Digital Assets in Institutional Portfolios | Future Finance Forum 2026

Thank you for for all being here. Graci,

thank you Alex for the amazing introductions and thank you for thank you to all the panel panelists for joining us. I think yeah this is my favorite discussion uh of today for obvious reasons. Um but let's um since we have only 25 minutes let me start with the the questions directly. Um we would I would try to divide the discussion into two actually three blocks um focused on you know what are institutions actually doing with digital assets currently. So we already kind of figure out if you've been following the discussion so far during the day that institutions have really stopped asking whether digital assets belong to in institutional portfolios.

That question is already answered positively and the next questions are you know what uh assets and how how exactly. So this is um this sessions is really about what banks and asset managers have actually built and what a chief investment officer can own in their portfolio right now. So we have Kina, Juliana and Yanik. So as I said 25 minutes hopefully five minutes for questions from the audience. So let's jump right into it.

So block number one um which of which of your firm's digital asset products can an institutional client use today and which is still in pilot or you know being built. So the first uh I think we can we can start with you Kina. So G JP Morgan is running deposit tokens on two rails at once. uh blockchain deposit accounts on Kexus uh which is the permissioned network um in production actually for years. I think the name was uh recently changed.

Um and then we also have JPMD which is on base which is a layer 2 network on uh on Ethereum a public chain. So um JP Morgan you know has called actually G G uh JPMD um its first product uh on a public blockchain. So why is JP Morgan building on both of these uh chains? What does the public rail let the client do that the private rail really cannot? So I yeah to you please Kina.

Thank you very much Vlad. I think that's a great question. Um first and foremost I am legally required to say that everything I'm about to say and disclose uh today are my own personal views and perspectives. They're not necessarily those of JP Morgan and its affiliates. So I have to say that now to answer the question um once again because of the legal requirement I cannot speak um specifically about Kexis.

Uh but I can answer this question from a uh more generalized industry perspective what I've seen what I've studied. Um so essentially I think the key difference is between permission blockchain infrastructure and public blockchain infrastructure. Obviously with permissioned uh the private one um there is much more control over access over privacy over compliance and governance and with the public one obviously the advantages there are the openness and the interoper interoperability of it all excuse me. Um and I think the use cases of clients are different, right? So if a client really wants to um kind of have how can I say a more controlled settlement then of course they should go for a private blockchain infrastructure.

If they want to be in a space where um they are more widely connected and of course that would be the public one. I think in terms of what is actually being built, what is live, of course, we have tokenized cash, tokenized deposits, um tokenized securities and funds. Now, what is currently being discussed and what we're not sure of at the moment is how these networks and assets um are interacting with each other and especially in an institutional space with the legal compliance and risk operations um in place.

Okay, thank you. U maybe a follow-up question here. Um which one are the clients actually asking for? You mentioned that different clients are asking for you know different things but uh which one is the more popular would you say? Although you know the definition of popular could be uh different but according to your your um you know observations you know what are clients currently asking for?

Is it public? Is it private? What do you think?

So once again, I cannot speak on the behalf of JP Morgan, but what I've seen in the industry um and having worked with clients extensively for the past four years, um I have seen that they are more leaning toward the permissioned ones. The reason is they are really thinking about the risk, the legal, the operations and the settlement of it all. Especially clients who are, you know, asset managers, hedge funds and so on. um they are I think leaning toward more the private blockchain infrastructure.

Okay, thank you very much. And now to Juliana. Um Benji, the Benji fund went from $600 million in January to more than 2.5 billion by July across I believe what is uh nine different public blockchain networks or public chains. So what can a pension fund fund or a insurer actually subscribe to this month versus what is filled um filed sorry or still in you know part of the train training material so to say and um which of those vehicles are open to European institutions specifically.

