Nasdaq and Talos are expanding their work in digital assets with a new integration aimed at improving how institutions manage tokenized collateral. 

Meanwhile, the plan links Nasdaq’s Calypso risk and collateral platform and its trade surveillance tools with Talos’s digital asset trading system, as firms look for smoother ways to handle tokenized assets across crypto and traditional markets.

Nasdaq and Talos said the new setup is designed to give institutional clients a more unified workflow. The integration connects execution, collateral management, risk controls and market monitoring in one structure for firms active in both traditional finance and digital assets.

On Monday, the companies said the partnership is aimed at tokenized collateral use cases that have so far faced operational barriers. Nasdaq said these barriers include the difficulty of fitting digital assets into existing collateral and risk systems used by large institutions.

Nasdaq said internal research points to about $35 billion in collateral being tied up in “corrective and non-interest-bearing measures.” The new integration is meant to reduce that friction by helping firms manage tokenized collateral more efficiently across different asset classes.

Talos chief executive Anton Katz said, 

”The evolution toward tokenized collateral is a natural progression for institutional capital markets.” 

He added that bringing Talos together with Nasdaq’s systems could reduce friction across onchain and offchain assets.

In addition, the integration also adds Nasdaq’s trade surveillance tools to Talos’s client workflow. That means users will be able to monitor trading activity for patterns linked to wash trading, spoofing and layering across the venues they access.

That focus comes as digital asset markets continue to face questions around market integrity. Nasdaq said the combined system is intended to bring “institutional-grade” compliance standards into workflows used for tokenized collateral and digital asset trading.

Tokenization push continues across large firms

The Nasdaq-Talos move comes as larger financial groups keep building tokenization tools for institutions. In BlackRock’s 2026 chairman’s letter, Larry Fink wrote that tokenization could help modernize market infrastructure by making investments easier to issue, trade and access.

Other firms are also building collateral programs around tokenized assets. Franklin Templeton said in February that eligible institutions can use tokenized money market fund shares as off-exchange collateral in digital markets, showing that large firms are moving beyond pilots into live institutional products.

Apex Group, the fund services giant with over $3.5 trillion in assets under administrative care, extended its tokenization range with a structured product offering institutions exposure to bitcoin BTC$71,170.10 mining, to be issued and managed on U.S. exchange Coinbase’s Ethereum overlay platform, Base.

Since buying real-world asset (RWA) specialist Tokeny last May, Apex has been steamrolling into the tokenization industry, and on Tuesday said it will tokenize the Omnes Mining Note, OMN, an institutional-grade structured note backed by bitcoin hashrate.

The OMN provides professional non-U.S. investors with direct economic exposure to new bitcoin production measured in hashrate, which is the computational power used to validate transactions and produce the largest cryptocurrency, without the operational complexities of managing mining infrastructure, hardware, energy or regulatory hurdles, according to a release.

Each OMN is backed by a fixed 1 petahash per second (1 PH/s) of Bitcoin hashrate for the duration of the 36-month tenor. Ownership is recorded in book-entry form and mirrored onchain under the ERC-3643 standard, according to the Omnes website. ERC-3643 is an Ethereum-based protocol for tokenizing RWAs developed by Tokeny.

“Tokenization gives investors mobility and utility that traditional notes cannot,” said Peter Hughes, founder and CEO of Apex Group, in the statement. “Qualified investors can transfer OMN onchain and, over time, potentially use it as a form of collateral in permissioned lending without selling the asset. This enhances liquidity while giving Omnes a more scalable and globally distributable structure.”

Apex said last week that its partnership on the Coinbase Bitcoin Yield Fund, which it handles as a transfer agent and record keeper of the funds net asset value, would be available to investors on the Base network.

“Bringing a regulated debt product backed by mining onto Base is a huge win. It proves that onchain finance isn’t just for crypto-native assets – it’s for real-world industrial infrastructure too,” said Jesse Pollak, head of Base.

“Bitcoin mining is the only mechanism that creates new Bitcoin through protocol issuance. This is economically distinct from yield strategies that rely on redistributing existing Bitcoin,” said Emmanuel Montero, Omnes’ CEO.

The European Central Bank has renewed its push for tokenized central bank money as Europe works to build a larger tokenized financial market. ECB Executive Board member Piero Cipollone said tokenized deposits and stablecoins will need a public settlement base in central bank money if the market is to grow across the region.

Cipollone made the case during a speech in Brussels on March 23. He said tokenized central bank money is needed as a settlement anchor for tokenized securities, deposits and stablecoins. He warned that without it, market participants may receive payment in assets they do not want to hold because of price swings or credit concerns. He said, 

“Without tokenised central bank money, a seller of a tokenised security may receive payment in an asset they are not comfortable holding – one exposed to price volatility or credit risk – which limits the market’s ability to scale.” 

