BlackRock has joined a Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation pilot that has begun tokenizing stocks and U.S. Treasuries within a market infrastructure that safeguards about $114 trillion in assets.

According to a Wall Street Journal report, BlackRock, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Vanguard, the New York Stock Exchange, and nearly 40 financial firms are participating in DTCC’s latest tokenization initiative.

The pilot focuses on securities already held at the clearinghouse, allowing participating firms to test blockchain-based versions of traditional financial assets while keeping them within DTCC’s existing custody framework.

Live tokenization begins with major public market assets

The first phase of the pilot has started with DTCC tokenizing shares of Microsoft and Circle alongside the Invesco QQQ Trust, the State Street SPDR S&P 500 ETF, and BlackRock’s iShares 0–3 Month Treasury Bond ETF. DTCC has stated that these tokenized assets will be stored at the clearinghouse using blockchain infrastructure.

Participating firms will use the assets in live blockchain transactions covering collateral transfers, repo agreements, and equity trades during the trial. The program is expected to move into its formal operational phase in October after the current testing period.

Separately, DTCC confirmed through a live update that JPMorgan completed the first conversion in the pilot by turning shares of the Invesco QQQ Trust ETF into a tokenized real-world asset.

Decentralized lending protocol Aave has launched V4 on Avalanche, marking the first expansion of its latest lending infrastructure beyond Ethereum and setting the stage for future lending markets backed by tokenized real-world assets.

The deployment introduces Aave V4’s Hub & Spoke architecture, which allows specialized lending markets to operate with their own collateral requirements and risk parameters while drawing on shared liquidity across the protocol.

According to Aave, one of the first planned markets on Avalanche will support borrowing against tokenized assets.

The architecture is designed to support a broader range of collateral than previous versions of the protocol, Aave’s statement said. As well, future specialized markets on Avalanche could support tokenized assets including US Treasurys, money market funds, private credit and corporate bonds, each with customized collateral requirements and risk parameters.

Aave is the largest decentralized lending protocol by total value locked, with nearly $14 billion in assets across 23 blockchains, according to DeFiLlama data.

Source: DefiLlama

Related: Aave brings V3 lending and GHO stablecoin to Monad 

Tokenized assets move beyond issuance

The launch comes as financial institutions and blockchain firms are fast building infrastructure and partnerships that allow tokenized assets to be used as collateral across traditional and decentralized finance.

In February, Franklin Templeton partnered with Binance to let institutions use tokenized money market fund shares as off-exchange collateral while keeping the underlying assets in regulated custody.

The following month, Nasdaq announced plans to integrate its collateral management platform with Talos’ digital asset infrastructure to streamline institutional workflows for managing tokenized collateral. The integration is intended to combine collateral management, risk monitoring and trade surveillance within a single platform for institutional digital asset trading.

Market infrastructure providers have also entered the space. In May, DTCC said it would integrate Chainlink technology into its tokenized collateral platform to support near real-time movement, valuation and settlement of tokenized collateral ahead of a planned fourth-quarter launch.

More recently, the push has expanded into institutional lending. On Wednesday, Grove announced a $500 million warehouse lending facility with Galaxy Digital to finance institutional crypto-backed loans using blockchain-based infrastructure.

Tokenized real-world assets have become one of the fastest-growing sectors of the digital asset industry. According to RWA.xyz, more than $34 billion worth of real-world assets are currently tokenized on public blockchains, up from about $12.8 billion a year ago.

Magazine: Is Robinhood Chain’s success bullish or bearish for ETH the asset?

Democratic Senator Chris Murphy has accused the CLARITY Act of protecting President Donald Trump’s crypto business interests, intensifying a Senate fight over the digital asset bill just as lawmakers prepare for a floor vote.

According to statements made during a July 14 Capitol Hill press conference, Murphy argued that the legislation, in its current form, would fail to prevent the president from profiting from an industry that Congress is attempting to regulate.

His remarks came shortly after Trump’s latest financial disclosure reported roughly $1.4 billion in crypto-related income, largely tied to his family’s involvement with World Liberty Financial.

Democratic opposition centers on conflict-of-interest provisions

Speaking at the press conference, Murphy described the CLARITY Act as legislation that would “essentially legalize Donald Trump’s crypto corruption scheme.”