Thanks Brad. Uh actually uh Franklin Templton as your colleague said was the first asset management in the company that tokenize a mutual funds and he decide to create a platform useful to uh tokenize everything. So the platform can tokenize everything but we decide to tokenize the most boring product. So the the money market funds first in US now since February 2025 also in US. So for European institutional investor we have a native onchain mutual money market fund is uh completely different from uh uh from the market because it's has different capability.

The last one is the settlement is in t plus zero and the most recognized uh capability is that it it provide an intraday yield at second at each investor. So that's the the best benefits of the money that create the yield. So each equivalent that generate yield.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. And Yanik so that we we got we get it right. um which Mika permissions that Terox does Teras Terox has and of those which is really genuinely institutional size rather than you know high netw worth um product.

Yeah. So we at T-Rox we do hold eight out of 11 Mika licenses. So we're trying to penetrate the market or or to bring innovation and really like to to help the infrastructure to grow. Um but with a holistic view on that high net with individuals and institutional investors always making the pace right they are like building the train and you can hop on or not right or you can I don't know walk by food you can do whatever but what institutions are building is often what's leading the markets. So to answer your question, I would say it's a little bit of depends on what you want to do as an institutional investor because for example like I would say the easiest path is for example custody to have a custody partner but on the other hand side institutionals often holding own banking licenses so they would just do it on their own.

What we do realize when talking to private banks is that they do not have any clue how the market works why it growth and where the people so to speak coming from where the interest is coming from right this is like a black box for them so what I would say is it doesn't matter about this trading OTC they just can simply use trade and put digital assets within this so they all fine with this but what we do see is bringing knowledge Bringing expertise and bringing the ability to connect dots is something which is institutional for us. So we when we talking with institutions when we talking with private banks when we're working together with them it's more about advise them so to speak how to be able to put this on your let's say own agenda. In best case you then have like a cooperation partnership whatsoever to provide these to them because they may have 200 researchers they may have 200 analysts but when you for example take a look on Bloomberg terminal everyone's looking using the Bloomberg terminal I know it's not for for like retailers but the digital asset plugin Bloomberg is having is a nightmare right there's like I don't know if you know this there's like blockorizon.io KO it's just like a competitive glass note they just came out like a few weeks ago all for free on chairmetrics and this for free website I'm overdoing it now a little bit is already better than the plug-in for Bloomberg terminal right and this is what we do see what's really institutional is um to bring understanding into this uh so that they're not just investing in the blue or doing something no one really wants.

Nice. Thank you. Um yeah and what I see now with AI is that like one of the use cases that retail and even um you know licensed professional institutions are doing uh or people representing these institutions that do building their own dashboards so that they have access to to the data that is relevant to them. So I think AI in a way is like democratizing this process uh of you know the dashboard. Um so yeah the Bloomberg terminal is yeah let's see how it's going to develop.

Um so let's let's do a scenario now. Um so let's imagine that a European pension fund or insurer decides to do this uh to do two things this year. So move part of its cash position on chain so it settles in minutes uh rather than days and can be posted as collateral without leaving the chain and also take a small ringfaced allocation to crypto itself. So let's say between one to like up to 5%. So with its own mandate and its own reporting.

So they come to you and ask you to build it. Um so what do you do and to Kina specifically what is the cash lag which instrument do they actually hold and what can they settle against it u against with it so Kina please.

Thank you. Um so in this scenario the cash leg is obviously the payment side of the transaction right. So if the pension fund or insurer say is buying a tokenized um bond then one side would be the bond and the other side of the transaction would be the cash. Now in this onchain cash scenario I would expect and I would want the cash to behave like money rather than an investment. So it can be something like you know a tokenized bank deposit or any other kind of regulated digital cash instrument.

Um this can settle against any tokenized um security for example like a tokenized bond and ideally this should happen um with the scenario of delivery versus payment. So the asset and the cash move in there um in the same uh direction sorry in opposite directions at the same time. Um in that way obviously we're much more comfortable with the transaction taking place.

