been tokenizing their funds like a lot of the good players in the industry. But we've also got more as well. We can tokenize equity and debt. And as a firm, we kind of believe in this space. We believe every single asset moves on chain as well as every piece of infrastructure. And we're kind of building that eventuality. And we've known the Aptos team for a while. A good team. You know, the chain is well suited to what we're building on. So, we've been working together and decided to integrate them into our stack. So, what that means now is that every security that Archax has access to, over 100 funds, equity, every debt that Archax can custody, we can now bring to Aptos.
So, can you walk us through a little bit about the selection process when it came to Aptos for your integration?
As a firm, we're generally chain agnostic, but that doesn't mean that we work with anyone. We're constantly looking for things which we think are attractive to institutions. So first and foremost, I always say it, but teams that we like to work with. You know, that's really important to us. We want to work with people that we need to talk to on a regular basis. And the chain needs to be capable of dealing with fast transactions as Aptos is, needs to be an institutional network and understand the power of securities and not just one aimed at crypto. If you're ever going to sell to the institutions we talk to, you need to have good answers for how your network operates, how fast it is, all of these sorts of things that they care about. These things when they get announced, everyone hears about them, but there's months in conversation before understanding a bit about each other and making sure there's alignment.
So, it's all about finding the right fit for basically everyone's interests at hand. And Ryan, to look at the other side of the coin, what makes this integration so significant for the Aptos network and then how does Archax actually fit into the broader strategy and roadmap?
Yeah, definitely a great question. You know, we've known the Archax team for a number of years. So far, high-quality group really working with a number of high-quality issuers on both the debt and equity side. We're looking at a number of different things from issuers. You know, we want sort of best-in-class types of firms. Two, we're really looking to expand the set of RWAs that are accessible via Aptos as well, right? So, we think that positioning with our checks globally will provide a meaningful impact to investors that are looking for assets that have been issued on Aptos. And the interesting detail about this announcement is that the first asset being brought on chain through the integration is the Members Cap tokenized global reinsurance income fund. What is the significance as the first RWA being issued by Archax on Aptos?
We know the Members Cap team well as well. I mean a lot of people are tokenizing money market funds which is great. A lot of people looking at treasuries which is also great but a lot of people haven't moved beyond that. Some people are considering moving up the risk curve to corporate bonds or private equity, but everyone's kind of looking for new original things to invest in. So, stable coins are obviously taking off and as well as tokenized deposits for banks and that's great, but they need to be able to buy stuff and money market funds isn't the only asset that people want access to. So, Members Cap reflects access to an insurance product that isn't available elsewhere. Archax was speaking to them separately about tokenizing their product anyway and I believe they were speaking to the Aptos team about participating in their fund and more generally in the company. So bringing those two together kind of makes sense. In addition to that, the London Stock Exchange has been working on their digital market infrastructure, their DMI, and Members Cap actually was one of the first, if not the first products brought to DMI as well. So you've got Members Cap available tokenized through the London Stock Exchange. So really was a big announcement. And then again back on the other side, the Aptos Foundation is a general partner in the Members Cap fund. So what does that actually tell us about this involvement? I guess the connection between all three and what it signals.
Sort of a similar thought process to before, right? Working with high-quality partners to bring on additional asset classes into the Aptos ecosystem. So with Members Cap we really enjoy the fact that they're focused on reinsurance which is a category that is quite large globally, right? For many investors has the right level of risk-adjusted returns and then for us it kind of complements what we've already done with a number of institutional groups, right? We have BlackRock's fund issued onto, Franklin Templeton's Benji fund, you know, issued onto, and then to Graham's point, right? Both are tokenized money market funds. We have a number of private credit products that are issued on Aptos including Apollo and Brever Howard's funds. So you know in order to add kind of something in the reinsurance sector that's very exciting for us and then we would love to do that and have done that with what we see as a best-in-class team.
So to zoom out a little bit and expand this conversation beyond this announcement, if we are to look at the RWA landscape at large, the key theme that both of you have mentioned is that this is about diversifying the assets that are being brought on chain and you know we're a little bit into 2026 now. How would you actually characterize the current state of RWAs and asset tokenization more broadly?
