Kaupr Today - Thursday, June 25 2026
Wall Street's tokenisation race just got three major entrants in a single week — and crypto's most famous critic just joined them. Meanwhile, Meta is eyeing prediction markets with 3.5 billion users behind it.
💎 Baillie Gifford launches the UK's first fully native tokenised bond fund
💎 NYSE owner ICE and OKX form joint venture for tokenised equities
💎 Dr. Doom Roubini backs blockchain reserve asset — calls it the "Technodollar"
💎 Binance withdraws MiCA application in Greece — locked out of EU from July 1
💎 BitMine adds $92M in ETH — Tom Lee calls it "crypto spring"
💎 Meta's Zuckerberg backs prediction markets app "Arena"
— Morten
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Wall Street goes onchain — all at once
Three landmark tokenisation moves landed in the same week: a century-old fund manager, the NYSE's parent, and crypto's most famous critic. The race just changed gear.
Baillie Gifford launches the UK's first fully native tokenised bond fund on Solana and Ethereum
Edinburgh-based Baillie Gifford has launched the Enhanced Yield Fund (BAGEY) — a dollar-denominated, UK-regulated bond fund issued natively on Ethereum and Solana, with BNY providing tokenisation and wallet infrastructure. Unlike most tokenised products, BAGEY does not wrap an existing fund: the blockchain is the legal register of record, with subscriptions settling in USDC and a target yield of 7%.
Why it matters: Baillie Gifford is 118 years old and manages £286 billion. When a firm like that issues a fund directly onchain with BNY as custodian, tokenisation has moved from experiment to institutional standard.
Source: TradFi fund manager Baillie Gifford introduces Solana, Ethereum tokenized fund with BNY — CoinDesk
NYSE owner ICE and OKX form 50-50 joint venture for tokenised equities [#invest]
Intercontinental Exchange — parent of the New York Stock Exchange — has formed a 50-50 joint venture with OKX to bring tokenised NYSE equities and ICE futures to OKX's 120 million registered users. The venture will register as a US broker-dealer and futures commission merchant, pending regulatory approval, with a rollout targeted for H2 2026. (Source: press release)
Why it matters: When NYSE's parent builds operating infrastructure specifically to deliver equities onchain to crypto traders, the question of whether tokenised stocks are real market structure stops being hypothetical.
Source: Intercontinental Exchange and OKX Establish Joint Venture to Bridge Traditional and Digital Asset Markets — BusinessWire (Source: press release)
Dr. Doom goes onchain: Roubini backs tokenised ETF reserve asset [#invest]
Nouriel Roubini — the economist who called Bitcoin "the mother of all scams" before the US Senate in 2018 — has co-authored a whitepaper for USAFi, a tokenised security backed by the Atlas America Fund, an SEC-registered ETF listed on Nasdaq. Issued under Dubai's VARA framework with Securitize as tokenisation provider, Roubini frames the product as the first "Technodollar" — a digital reserve asset for the era after the petrodollar.
Why it matters: Roubini's pivot to tokenised real-world assets is a signal about where serious macro money is looking — not at speculative crypto, but at regulated, asset-backed onchain products.
Source: Crypto critic Roubini joins tokenization boom with onchain 'Technodollar' — CoinDesk
Tokenised RWA market cap crosses $51 billion — equity tokenisation up 130% [#invest]
The market cap of tokenised real-world assets has surpassed $51 billion, up 40% year-to-date, while the broader crypto market is down roughly 20% over the same period, according to Bernstein analysts. Equity tokenisation is the fastest-growing segment, up 130% year-to-date, with monthly transfer volumes reaching $5.3 billion in June — up from $500 million in September 2025.
Why it matters: RWA tokenisation is growing through a bear market on institutional demand alone — the clearest evidence yet that this is structural, not cyclical.