Okay thank you. And Juliana Juliana does a tokenized money market fund do the cash job here uh or or is that a different tool? Um and what vehicle carries the the 2% or the 5%.

Uh the 2% it should be uh an ATP product with the crypto bake it. So and actually is not possible for European um institution. So we don't have a actually but the most interesting part according to me is the rest the 98% because like uh pension fund institutional all of them as the same uh activity during the day they leave the two 5% of cash they stay there they don't get money it's useful for subscription in out money for during the day but the real is that when you have a product when you have a tokenized cash equivalent that it could be uh a money market fund it takes less time to be operative so means that uh if I compare with the traditional fiat money it doesn't takes day to be invested uh and to be redempted so I used to call this difference tokenized money premium because there is a premium if you have money like product in tokenized form and obviously this change change the ability to manage also the business the operational side. Obviously we should care that uh uh money market fund maintain the yield but is not useful for payment for payment is still on stable coin but obviously it's it takes less time. It's definitely most efficient than uh than than other fiat money.

This is definitely um one of the use cases of you know blockchain technology tokenization like tokenized assets. Um this you know freeing up of liquidity and you know having the clearing in pay payments and settlement happen almost in real time. Um Yanik um who holds it and who manages it? Can one Mika regulated farm offer this whole structure or only [snorts and clears throat] pieces of it?

Mika is a competitive market, right? So you have like we have like eight out of 11. So what does it mean? You cannot have all Mika licenses. So in theory you cannot offer all services so that you have a competitive market and that there's like in best case no monopolist in the market.

Um and I do think to answer your question that it's regulatory framework is there. I mean Mika we're on this consolidation phase and consolation phase. There's MA 2.0 with the European Commission maybe coming end of September and in October like now is the the phase little let's see what the changes are but it is like it is possible how I said the legal framework is there. I do personally think a lot of institutional players are just stuck in their old behavior and are just too slow to keep up the pace to be really innovative in this space.

So this is why they often try to choose buy over build while seeing that regulatory wise then internal policy wise they need to build it on their own right and so this whole whole process coming to an end but it's not because of the legal like the legal aspect so what I would say is if one company can do it all I'm pretty unsure about like for example we at T-Rox you we are partnered with circle So whenever someone wants to tokenize his cash, he or she can send us the cash and we are minting it in real time with Circle and sending you the USDC or Euro C to your account. This is like an instant. No T+1, no T plus2. This is this is given. If this is scalable for institutions, it's a point of liquidity, right?

And I do think there a lot of companies or institutional players are still dropping off because when there is no liquidity, your product can be as good as you want it to be, right? But money talks and like the trend is your friend. You need to follow the money path. Is it the way it is? If you like it or not, right?

Or the liquidity path at least. And this is what we do see. So can one company do it all? I'm pretty unsure. In theory, yes.

Okay. Thank you very much. And for our last block before the questions, um I would like you each to think about or name one thing clients keep asking about um but you still will not put in an institutional book this year and say whether the blocker is legal, operational or risk related. So what are institutions what do they want that you cannot still give them? [snorts]

So once again I'm not answering this from a J for Morgan perspective but what I've seen in the industry specifically is permissionless DeFi yield being treated as cash. I think this is something which is not currently institutionally bookable and should not be in the foreseeable future. The reason for that is that cash on chain is one thing. Um now cash being put to work in DeFi is a completely different story. This exposure is completely different once the cash is in that lending protocol.

You know we have things like smart contract risk um you know operational risk, compliance risk, governance risk and so on. So I think the blocker is risk in that scenario. And I think the key takeaway maybe is and and one thing I think about personally is that if even if something is technically possible, you know, technologically executable, that doesn't essentially mean it will be and it would be institutionally bookable. Um so that's my answer. Yes, we've had the technology for quite a long time but you know only this year we have the as I mentioned earlier the no legal framework in in place that kind of enables institutions to start to innovate in the space.

So Juliana the same question to you as well.

