Earthberries Briefings
Tokenization: regulatory and market reading
A short selection of public sources we find useful on how tokenized assets are classified, supervised and adopted. Each is a third-party document, and listing it does not imply any endorsement of Earthberries. This selection is for general information, not legal, investment, tax or financial advice. Documents reflect their publication dates.
Last reviewed:
EU: classification and infrastructure
1. Guidelines on the conditions and criteria for the qualification of crypto-assets as financial instruments. (opens in a new tab)
ESMA, guidelines, 19 March 2025.
Criteria for assessing whether a crypto-asset qualifies as a financial instrument and is therefore outside MiCA's scope. Classification considers its rights and other characteristics, rather than technology alone.
2. Building the rails for Europe's tokenised financial markets. (opens in a new tab)
Piero Cipollone, Member of the ECB Executive Board, speech, 23 March 2026.
An ECB perspective on two barriers to scaling Europe's tokenized markets: fragmented platforms and the lack of a common settlement asset in central bank money. On 21 September 2026 the Eurosystem launched Pontes, a first step towards settling wholesale tokenized transactions in central bank money (press release).
3. Just another crypto boom? Mind the blind spots. (opens in a new tab)
ECB, Financial Stability Review special feature, 21 May 2025. Authors: Aerts, Born, Gati, Kochanska, Lambert, Reinhold, van der Kraaij.
Direct exposures alone do not capture all potential transmission channels. The article examines interconnections with traditional finance and data gaps that complicate risk assessment. Market figures are as of 2025.
4. ESMA Report on the Functioning and Review of the DLT Pilot Regime. (opens in a new tab)
ESMA, report under Article 14 of Regulation (EU) 2022/858, 25 June 2025.
How the EU's pilot regime for market infrastructures based on distributed ledger technology has worked in practice so far, and ESMA's advice on whether to extend, expand or amend it.
Global: rights and supervision
5. Statement on Tokenized Securities. (opens in a new tab)
US SEC, Divisions of Corporation Finance, Investment Management and Trading and Markets, staff statement, 28 January 2026.
How US securities law applies when securities are tokenized, by the issuer or by a third party, and why the holder's rights can differ between the two. A staff position, not a new rule.
6. Tokenization of Financial Assets. (opens in a new tab)
IOSCO Board, final report (FR/17/25), 11 November 2025.
The global securities regulators' view of adoption, use cases and the risks to market integrity and investor protection.
7. The Financial Stability Implications of Tokenisation. (opens in a new tab)
Financial Stability Board, report to the G20, 22 October 2024.
Where tokenisation could create vulnerabilities, from liquidity and maturity mismatch to operational fragility. The FSB concludes that tokenisation does not currently pose a material risk to financial stability, mostly because of its small scale.
8. Tokenisation in the context of money and other assets: concepts and implications for central banks. (opens in a new tab)
Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (BIS), report for the G20, 21 October 2024.
Definitions of tokens and programmable platforms, and how tokenisation changes market structure across an asset's life cycle.
Adoption and operations
9. Asset Tokenization in Financial Markets: The Next Generation of Value Exchange. (opens in a new tab)
World Economic Forum, report, 21 May 2025.
Use cases across asset classes, and what they need to work in practice: standards, interoperability and safeguards.
10. From ripples to waves: The transformational power of tokenizing assets. (opens in a new tab)
McKinsey & Company, article, 20 June 2024.
A strategic frame for which asset classes adopt first and why. Its market-size figures for 2030 are 2024 forecasts, not observed data.
11. How tokenization is changing capital markets. (opens in a new tab)
S&P Global Market Intelligence, research commentary, 26 February 2026. Carl James, Christopher Fenske.
Market commentary on settlement, collateral management and infrastructure: the operational questions that follow once an asset is tokenized.
Japan
12. Report by the Working Group on Crypto-asset Systems of the Financial System Council. (opens in a new tab)
Financial Services Agency of Japan, council report. Japanese original 10 December 2025, English translation 16 February 2026.
A council report recommending regulation of crypto-assets under the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act, tailored to them and including information disclosure and market-abuse controls. It distinguishes crypto-assets from securities: tokenized securities already have a separate framework under the same Act. The amending law was enacted on 15 July 2026 and promulgated on 23 July 2026 as Act No. 64 of 2026 (House of Representatives bill record, in Japanese).
13. The New Financial Ecosystem and the Role of Central Banks. (opens in a new tab)
Bank of Japan, Governor UEDA Kazuo, speech, 3 March 2026.
The Bank of Japan's view of blockchain-based settlement, including its work on settling transactions in central bank money. It describes experiments, not a launch.
14. Monthly statistics on security tokens handled by registered firms. (opens in a new tab)
Japan STO Association and Japan Securities Dealers Association, statistics (in Japanese), updated on the first day of each month.
Monthly figures on electronically recorded transferable rights and tokenised securities handled by registered financial instruments firms in Japan: public offerings, private placements and secondary sales. A regular, official series on the Japanese market.
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