Source: Tokenized RWA market cap rises 40% to top $51 billion as industry races to define equity tokenization model: Bernstein — The Block
Ethereum's institutional moment — and the price hasn't caught up
BitMine adds $92 million in ETH — Tom Lee calls it the early stages of crypto spring [#invest]
BitMine Immersion Technologies (NYSE: BMNR) bought 52,203 ETH last week — worth roughly $92 million — bringing its total holdings to 5.67 million ETH, or 4.7% of Ethereum's circulating supply. Chairman Tom Lee said the company believes it is in "the early stages of crypto spring," arguing that tokenisation and AI will drive exponential demand growth for Ethereum.
Why it matters: BitMine is the largest corporate ETH holder globally, and Lee's thesis is being tested in real time against a price that remains 65% below its August 2025 all-time high.
Source: Bitmine added $92 million of ETH with Tom Lee continuing to believe in 'crypto spring' — CoinDesk
BitMine, SharpLink and Joe Lubin back new Ethereum research nonprofit Ethlabs [#invest]
Five former Ethereum Foundation researchers have launched Ethlabs, an independent nonprofit R&D organisation funded by BitMine, SharpLink and Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin. The lab will focus on faster settlement, native asset issuance, cross-chain transactions and mainnet capacity.
Why it matters: Core Ethereum research is moving beyond the Foundation into independently funded organisations backed by large institutional ETH holders — a structural governance shift that is genuinely new.
Source: Joe Lubin, Sharplink, Tom Lee's Bitmine back new Ethereum research lab — CoinDesk
Why is Ethereum still lagging despite all the institutional interest? [#invest]
Despite spot ETF approvals and record corporate treasury accumulation, Ethereum's price has underperformed expectations. Spot ETH ETF inflows remain well below the historic inflows seen after Bitcoin ETF launches, pointing to a disconnect between institutional product activity and actual buying pressure.
Why it matters: The gap between the Ethereum story and the Ethereum price is one of the defining puzzles of 2026 — and the answer matters for anyone building tokenisation or payments products on the network.
Source: Why Ethereum underperforms despite Wall Street hype and spot ETF approvals — NewsBTC via TradingView
MiCA's final days — and Binance just blinked
Binance has withdrawn its MiCA licence application in Greece and confirmed it is searching for an alternative EU member state. The Hellenic Capital Market Commission had been set to reject the application, citing the exchange's compliance history and its $4.3 billion US settlement in 2023. Binance says it remains committed to Europe and will pursue authorisation through another regulator.
Why it matters: The world's largest crypto exchange by volume is now locked out of the EU from July 1. Roughly 210 firms have obtained CASP authorisation — Binance is not one of them, and its competitors stand to absorb its European user base.
Source: Europe's crypto reset: MiCA creates a single market as hundreds of firms face exit — Euronews
Prediction markets go mainstream — Meta wants in
Meta's Zuckerberg backs prediction markets app "Arena" [#growth]
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has directed a small team to build a standalone prediction markets app, internally called "Arena," to compete with Polymarket and Kalshi. The app will initially use a video game-style points system rather than real money, operating independently from Facebook and Instagram while those platforms direct users toward it.
Why it matters: When the company with 3.56 billion daily active users enters a sector, the addressable market changes overnight — regardless of whether Arena ever allows real-money trading.
📅 Kaupr Event — State of ETFs in the Nordics: Digital Assets & Regulated Products | June 30, 11:00–13:00 CET
On June 30, Kaupr brings together senior voices from issuers, researchers, platforms and asset managers to take stock of the Nordic digital-asset ETF and ETP market — built around the wealth management, family office, private banking and institutional investor perspective. Live on LinkedIn, YouTube and kaupr.io from 11:00–13:00 CET. Open to all.
Confirmed speakers: Alex Pollak (21Shares) · Christopher Kock (Virtune) · Håkon Holm Østvedt (Nasdaq) · Jacob Lindberg (Valour) · Marco Poblete (Bitwise Europe) · Marcus Thomas (Xenix) · Martin Leinweber (MarketVector)
Host and moderator: Morten Myrstad
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Wishing you a great Thursday — and welcome back tomorrow morning for the next edition of Kaupr Today.
Best regards Morten Myrstad Founder & Editor