Weekly Digital Assets Infrastructure Brief: Week 19-2026
15 signals across 11 jurisdictions: DTCC sets a July pilot and October 2026 launch for its DTC tokenization service with 50+ Wall Street firms (Russell 1000, ETFs, US Treasuries); the HKMA confirms its first two stablecoin licensees (Anchorpoint Financial and the Standard Chartered/HKT/Ant Group consortium) and sets strict conditions for the next wave; the SFC opens 24/7 secondary trading of tokenised SFC-authorised investment products on licensed VATPs; FINMA approves SIX Group's merger of SDX DLT CSD into traditional securities services and authorises crypto custody at the main depository; Western Union goes live with USDPT, a federally regulated digital dollar on Solana issued by Anchorage Digital Bank; Spain's Sabadell and Bankinter join the Qivalis euro stablecoin consortium ahead of an H2 2026 launch; Samsung SDS wins the contract to build the Korea Securities Depository's tokenised securities platform; ECB President Lagarde separates stablecoin monetary and technological functions and anchors Europe's response in Pontes and Appia; Mastercard and Yellow Card launch a five-market EEMEA stablecoin partnership; KBank pilots Ripple-rail cross-border transfers to the UAE and Thailand; Visa expands stablecoin settlement to nine chains as the run rate hits USD 7 billion; Modern Treasury integrates USDC settlement on Polygon for its USD 400 billion payment-orchestration platform; Bermuda runs a Phase 2 USDC airdrop and onboards merchants for a sovereign on-chain economy; SQRIL goes live with stablecoin-to-fiat QR and mobile-money payments across Tanzania, Kenya and South Africa; and CIMA publishes its 2026 reporting schedule for Virtual Asset Service Providers.