The same question. Okay. The the on my side the the the different thing is that um most of people think that uh if we tokenize assets we can uh adopt the some business model business process and that is not the case. It's true that is change get faster but it also open to new use case. And the real uh question that I receive from our client most of the time is that oh I can manage my my reporting file like for example today you know and uh obviously it's completely different and need to be rethinking on that we need to uh completely refine the process but on the other side we see that uh we can change use cases is the most efficient side.

For example, if you think to collateral tokenized asset can change completely the the efficienced assets like collateral. Uh obviously the perspective it's huge uh but that means that we have a lot to to do in the next future. Uh

yes absolutely and uh now what I see in DeFi is that uh we are looking at you know collateral that uh generates yield which is something that a lot of people become like interested in especially if it's you know real world assets uh or or stocks um so I think innovation always happens first you know in in the centralized systems on decentralized networks and then institution are slowly um adapting this because obviously they should be a lot more careful when it comes to managing funds and they're obviously managing a lot more funds than it's what what's what we have in uh DeFi currently. Um, Yanik, uh, I don't know if you remember the question, but yeah.

Yeah, I got the question. Yeah, don't worry. It's I would say it's tokenized stocks that I would not put into institutional portfolio yet.

Um, and sorry. Yeah, the the risk or it's risk is there, right? It's not operational because operational wise is easy. It's just risk and a little bit regulatory issues because you don't really know how the votings right are. You don't really know how the dividends topic is then at the end of the day being structured.

You don't really as a customer may do not know where the collateral is because if you would assume that you do tokenized stocks with voting rights and dividends, the collateral must be as well like be held somewhere or being invested as well in the stocks to replicate this right with a reference token. So who's doing it then on which venue on which exchange how is their custody and stuff like this turning to the endpoint that you don't need then to tokenize if the tokenization path is not really clear. So this is where a little bit of regulatory and risk-wise we are lagging even if it's for retail is already there even if it will come even if we know that we will get there super fast but it's nothing for 2026 hopefully in 2027 we will see some movement I mean like the US is yeah giving us the pace right NASDAQ 245 sooner 24/7 so I do think this is something digital asset proved as well the traditional finance side that they need to move. There's a new generation and the new generation wants to have this 24/7 accesses and tokenized stocks will be a huge leverage for all of these not token wise but blockchain wise digitization wise settlement into the middle of the financial world but uh yeah for institutional we still need to wait a little bit.

Yes, thank you. Um actually tokenized stocks or equities is something that I've been looking forward to a very long time and talking in public about and the reason is that if you have that in DeFi you know you can use it um as collateral for a loan uh for example which is something like some action that is very very popular in DeFi um and then you for example not only have the stock and you are uh you know looking uh it looking at it as an investment but you're also you know have not locked its value uh at a broker uh and it's generating uh yield for you or you you use it as collateral to to buy something else or even buy more of that stock. So I think like this this revolutionizing the of of financial markets that is happening first on in DeFi and then in traditional finances um is something that I'm personally looking for for a very long time and it's currently happening. It's it's happening on public chains. Um so I want to see this develop and I want to see TVL uh you know the liquidity growing there.

Um thank you for for for these um uh answers. I think that those were very informative and we have a couple of questions from the audience. One is uh from uh actually a speaker that is coming on stage uh a bit later. Um and that's how do the panelists see the demand side evolving as an effect from the newly built up blockchain infrastructure within the traditional like the traditional business. So I can repeat it again.

How do the panelists see the demand side evolving as an effect from the newly built up blockchain infrastructure within u traditional business? So if someone uh wants to take that one, [laughter]

I leave you.

No, I mean can the question was super long. So can you can we break it down to one key take?

