Wall Street isn't just watching tokenization anymore — 84% of financial firms now call it a strategic priority, and the money is following: Citadel just wrote Crypto com a $400 million check, and nearly $2 billion flowed into fintech this week alone. Meanwhile Asia's digital-asset race is heating up on two fronts, and Circle just got a reminder that being first doesn't mean staying ahead.

Some of the stories in today's edition:

💎 Tokenization is now a strategic priority for 84% of financial firms
💎 Crypto.com secures $400M from Citadel Securities — its first institutional round
💎 Japan's SBI Group builds Asia's first cross-border digital asset empire
💎 Circle downgraded to Wall Street's lowest price target amid Open USD competition 💎 Robinhood's bet to bring 10 million casual investors into DeFi

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Daily (this one) and Digest. More below.

Morten

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A Broadridge survey of 200 North American financial executives finds that 84% now see tokenization as a strategic priority, with most expecting digital and traditional assets to coexist going forward rather than one replacing the other. Capital markets firms are clearly furthest along in actually putting the technology to use, while wealth managers have barely started.

Why it matters: This is no longer industry talk about the future — it's 200 decision-makers saying they're already building for it.

Source: Tokenization has become a strategic priority for 84% of financial firms — CoinDesk

Brokerage infrastructure firm Alpaca raised $135M in equity led by Peak XV, part of a $435M financing package including debt. The company already custodies over 90% of all tokenized U.S. equities.

Why it matters: Even with tokenization, a regulated firm still has to hold the underlying shares and handle everything from dividends to corporate actions — Alpaca's growth shows that the unglamorous, regulated infrastructure is the bottleneck now, not the blockchain technology itself.

Source: Crypto brokerage firm Alpaca raises $135 million for tokenized stock infrastructure — CoinDesk

Citadel Securities has invested $400M in Crypto.com at a $20 billion valuation — the exchange's first institutional funding round since it launched in 2016. The capital will fund expansion into tokenized securities and derivatives, arriving just as overall crypto funding has fallen to its lowest level since 2020.

Why it matters: Citadel made a similar investment in Kraken in November (also at a $20 billion valuation) — major market makers are choosing to concentrate capital in a handful of already-established platforms rather than spreading it widely, in an otherwise weak funding period.

Source: Crypto.com Secures $400M From Citadel While Crypto Funding Hits Lowest Since 2020 — Yahoo Finance

Coinbase Ventures led all crypto VC activity in the first half of the year with 30 investments, well ahead of its nearest competitor. This comes as overall crypto fundraising fell sharply in June, and the number of active investors has nearly halved since last fall.

Why it matters: While the rest of the market pulls back, Coinbase is doubling down — a sign that the best-capitalized players are using the downturn to buy position cheaply rather than wait it out.

Source: Coinbase Ventures defies crypto slump with 30 startup deals — crypto.news

FinTech Global reports that 19 companies raised close to $2bn in funding this week combined — a sharp jump from the week before. Among the largest rounds: Alpaca's $135M (above), alongside large lending and insurance financings.

Why it matters: Deal counts aren't rising much year over year, but Q2 totals ($30.9bn, up 34% from last year) show individual rounds are getting bigger — capital is concentrating on fewer, more mature companies.

Source: Investors turn up the heat with almost $2bn raised in FinTech this week — FinTech Global

SBI Holdings bought a majority stake in Singapore's Coinhako on July 16 — the fifth major crypto-related announcement from the company in five weeks, including a planned acquisition of Bitbank (~$289M) and a tokenization partnership with Ondo Finance. The goal is to control the entire digital-asset value chain — issuance, settlement, trading infrastructure and retail distribution — across multiple Asian markets at once, not just at home in Japan.

Why it matters: Most exchanges and stablecoin issuers pick one layer of the value chain and defend it — SBI is going after every layer at once, with yen-based settlement as the strategic prize.

Source: Japan's SBI Group Is Building Asia's First Cross-border Digital Asset Empire — CoinDesk

Hong Kong's securities regulator (SFC) has approved Baillie Gifford's BAGEY fund, which offers fully blockchain-based ownership — not just a digital "mirror" of traditional ownership records, but the blockchain itself as the legal record of ownership. The approval is part of Hong Kong's stated strategy to challenge the U.S. as a global crypto hub.

Why it matters: The difference between a "digital twin" and a "digitally native" fund sounds technical, but it determines whether the blockchain token actually IS the ownership, or just a convenient copy of it — and that's exactly the distinction regulators globally are still fighting over.

Source: Hong Kong steps up to US crypto fund challenge with tokenised fund approval — South China Morning Post

Mizuho downgraded Circle to "underperform" and cut its price target to $50 — the lowest on Wall Street — citing Visa's recent launch of a stablecoin platform built around rival Open USD. Circle's stock has fallen more than 75% since its 2025 IPO.

Why it matters: Open USD shares most of its reserve income with distributors, while Circle keeps much of its own — if partners like Coinbase push for a better deal, Circle's actual revenue model could come under pressure, not just its market share.

Source: Circle Stock Is Downgraded As Stablecoin Competition Heats Up — Yahoo Finance

Robinhood Chain briefly climbed to No. 2 in DEX trading volume last week, but the company itself rejects the comparison to established crypto exchanges — the point isn't taking volume from existing crypto traders, but bringing Robinhood's 27.6 million "funded customers" into onchain derivatives and tokenized assets for the first time. Users in over 120 countries now have access to gold, silver, FX and crypto perpetuals directly in Robinhood Wallet.

Why it matters: Most crypto platforms compete for the same crypto-native users — Robinhood's bet is on a much larger, entirely different group that has never touched a perpetuals contract, and success here would expand the market rather than just redistribute it.

Source: Inside Robinhood's high-stakes bet to onboard 10 million casual investors onto decentralized finance — CoinDesk

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Wishing you a great Monday — and welcome back tomorrow morning for the next edition of Kaupr Daily. Kaupr Digest returns this weekend.

Best regards,
Morten Myrstad
Founder & Editor