His remarks place public money at the center of the ECB’s tokenization plan. The ECB has been building that plan through Pontes, the Eurosystem’s distributed ledger settlement project. Pontes is designed to connect DLT-based market platforms with the Eurosystem’s TARGET Services so transactions can settle in central bank money.

The ECB said Pontes is due for an initial launch in the third quarter of 2026. That first phase is meant to meet immediate market demand and let participants settle DLT-based transactions in central bank money.

Pontes is part of a broader two-track plan. The shorter-term track focuses on practical settlement tools, while the longer-term track is Appia, which is meant to help shape a wider European tokenized financial system by 2028.

The ECB said Appia will be built with market input. It is meant to map out how tokenized finance can develop in Europe while keeping central bank money as the base layer for trust and settlement.

Cipollone calls for legal clarity across the bloc

Cipollone also said settlement alone will not be enough. He called for closer work between public institutions and private firms, along with legal rules that fit tokenized finance across the European Union.

One part of Appia focuses on interoperability. The goal is to make tokenized assets transferable across different DLT platforms through shared data formats and compatible smart contract standards.

He said the European Commission’s plan to extend and improve the DLT Pilot Regime is “important and welcome.” At the same time, he warned that Europe may still need a dedicated legal framework so tokenized assets can be issued, held and transferred more smoothly across the bloc.

In addition, the debate has also drawn comments from private sector firms. Circle said in feedback submitted on March 20 that the Commission should widen the DLT Pilot Regime and allow authorized crypto-asset service providers to offer e-money token cash account services.

That feedback came just days before Cipollone’s speech. Together, the comments show that both public institutions and private firms are pushing for clearer rules as Europe tries to build tokenized markets that can work at scale.

Bitmine Immersion Technologies has increased its Ether holdings again as chairman Tom Lee said the token’s recent weakness may be nearing an end. The company disclosed a fresh purchase of 65,341 ETH worth about $139 million, lifting its total holdings to more than 4.6 million Ether.

Bitmine said it has raised its buying pace over the past three weeks. Lee said the company’s base case is that Ether is in the final stages of a “mini-crypto winter” after several months of pressure across digital asset markets.

The latest purchase added 65,341 ETH to the company’s balance sheet. That brought Bitmine’s holdings to about 4.661 million Ether as of March 23, according to the company’s update.

Lee also pointed to policy and market signals that he said support a better outlook for crypto. In the company statement, he linked that view to progress on the CLARITY Act and to the way Ether and other digital assets have held up during recent geopolitical stress.

Bitmine’s total Ether position now equals about 3.86% of the circulating supply, based on Ethereum’s circulating supply of about 120.69 million tokens. The company has said it wants to accumulate 5% of the circulating supply over time.

To reach that goal at the current supply level, Bitmine would still need roughly 1.37 million more ETH. At prices near $2,156, that would require close to $3 billion in additional purchases.

Ether’s supply is not fixed. The total can rise or fall depending on issuance and token burning, so the amount needed to reach 5% can change over time.

Staking remains part of the strategy

Bitmine said more than 3 million of its Ether is now staked. That means the company is not only building a treasury position but also using the assets within Ethereum’s proof-of-stake system.

The company also reported other holdings on its balance sheet. These include about $1.1 billion in cash, 196 Bitcoin, a $200 million stake in Beast Industries, and a $95 million stake in Eightco Holdings.

Moreover, Bitmine is now one of the largest corporate Ether holders in the market. Strategic ETH Reserve data cited in public reports shows Bitmine ahead of other treasury firms, with SharpLink Gaming and Ether Machine trailing by a wide margin.

The company’s latest move also reflects a wider trend that grew across 2025 as more firms shifted capital into crypto treasury strategies. 

Fraud networks work by using X accounts

ZachXBT determined that there was a group of X accounts on the network that shared updates related to war to gain some credibility and an audience. Most of these accounts would frequently post about the political happenings to become known to active users, and they also had the benefit of reposting similar content that would assist in increasing their reach as well as ensuring constant exposure.

The accounts later started to promote fraud involving crypto after gaining a following. They involved bogus giveaways and organized pump-and-dump operations on unsuspecting participants. As a result, the users, who interacted with content about the war, were exposed to false promises of easy returns with the help of digital assets.
The research revealed that operators used to switch usernames and account identities to minimize chances of detection. They also purchased older accounts that were already followed to sound more believable. In addition to that, the network employed the same message being sent repeatedly on a number of profiles, which enabled them to push scam campaigns within a short period and successfully.