A video of his remarks was later shared on X. Murphy argued there is little justification for creating a new crypto regulatory framework if it does not stop elected officials from benefiting financially from the sector they oversee.

Standing alongside Murphy, Senators Jeff Merkley and Chris Van Hollen repeated calls for stronger ethics rules before the bill advances. The lawmakers said they want explicit provisions preventing the president, vice president, members of Congress, and their immediate families from profiting from crypto businesses that could be affected by future regulation.

The latest criticism follows an earlier push by Senate Democrats. Five days before the press conference, ranking Democrats across five Senate committees, including Senator Elizabeth Warren, requested hearings into Trump’s crypto interests after reviewing his financial disclosures.

According to those lawmakers, the filings indicated that crypto ventures operated by Trump’s family generated most of his reported income.

Those ethics concerns have become a central issue as the Senate debates legislation that would divide oversight of digital assets between the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission while also establishing consumer protection rules and restricting a U.S. central bank digital currency.

Senate vote approaches as negotiations continue

Attention has now shifted to the Senate calendar after Senator Cynthia Lummis confirmed on July 15 that the joint Banking and Agriculture Committee draft has been completed and is ready for introduction on the Senate floor.

Trump has separately urged lawmakers to move quickly on the CLARITY Act, although his financial disclosures have added fresh political pressure to that request. The Senate version has been under negotiation for more than ten months, with discussions over stablecoin yield provisions joining the debate alongside ethics concerns.

Industry groups continue to support the legislation despite the political dispute. Coinbase executives have argued that clear crypto rules are necessary to keep U.S. digital asset markets competitive with jurisdictions such as China and the European Union, describing regulatory certainty as a national security issue.

For crypto investors, the legislative timeline remains important because many analysts continue to link institutional participation in digital assets with regulatory certainty in the United States. XRP, in particular, has frequently been viewed by market participants as one of the assets most sensitive to progress on the CLARITY Act because of its long-running regulatory history.

The next phase is expected between July 15 and July 20, when Lummis has indicated the Senate floor process could begin. Whether Senate Majority Leader John Thune schedules the bill quickly, or negotiations over conflict-of-interest provisions delay its consideration, will determine how the legislation moves through its final stage and whether Democratic ethics demands become part of the final package.

Bitcoin pushed to a fresh three-week high on Wednesday, riding a wave of relief after US inflation data cooled for a second straight session. The move brought BTC/USD to $65,500—its highest level since June 22—while risk assets strengthened as traders recalibrated expectations for Federal Reserve policy.

The rally, however, has not erased caution among market participants. Traders highlighted nearby liquidity hurdles and pointed to historical price behavior around key moving-average levels, suggesting Bitcoin could face renewed selling pressure if it fails to hold above critical zones.

Key takeaways

• BTC/USD traded up to around $65,500, the highest since June 22, after US Producer Price Index (PPI) data came in cooler than expected.
• The improving inflation picture supported a more favorable tone for risk assets and reduced certainty around near-term Fed rate hikes, according to CME Group’s FedWatch Tool.
• Despite the breakout attempt, traders emphasized tight order-book liquidity levels around $65.6K and $67.2K that could determine whether the move extends.
• Analysts noted Bitcoin is nearing a 50-month exponential moving average (EMA), a technical area that has previously corresponded with rejection during bear-market-style setups.

Bitcoin’s move tracks a cooler inflation print

Price action accelerated after the latest US Producer Price Index reading for June. Per data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the year-on-year PPI rate for final demand was 5.5%, following a 0.3% monthly decrease.

In the BLS release, the agency explained that the June movement in the index for final demand reflected price changes across goods and services: “the index for final demand goods… fell 1.4 percent,” while “the index for final demand services moved up 0.2 percent.” The PPI report is available via the BLS official news release.

The PPI data followed Tuesday’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) surprise to the downside, which had already lifted Bitcoin. As earlier coverage noted, CPI came in weaker than expected despite macro pressures, including the US-Iran conflict and its knock-on effects on oil prices.

Market participants interpreted the combination of PPI and CPI softness as further evidence that inflation pressures are easing, which in turn can influence expectations for how quickly—and how aggressively—the Fed will tighten or hike rates. Economist Mohamed El-Erian described the PPI results as “much better-than-expected” and suggested the numbers could boost equities and temper expectations for further interest-rate hikes, in a post on X: elerianm’s update.