We're seeing continued and heightened institutional interest in utilizing blockchain technology for a variety of different processes. In late 2025, the DTCC received their no action letter from the SEC which has prompted a lot of discussion around tokenized public equity. And then within DeFi markets, we have a number of high-quality teams that are issuing derivative instruments for tokenized public equity. So I think that's like a good little sliver of what's going on not only within sort of tokenized public equity, right? But broader financial markets as established players are looking at you know where can blockchain be implemented, how does it interact with you know broader global capital markets and this is something that we're extremely excited about. RWAs are a very very broad category and I think you know we continue to really dig down into best-in-class players and then trying to work both with trad players as well as DeFi players in this space.
This is going on globally, I guess, is just to add to Ryan. In the US, they're doing that. In the UK, we kind of had this 'what are digital securities' for a while when it was an overlap of crypto and securities and most people realized they're just securities and regulations and moving that direction. And I think that the thing that's really exciting about the space is cash, digital cash, stable coins. When you've got cash and assets on the same technology, you can suddenly automate a lot of transactions that really you couldn't before. And at the moment, you've got stable coins, quite big on Aptos as well, actually, that are kind of out there. And outside of crypto, the institutional space needs something to buy. So, it's great if you can go and buy money market funds, but what would be better is if you can buy equity, debt, you can borrow against them 24/7 using some of the things that we've seen in DeFi. So when we're speaking to institutions now, it tends to be a focus less on pieces of just tokenizing but more on utility. How do we create something that people can exchange 24/7? How do we borrow against their RWA? How do we make these assets, whilst the same assets, more useful than they are to their traditional counterpart? So we believe every asset is moving on chain and that journey is kind of starting now. I'm pretty sure that's going to happen.
So we're basically looking at a bit of an attitude shift when it comes to institutional participation. Graham, I know Archax operates across multiple jurisdictions. So, how would you actually describe the current regulatory environment for tokenized assets in both the UK and Europe more broadly?
Well, it's generally heading in the right. So, if I kind of think of things in terms of, you know, graphs bottom left to top right. It's heading in the right direction, but it never quite goes as direct as you'd like it to. It kind of wavers off the line. So, every time there's a regulatory announcement, I mostly like it. The problem is you get people with DeFi objectives, crypto objectives, RWA objectives, but generally speaking, I think we're regulating things in the right way. We shouldn't stifle innovation, but we have to remember that a lot of those regs were there to protect consumers and we've seen consumers hurt by a lot of things that have happened in crypto. So getting that balance right of allowing people direct access to products but using regulation as protection is going to be interesting.
I do think there is quite a stark parallel in terms of what's been going on in the US and the abundance of conversations around regulation. Are we actually seeing a convergence or a divergence in the way that the US as well as the UK and EU have approached regulation?
I think there's positive momentum globally. So like digging down to the US, you've seen a tremendous amount of stable coin proliferation, right? With the Genius Act, on Aptos, right? We transact, I think 60 billion worth of stable coin transactional volume a month. We're the second, you know, most actively used chain for USDT and then work with a number of the other, you know, high-quality stable coin issuers, Circle, World Liberty Financial, Athena, and a bunch of others. So, I think that was a good showing of, you know, what regulation can do in sort of unlocking more blockchain native products, specifically stable coins. You know, we're seeing, you know, similar momentum, right, in Europe with the passage of MiCA, right? And then usage across different jurisdictions and then we have a, you know, very active participation in the APAC market, right? So, we're working with the Hong Kong monetary authority with their eHKD plus program. So, we're the only phase 2 layer one. We're working very closely with the member banks there on tokenized deposits and digital money, right? So I think there is like an overall I would say good progression and then if you like dig into like the ongoing discussions around sort of the Clarity Act and other pieces of legislation, you know, similar to what Graham mentioned, are kind of figuring out the role of existing players in infrastructure, more DeFi native players, hopefully you know you'll come to some sort of middle ground but yeah I think the progression has been quite good and then you know fingers crossed for another successful year in 2026.