It's basically about the de demand side. So uh how is the demand side evolving

uh thanks to this you know blockchain infrastructure development and

uh I guess this you know connection between traditional finance decentralized finance

there is a lot of convergence on that we see that from US side like he mentioned there is a lot of convergence between traditional exchange and the fi that want to issue tokenized stocks But also the requests are changing in terms of uh traditional clients that want to move more versus also other asset. Obviously there is a regulation perspective that tried to be uh very strict and uh one side that is clear in particular in the last week is that obviously US is moving faster than Europe uh and therefore we should get uh uh this opportunity to to increase a little bit the speed of this transformation.

Okay. Thank you. Um Yanik, you wanted to add something? Yeah, I just want to say that when we're talking about like blockchain infrastructure, what I do see by a lot of institutionals that like this building on blockchain and like being onchain is mostly a retailer thing. Institutional always just wants to have this like as a package and use it.

So to I mean let's discuss later on maybe after the panel if someone's interested in this I'm here. But what we do see is people don't want to interact with blockchain. They don't want to have the feeling that it's blockchain, right? The UXUI needs to be trade file when the background is blockchain. Cool.

But we do not see any demand from institutionals that they want to dig with us deep in into infrastructure. They just want to have a solution.

Thank you. Um I completely agree like most people don't really care about you know what what the real rails are or what what is the in the back end they just want it to work. Um and I think we are out of time but I just one final question from from the audience and it would be about tokenization again and based on your experience your personal experience you know uh looking at what is being tokenized currently what is missing is uh what do you think is the next big thing that is being tokenized you know obviously uh the US dollar is being tokenized in the form of stable coins we have private credit uh we have um uh governmental like government debt treasuries are being tokenized. Is there something uh stocks? We we we mentioned stocks.

Is there something else that you think is going to be very interesting in the next months, years that is going on chain and that could have some you know uh pent up demand from clients? Uh what could that be? Is there anything else that is interesting for tokenization?

The idea for it's my personal view absolutely my personal view is that we are at the beginning of this process and at moment we can tokenize everything but that doesn't create liquidity. So that's that's obviously let's start from the basics from most common useful thing that are more adopted also from institutional and retail and corporate and so on. So probably we will arrive to tokenize a stair but you know at the moment we don't need it.

Yeah I [laughter] think the market will tell us I guess. Yes. Uh anyone else want to add something? Yes, I think to echo what Juliana has said, absolutely, but I think we first must um make sure that everybody understands universally the the basics of tokenization and the basic assets being tokenized before we go forward with that. But as she said, I mean, I think in time we'll see that most of the assets will be tokenized.

Um, and this will be part of like, you know, everyday finance for us.

Yes, I agree. Yanik. Yeah, I'm always trying to think about what is really useful because how I said when you're going through your normal day-to-day life, I would say you're not missing something tokenize, right? So, I'm it's nice to tokenize whatever you would like to tokenize. Feel free if if it's needed.

I don't know what you could do. My idea is what would be super lovely to open this market of bonds of money market treasuries to tokenized smaller packages to people. But I do think regulatory wise people will block this for a reason. Uh but to bring this so to speak to smaller as well maybe to retailers would be super lovely because then they could have as well an impact on these things. they just see some numbers, bonds, yield, treasuries going up and no one knows what it's really is about.

Um, but on the other hand side, what I do as well think you always need basic knowledge about the topic. Just because you tokenize something does not bring you knowledge. So when people are uneducated about what's happening in microeconomics, monetary politics, feel free to tokenize it, but when you don't know it, you will not use it. So it will just simply be an idea. Um, so you really, and I'm agreeing fully on what the lady said, you need to go from big to small, from useful to unuseful.

Um, and I'm pretty sure that tokenization is will be a big part of our future, but let's not overhype it that we I don't know tokenize chairs or tables, right?

Yes, I agree. We actually went through a period like that in in the past kind of. And I I keep hearing about organizational free estate and I I don't see anyone using that yet. Uh but I guess someone will get it right eventually. So thank you so much for this panel and your um great insights and um the thank you the audience for the for the questions.

A round of applause for our panelists and thank you very much. [applause] Heat. Heat.