Major Profits on Organized Plans

According to on-chain data, such synchronized operations brought a lot of money to the operators. One instance was the report by ZachXBT that a campaign generated six-figure profits during short-term token promotions. There was also one case where multiple accounts promoted the token known as ORAMAMA in a single day and then never promoted it again.

The emergence of the scams is a part of a bigger story with scammers exploiting major international events to target online audiences to trick them. The presence of fear and uncertainty in the current conflict has empowered purported scammers to integrate misinformation into financial frauds, although the social media platforms continue to be at the center of the operation plans. The results mention how scammers can use geopolitical tension to organize coordinated campaigns of financial frauds, whereas the social media platforms remain central to their operational strategies.

Key Highlights

• Alibaba introduced the XuanTie C950, a cutting-edge 5nm RISC-V processor developed by its DAMO Academy division
• The processor operates at 3.2 GHz with performance exceeding its predecessor, the XuanTie C920, by over 300%
• Target applications include cloud infrastructure, AI inference operations, and agentic AI systems
• The company plans a separate public listing for T-Head, its semiconductor division
• BABA shares gained 2.98%, finishing at $126.06 on March 23

Alibaba’s semiconductor ambitions took center stage this week. During an internal DAMO Academy conference held Tuesday, the tech giant revealed its XuanTie C950 processor, claiming it represents “the highest performing RISC-V CPU in the world.”

The processor features 5-nanometer manufacturing technology and operates at 3.2 GHz, utilizing the open-source RISC-V architecture. This open framework enables chip developers to adapt instruction sets for specialized AI applications without incurring licensing costs — a strategic benefit for organizations deploying AI agents across large-scale operations.

Alibaba Group Holding Limited, BABA

Performance metrics show the C950 delivering over three times the speed of the earlier XuanTie C920 model. The company has not disclosed which manufacturing partner produced the silicon.

According to Alibaba’s announcement, the processor targets cloud computing environments and AI inference tasks. End users will have the flexibility to configure the chip for specialized inference requirements.

Building a Complete AI Ecosystem

CEO Eddie Wu articulated his strategy last year: positioning Alibaba as an end-to-end AI technology company spanning both hardware and software layers. That vision is now materializing.

During last week’s quarterly earnings discussion, Wu confirmed that Alibaba’s custom AI accelerators have transitioned into volume production. The T-Head semiconductor division is now competing directly with Nvidia and Huawei in China’s domestic marketplace.

T-Head has already onboarded significant enterprise clients, and Alibaba continues advancing preparations for the unit’s independent stock market debut. That initiative remains in progress.

The company maintains two distinct chip product families. The Zhenwu 810E lineup focuses on AI model training and inference capabilities. Meanwhile, the XuanTie portfolio, now including the C950, targets high-performance cloud environments and agentic AI deployments.

RISC-V Emerges as Strategic Architecture

RISC-V has gained substantial traction among Chinese technology firms as geopolitical friction restricts access to Western semiconductor intellectual property. Alibaba ranks among the architecture’s earliest and most committed advocates domestically.

The standard directly challenges offerings from Arm Holdings and Intel. When Arm encountered limitations conducting business with Huawei following US export restrictions, RISC-V partially addressed that market void.

The C950 debut caps an active period for Alibaba’s artificial intelligence product portfolio. Last week witnessed the introduction of Wukong, an enterprise-grade platform engineered for AI agent orchestration.

Monday brought the global launch of Accio Work, the international edition of that platform. Targeting small and mid-market enterprises, it promises autonomous execution of sophisticated operational workflows.

Earlier this month, Alibaba consolidated certain AI development teams into a newly formed division called Alibaba Token Hub, concentrating on enterprise-focused AI workplace solutions.

The competitive landscape: Token pricing for Chinese AI models has plummeted amid intense domestic rivalry, compelling firms like Alibaba to pursue margin protection and competitive differentiation through hardware and infrastructure innovation.

BABA finished trading at $126.06 on March 23, advancing $3.65 or 2.98% for the session. Pre-market activity on March 24 showed shares retreating to $124.94, declining 0.90%.

Nasdaq will integrate its Calypso risk and collateral platform and trade surveillance system with digital asset infrastructure firm Talos’s institutional trading tools.

The integration announced Monday aims to offer institutional clients a “unified” workflow for managing tokenized collateral and monitoring crypto and traditional assets for market abuse. It aims to ease a bottleneck in institutional tokenization, with Nasdaq citing internal research that roughly $35 billion in collateral sits tied up in “corrective and non-interest-bearing measures.”​

Nasdaq’s integration of its trade surveillance tools means that Talos clients will be able to run alerts for opaque tactics such as wash trading, spoofing and layering across the venues they access. 

The companies said the partnership is intended to bring “institutional-grade” compliance standards to digital asset markets.