platform_icon platform_icon
Upcoming Events Join Our Network
Upcoming Events Join Our Network

Tag: B2C2

Navigating the Regulatory Maze: Key Insights from the RWA London Summit

Posted on by stg3

The Surprising Truth About Digital Asset Regulation

 

The most revealing insight from the “Digital Asset Regulation: The Next Chapter” panel at the RWA London Summit wasn’t about new frameworks or compliance requirements – it was the startling admission that the entire regulatory landscape may be fundamentally misaligned with the nature of digital assets.

 

As Alex Royle, Co-founder and Chief Regulatory Officer at Core Prime, boldly stated:

 

“Regulators are going to need to start understanding that there probably needs to be a slightly different social contract that they have with investors. ” The real issue, he explained, isn’t decentralization but disintermediation – “Regulation is something that bites at the intermediary almost entirely.“

 

In a world where disintermediated finance is increasingly accessible, regulators face an uncomfortable reality: no regulatory framework can prevent retail consumers from accessing DeFi. “The internet exists,” Royle pointed out bluntly.

 

The European Experiment

 

The panel, featuring compliance and regulatory leaders from Solidus Labs, B2C2, Cor Prime, and Galaxy Digital, examined MiCA (Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation) – the EU’s comprehensive regulatory framework – as a test case for global regulation.

 

Oumou Ba, Head of Compliance at B2C2, highlighted three key impacts of MiCA:

 

  1. Standardization of the market, boosting institutional confidence
  2. A harmonized framework across 27 EU member states
  3. Enhanced investor protection through clear rules for stablecoins and market abuse

 

However, not everyone saw MiCA as a perfect model. Royle pointed out that the EU has produced “15 to 20 times the amount of words written to explain the primary text” – indicating the challenges of implementing a fixed framework in a rapidly evolving ecosystem. “Mica is a regulation, and within pieces of Mica, it defers directly to directives,” he noted, questioning how supervisory convergence would work in practice.

 

The Prudential Regulation Gap

 

Perhaps the most significant regulatory hurdle identified by the panel – and one that’s received surprisingly little attention – is prudential regulation. This critical area determines how financial intermediaries dealing with digital assets will be held accountable by regulators.

 

“The biggest regulatory hurdle that we need to get over, we haven’t really addressed yet. That is prudential regulation,” Royle emphasized. “There’s a huge shoe to drop still as to whether or not a prudential regulator… is going to make any of these business models viable.”

 

Chris Smith from Galaxy Digital reinforced this concern: “If you’re taking a native token in a particular blockchain, a Bitcoin as collateral… it’s very punitive” under current regulatory capital requirements. This creates a significant barrier for institutional adoption.

 

Building a Global Strategy

 

When asked about developing regulatory strategies, the panelists emphasized that jurisdictional choices must follow business plans, not precede them.

 

“Finding a jurisdiction is really having a good balance between the compliance but also the business,” Ba noted. This includes considering talent availability, regulator relationships, and customer base.

 

Royle pointed out that many crypto firms lack well-considered jurisdictional marketing strategies: “There’s probably very few countries globally that actively ban activities… but that doesn’t allow you to market cross border. Where a lot of crypto firms get found out, get fined, get caught…is that they say ‘Well, I’m regulated in the UK. I’ve got an FCA license. What do you mean I can’t call someone in Australia and sell them some crypto?'”

 

The Path Forward

 

Looking ahead, the panel identified several critical developments needed to foster adoption:

 

  • Global Harmonization: Equivalence between regulatory frameworks in the UK, EU, and US is essential.

 

  • Asset Management Clarity: Regulatory certainty for asset managers would bring significant liquidity to the market.

 

  • New Regulatory Paradigm: Rather than trying to prevent access to DeFi, regulators should support regulated firms to intermediate it safely.

 

  • Industry Standards: The digital asset industry needs to mature and establish its own standards rather than waiting for regulators.

 

Delphine Forma, moderating the panel, emphasized this point: “On DeFi also as an industry, we should mature. I think the market is still very immature when we see whatever has happened during the last few months with the launch of those meme coins and insider trading going on, market manipulation. As an industry, we have this opportunity to build up standards and come up to the regulator as a growing up adult in the room.“

 

As Ba concluded, “The technology is here to help… what the technology can do in terms of compliance controls is absolutely fantastic.”

 

The Bottom Line

 

The panel made it clear that we’re at a critical juncture in digital asset regulation. Traditional regulatory approaches that rely on controlling intermediaries face fundamental challenges in a disintermediated financial system. The most successful frameworks will be those that adapt to this new reality rather than fighting against it.

 

For financial institutions exploring digital assets, understanding these regulatory dynamics isn’t just about compliance – it’s about identifying viable business models in a rapidly evolving landscape.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The “Digital Asset Regulation: The Next Chapter” panel at the RWA London Summit 2025 brought together an exceptional group of regulatory experts to discuss the evolving landscape of digital asset regulation. Moderated by Delphine Forma, Policy Lead at Solidus Labs, the panel featured Oumou Ba (Head of Compliance at B2C2), Alex Royle (Co-founder and Chief Regulatory Officer at Core Prime), and Chris Smith (Chief Compliance Officer at Galaxy Digital). The RWA London Summit itself gathered over 200 senior executives from institutions including Fidelity, State Street, LSEG, and BNY Mellon to explore the future of tokenized real-world assets across seven expert panels.