Ryan made a good point there about the amount of regulation because at the start of Archax 8 years ago, it was pretty easy for me to follow most new issuances and all of the regulations globally. But now, I wouldn't say that I don't try, but the FCA alone has stable coin regulation, it has tokenized deposit regulation, it has securities regulation, payments, banking, whatever it might be. And then you're trying to go, okay, well, how can we work with someone in the US? And you know, Clarity, Genius, you've got trust banks, state regulation, Fed stuff going on and then I look out to Singapore and see what they're going on. I was speaking to someone in Australia the other day. The reality is I can't keep up anymore so you're relying on having partners in different jurisdictions that obviously have a solid presence in the US as well which is helpful for us when we're looking to do stuff together. Bringing together this regulation is not going to be easy and unless you have the balance sheet to have a strong regulatory team everywhere then these partnerships are important.
So we're talking about a lot of progress, but at the same time we're talking about very different speeds, very different mechanisms. And it sounds like one of the core challenges is trying to reconcile all of the different systems and understanding what functions in what market, what doesn't function in another and trying to find I guess the middle path.
Yeah. And like you know our tax in the US, you have Securitize they work closely with as well. We have been working trying to work with that team since the start of Archax and when we come together you can just see where some of those frictions are. You know I'll say we're a professional investor and they'll say is that a qualified purchaser and I'm like well I'm not sure. Let me go away and look at it. They'll say can you tell me who your investors are? I'll say well I don't usually have to. And they'll say well we think you do because of this. You know just when you're trying to mash this stuff together from a traditional securities point of view is difficult enough. And then when you start saying, 'By the way, we've got this token. It's a representation of a security in my jurisdiction, but I'm not sure the classification in your jurisdiction.' Like there's just a lot to unpick there. So that's what a lot of people I think don't see that are excited about the space is sometimes the progress isn't, you know, for lack of drive on the sides of the companies in the space. It's just working out how do we fit this into what is already in place to make sure that we can build something scalable.
So what does that actually indicate for how we move forward as an industry where we're talking about fragmentation right down to the regulatory level?
Working with high-quality partners like Archax, right? That can kind of navigate jurisdictional differences, you know, nuances around investor types and then kind of the proper handling, right, of securities whether it's in a primary market or a secondary, you know, is going to be critical for Aptos, right? And we're going to be doing similar types of partnerships globally in different asset classes where you know there is this need to be nimble, right? But still kind of address sort of the broader capital markets.
Regulation is catalyzing a lot of participation especially institutional participation given the attitude shift that we spoke about a little bit earlier. A lot of conversations consider it sort of the defining factor in the next phase of adoption and RWAs are a core pillar of that. Why is institutional participation more critical now than it ever was before?
I think size, you know, like 8 years ago or something when Archax started and everyone's talking about tokenization, you just hear, you know, fractionalization and 24/7. These things kind of could have been done before. People were kind of saying, 'Oh, who's ever going to trade these things?' That was kind of missing the point. The point is that they are the same things that already trade today, but with more utility. As this market moves, it's not a question of whether Nvidia, Apple, Vodafone will have liquidity. It's always had liquidity. It's more why will people trade it in its new form? And the reason they'll trade it in its new form is if you hold Nvidia as an individual, you can borrow against it 24/7. You can transfer it to someone and borrow against it. It makes investments have more utility to everyone, which should mean that if they get the same risk-reward, everyone chooses that in the future. The problem is that a lot of that utility needs to be built and retail is just not big enough on its own. And a lot of them are trading crypto and there's no point in them trading securities right now because RWA tends to sit outside of tax wrappers and pension wrappers a lot. But if you get the institutions, they have large amounts of capital. They can move markets. They can make it worthwhile developing utilities on their own. DTCC is a good example where they've come along and they're starting to look at tokenization. I mean, if they embrace tokenization, everything that sits on their ledgers becomes an onchain RWA in no time. So, I think it's a bit about size. And what's interesting right now in the market is this is the first time that I can remember that we've seen quite a big crypto selloff without a loss in appetite for RWA. The RWA people I'm speaking to just don't even talk about crypto anymore. So, we've managed to separate same technology, different asset, which has been really important, I think.
