Standard Chartered Launches Crypto Trading Desk in London, Becoming First Large Regulated Financial Institution to Offer Clients Access to Crypto Spo

Despite job losses and funding cuts in the digital asset development community, experienced professionals advise focusing on delivering production use cases. The architects and builders of the new digital financial market infrastructure are succeeding in delivering digital assets, with the SEC's approval of ten bitcoin ETF applications leading to increased consumer participation in the crypto market. Standard Chartered bank has launched a crypto trading desk in London, becoming the first large regulated financial institution to offer clients access to crypto spot markets. Private debt is expected to be the first asset class to be tokenized and routinely traded, with global financial institutions with over $221.75 billion assets under management finding this to be the case. Additionally, there have been several recent developments in the stablecoin market, including the launch of a gold-backed stablecoin and Circle becoming the first MICA compliant stablecoin issuer in Europe. The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Innovation Hub has also announced Project Agora, a public-private initiative focused on cross-border payments tokenization.