The Evolution of Crypto Credit Markets: Insights from RWA London Summit

Posted on by stg3

The Surprising Face of Crypto Debt Markets

The most surprising revelation from the RWA London Summit 2025 wasn’t about technological innovation or regulatory developments – it was learning that the first institutional crypto loan occurred back in 2015 when a trading firm borrowed 3,000 Bitcoin (worth roughly $500,000-$1,000,000 at the time) from venture capitalist Tim Draper. By the peak of the 2017 market, that same loan had ballooned to approximately $60 million in value.

 

This historical anecdote, shared by Max Boonen, founder of B2C2 and PV01, during his fireside chat with Mark Jones, Head of Funding at B2C2, illuminated just how far the crypto credit markets have evolved in a relatively short time – from informal arrangements to sophisticated tokenized debt instruments.

 

The Past, Present, and Future of Crypto Credit

The “Case Study: Tokenization of Corporate Bonds” panel at the RWA London Summit provided a comprehensive journey through the evolution of crypto credit markets, offering valuable insights for financial institutions exploring this rapidly maturing space.

 

Origins (2015-2019): Necessity Drives Innovation

Boonen, who began his career as an interest rates trader at Goldman Sachs before founding B2C2 in 2014-2015, explained that crypto funding markets emerged from a practical need – market makers required borrowed Bitcoin to maintain trading inventory without exposure to price fluctuations.

 

“B2C2 was the first company to do that professionally,” Boonen noted. This early market was later dominated by Genesis Trading, which pivoted from OTC trading to lending as margins compressed. Their book size grew to approximately $20-25 billion at its peak, with a mixture of secured and unsecured lending – a model that ultimately contributed to their downfall during the Three Arrows Capital crisis.

 

Market Evolution (2020-Present): Risk Management Takes Center Stage

Jones described two distinct phases in the market’s recent evolution:

 

Pre-Three Arrows Collapse (2020-2022) 

 

  • Excess liquidity and significant unsecured lending
  • The infamous “Grayscale arbitrage” trade that contributed to Three Arrows’ downfall
  • A domino effect of failures including Voyager, BlockFi, Celsius, and eventually Genesis

Post-Collapse Market (2022-Present) 

 

  • Heightened focus on credit risk assessment
  • More robust SPV structures and rigorous credit analysis
  • Improved capital efficiency through “one-stop shops” and agency lending
  • The critical emergence of transferable tokenized credit instruments

 

Benefits of Debt Tokenization

 

The panel highlighted several key advantages that tokenized debt instruments offer over traditional bilateral lending arrangements:

 

1. Transferability

 

Traditional crypto loans are bilateral and non-transferable, restricting liquidity and secondary market development. Tokenized debt instruments, like the corporate bond issued via PV01, are fully transferable, creating new market opportunities.

 

2. Reduced Cyclicality

 

Boonen emphasized how tokenization dampens market cyclicality: “The inclusion in the menu of investments that you can make with your crypto is quite important in damping that cyclicality.” When crypto prices rise, funding demand typically increases as investors seek leverage. When prices fall, demand decreases. This creates volatile yield environments that can range from 7% to 12% within weeks.

 

By enabling crypto holders to access traditional asset yields and allowing traditional investors to lend against crypto collateral, tokenization creates more stable market conditions.

 

3. Enhanced Market Access

 

Tokenization provides two important capital flows:

  • Traditional investors entering crypto to lend against crypto collateral
  • Crypto holders using assets to access traditional investments without selling

 

4. Institutional Adoption Catalysts

 

For traditional asset managers with mandates restricting direct lending, security tokenization presents a compliant alternative. The panelists observed two types of new market entrants:

  • Established crypto funds developing dedicated credit mandates
  • Traditional asset managers allocating portions to crypto through tokenized instruments

 

The Road Ahead

 

Despite rapid progress, the panel emphasized that tokenized credit markets remain in early stages. Jones highlighted that approximately 80% of current RWA tokenization involves private credit, particularly home equity lines of credit – representing just 3% of the total U.S. housing debt market, suggesting significant room for growth.

 

The discussion underscored several key trends for the future:

 

  • Transferable tokenized credit instruments gaining traction
  • Institutional appetite varying with market conditions
  • Integration between traditional and crypto markets reducing volatility
  • Significant untapped potential in the broader credit market

 

Conclusion

The “Case Study: Tokenization of Corporate Bonds” session at RWA London Summit 2025 provided a rare window into the evolution of crypto credit markets from industry pioneers who helped build them.

 

As tokenization technology matures, the boundary between crypto-native and traditional finance continues to blur, with innovation focused on creating more efficient, accessible, and transferable credit instruments.

For financial institutions exploring this space, the key takeaway is clear: tokenized debt instruments represent not just a technological innovation, but a fundamental shift in how credit markets function – one that addresses longstanding inefficiencies while opening new opportunities for both traditional and crypto-native participants.

 

This article summarizes the “Case Study: Tokenization of Corporate Bonds” panel featuring Max Boonen (Founder, B2C2 & PV01) and Mark Jones (Head of Funding, B2C2) at the RWA London Summit 2025, which brought together 200 senior executives from institutions including Fidelity, State Street, and LSEG to explore the future of tokenized real-world assets.