And then Graham hit on like an extremely important point, right? As we're having these institutional discussions around tokenizing different debt and equity products, tokenizing deposits, figuring out stable coin utilization, right? And then how it could be either issued by some of these institutions or utilized within their ecosystems. There really is a divide between pricing crypto winter, right, versus crypto utilization by institutions. And that's a huge positive this environment that was very very different than prior years where pricing really commanded the progress of institutional discussion. So we're really excited about that and then really kind of like digging into a really deep level of detail with a lot of these institutions whereas previously it was a high level discussion around hey let's tokenize a money market fund let's tokenize a private credit fund but you know this is actually hey how do we implement blockchain technology for cross-border remittances, kind of internal processes at different banks, you know, obviously tokenized deposits etc. So these are, you know, positive discussions and really, you know, good momentum going forward.
So it sounds like it's coming down to legitimacy, scale, and then also just the diversity of products that are being brought on chain. And as you mentioned, sort of this divergence between the original crypto ethos or what this industry was actually born from versus the utility that blockchain is actually serving today. But when we look at institutional participation more closely beyond, you know, providing liquidity or putting their assets on chain, what does meaningful participation actually look like beyond that point? What happens next?
Well, it's all I think it's definitely started in the last year. The hockey stick has started to turn upwards in the background. We've got about at any point in time 20 of the largest asset managers in the world that we're talking to about how do we tokenize this? How do we have a stable coin share class? How do we have a natively digital fund? We're speaking to banks about tokenized deposits and digital assets marketplaces. And if we go back to that kind of original point of we think every asset's moving on chain, then I don't know where it is, Marissa, but the kind of answer is that there's 1.4 quadrillion of assets out there. They're all moving in this direction. So, at the moment, it might only be I don't know what the number is, 10 20 billion excluding stable coins, but that number is going to tend towards a quadrillion of that, I'm pretty sure. And there'll be new assets that are created with technology that weren't possible before. So, we haven't reached that kind of escape velocity yet, but the second you get a couple of these utilities in place, it's going to move a lot faster. I think it's important that we talk about AI as well because AI is changing everything. As a tech company, I'm sure you are as well. You know, we're not scared to embrace AI. The speed that we've realized we can build things we need to speed this adoption up in our tracks is pretty vast. And I know everyone else in our space is doing it as well. We're going to see the tech and the capabilities move incredibly quickly and as long as the regs are going to allow it, I think we're going to see faster building and shipping across the whole industry.
When we speak of escape velocity, is there a critical mass that you have in mind in terms of that's a signal that this truly is going to be a sustainable shift in our industry and capital markets more broadly? What other indicators do we actually have that this is going to be sustainable? It's going to be long-term. It's going to be permanent versus being an experimental exercise for these funds.
I think we're definitely beyond experimental already. I mean, it's being put into regulations and the likes of Larry Fink are out there saying this is going to change everything and they wouldn't do that if they didn't think it was here forever and the ETFs as well. So, I think that bit is there, but I do like you're right, there's different metrics. For me, the thing that will prove this is here is when a big issuer, let's say Apple, come out and issue commercial paper first in natively digital form. And I don't mean a company that has an incentive to do it or couldn't raise money the traditional way and means they're doing a token. I mean a legitimate blue chip company is saying, you know what, why don't we go and be the first to issue our equity or our debt in this brand new form? And they'll only do that when the market is developed enough. So I think at that point there'll be no doubt that the market's moved in that direction.
Looking out 5 years from now, maybe tokenization as a topic is sort of less of a topic because that's just how you know commercial paper issuance is done. You know issuance of public equity, issuance of private securities. So that's kind of the hopefully goal where you have enough critical mass going forward where all different types of markets are tokenized and you know that's just the way things are done.
