Swiss banking meets digital assets @block_stories in Zurich

On September 28, Georg Schneider, Digital Asset's Global Head of RWA, speaks at @Block_stories Horizon's Zurich Summit, co-hosted with @ZKB_ch. His session covers real-time treasury management and the advent of tokenized MMFs. Request to join. luma.com/horizonzurichsummit

Building a tokenized securities venue is one thing. Connecting institutions to it is another. As @tZERO Chairman and CEO @Alan_Konevsky told @block_stories: If I’m a broker-dealer and I’m looking to get access to a tokenized public equities platform, I’m going to need someone to help me custody these shares on behalf of my customers and be a gateway to the platform. That’s where tZERO’s regulated infrastructure comes in as we all work to determine what it will take to connect broker-dealers, digital transfer agents and other institutions to tokenized public markets. Read the full story: blockstories.io/b/nyse-selec…

ICE cannot tokenize markets alone because while it controls the exchange, matching engine, & some rules, progress still depends on coordination with depositories, issuers, brokers, & cash providers… DTC has begun tokenizing shares that already trade on NYSE, but cash settlement has not yet moved fully onchain.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ Thanks for the feature, @block_stories !

Lots of things we unpacked here around Coinbase and tokenized equities: -> Coinbase's strategy for turning Base, alongside its tokenized stocks, into an "AWS for onchain finance" -> The real unlock behind ATPs by @Bitwise and @glider__ -> Why lending and borrowing adoption around tokenized equities lags supply growth, despite lending being touted as THE killer use case -> What the trading infrastructure around tokenized equities, and really every onchain asset, might look like soon, and why AMMs might not remain as dominant as they are today Check it out! P.S. Thanks to @XenBH, @jessepollak, @BrianInCrypto, and @trader_marky for the great insights

What does receiving the OCC approval actually mean? Short answer: the ability to bypass traditional banks. The slightly longer one: an OCC charter offers three key benefits for crypto firms: 1) Federal oversight: The OCC charter provides a single federal framework that streamlines oversight and reduces dependency on state-by-state licenses, removing a central operational bottleneck that plagues many crypto companies today. 2) Custody: While the GENIUS Act created a federal framework for stablecoin issuance, it separated issuing from holding the backing reserves. As a result, issuers need a banking charter to legally custody those assets. 3) Bank-free transfers: Beyond granting custody rights, the charter makes firms eligible to apply for a Federal Reserve master account, a prerequisite for direct Fedwire access, which enables instant settlement without relying on commercial banks. That's why so many players are rushing after it.

The adoption of stablecoin-based agentic payments remains... limited. Since going live in May 2025, x402 has facilitated around $18 million in adjusted payment volume, mostly across use cases such as access to APIs, data feeds, compute, and AI-generated content. But @cloudflare could now change that trajectory. Last week, the internet giant unveiled ts Monetization Gateway, a new product that lets businesses charge AI agents for access to digital resources such as web pages, datasets, and APIs. At launch, payments will settle in stablecoins over x402, the agentic payments protocol Cloudflare is building alongside Coinbase and more than 20 other tech and payments firms. As one of the internet’s largest infrastructure providers, used by ~20% of all websites, Cloudflare gives x402 a major distribution channel into a large base of businesses and web resources. In the article below, we at @block_stories explain how the new product works and why Cloudflare chose stablecoins for it. I also spoke with @OnchainLu from @merit_systems, who shared valuable insights into the current state of agentic commerce and how Cloudflare’s new offering could change the way consumers interact with the internet. Have a great read 🫡

France’s Second-Largest Bank in Exclusive Talks to Acquire Meria According to BlockStories, CACEIS, the custody banking subsidiary of France’s second-largest bank, Crédit Agricole, is in exclusive talks to acquire French crypto investment platform Meria. Formerly known as Just Mining, Meria was co-founded by prominent French crypto KOL Hasheur (Owen Simonin). The company holds a MiCA CASP license, serves 150,000 users, manages approximately €350 million in assets under management (AUM), and primarily offers crypto brokerage and staking products.

🔴Exclusive @block_stories: CACEIS in Talks to Acquire Crypto Investment Platform @Meria_Finance 🇫🇷 According to Blockstories' information, CACEIS, the custodian bank of Crédit Agricole, France's second-largest banking group, is in exclusive negotiations to acquire Meria. The French crypto investment platform was co-founded by Owen Simonin, better known as Hasheur, France's most popular crypto influencer. It claims 150,000 users and around €350 million in assets under management. Launched in 2017 as Just Mining, the platform adopted its current name in 2022 and now holds a MiCA CASP license. The activity of particular interest to CACEIS is staking, Meria's specialty, which offers both retail and institutional services. This exclusive negotiation comes as the banking group is working on the launch of its crypto offering and has just deployed its euro stablecoin, EURXT, on the Ethereum network. Should it close, it would position Crédit Agricole among Europe’s most active banking groups in digital assets, operating across custody, brokerage, stablecoin issuance, and tokenized funds. 👉 These negotiations also signal an M&A wave that is already well underway and is expected to accelerate with MiCA's entry into application, as banks seek to speed up the rollout of their crypto and tokenization offerings. This story was featured in the Institutional Briefing, our weekly newsletter for banks and asset managers, read by more than 15,000 professionals and published every Thursday. 👉 You can access it via the link in the first comment below.

🇨🇭We had a great time hosting our Zurich Dinner last week! We brought together 34 leaders from TradFi and DeFi, representing firms like: - @DeutscheBank, - @EuroclearGroup, - @UBS - @digitalasset - @Bitwise - @SteakhouseFi - and more A huge thank you to all our guests!