Fed expectations shift as traders reprice rate odds

Beyond Bitcoin-specific dynamics, Wednesday’s strength aligns with a broader shift in interest-rate expectations. CME Group’s FedWatch Tool indicated changes to probability assumptions for the September FOMC decision, showing that a 0.25% hike was no longer the single most likely scenario.

That repricing matters for crypto because Bitcoin frequently trades like a high-beta macro asset during periods when funding conditions are expected to loosen or tightening risks appear to fade. When traders perceive a lower likelihood of additional hikes, appetite for risk tends to improve—often translating into more aggressive bids in liquid assets like BTC.

Additional commentary pointed to falling inflation expectations. The Kobeissi Letter referenced bets tracked via Polymarket’s prediction activity, arguing that inflation expectations continued to decline, based on the service’s users’ outlook.

Order-book levels and moving-average resistance in focus

Even with the upside momentum, traders appeared reluctant to declare the rally fully confirmed. Much of the near-term debate centered on whether Bitcoin can clear immediate liquidity pockets and hold them long enough to trigger sustained buying.

Trader Daan Crypto Trades emphasized that liquidity above the current area sits around the $65.6K region and, more importantly, at $67.2K, describing those levels in an X post: Daan Crypto Trades. In the same update, the trader argued that breaking above the $67.2K liquidity zone could convert the move into “a bigger move,” potentially reopening the path toward the $70K-plus area—positioning Bitcoin inside the middle of its commonly referenced $60K–$80K range.

On the technical side, Rekt Capital highlighted that BTC was approaching its 50-month exponential moving average (EMA). In past market cycles, such moving averages can act as inflection points; the argument, tied to “bear-market history,” is that if price behaves similarly, it may face rejection at or near the EMA rather than continuing cleanly higher.

That caution was echoed by trader Killa, who referenced a statistical pattern from the prior 12 months and suggested BTC could “derisk for the remainder of the month” and potentially push back down if the historical behavior repeats.

What to watch next for confirmation or reversal

For traders, the immediate question is whether Bitcoin can build acceptance above the liquidity zones highlighted by market participants—particularly around $67.2K—and whether it can avoid rejection as it tests the 50-month EMA area noted by analysts. With rate expectations still sensitive to incoming data and Fed messaging, the next inflation or central-bank headline could quickly shift the balance again.

Bitcoin’s BTC$64,532.45 rally on Tuesday petered out as investors considered a weaker-than-forecast U.S. inflation figure wasn’t enough to prompt a Federal Reserve interest-rate cut.

While it’s still 3% higher over 24 hours, the largest cryptocurrency has dropped 0.5% since midnight. Ether (ETH), up 4.7% in 24 hours, has also pulled back by 0.5%.

On Polymarket, the perceived odds of a rate increase plunged from 34% to 6.7% after the data came out. Bettors now weigh a 93% chance the Federal Reserve will leave rates unchanged this month, and the CME’s FedWatch shows 30-day fed funds futures prices indicating just a 14.4% chance of an increase.

“Crypto’s reaction to the latest CPI report shows the market is becoming more selective in how it interprets macro signals,” Markus Levin, co-founder of XYO, told CoinDesk. “While falling inflation reduces pressure on markets and improves the outlook for risk assets, traders are no longer assuming that every favourable inflation print will automatically lead to rate cuts or new all-time highs.”

South Korea plans to update its 76-year-old national asset management system to formally include virtual currencies and intellectual property in the country’s definition of national assets, according to the Ministry of Economy and Finance’s economic policy roadmap released Wednesday.

The proposal contemplates revising the National Property Act, which dates back to 1950, and includes plans to create a broader legal framework for managing state-owned assets. The ministry reiterated plans to start a pilot program for tokenized government bonds in 2027, saying blockchain technology has the potential to reduce transaction costs and speed up transfers.

Officials are also studying the tokenization of state-owned real estate to allow retail investors to participate and share in investment returns, according to the plan.

The announcement builds on South Korea’s broader push to bring blockchain into public finance. Earlier this year, the Finance Ministry said it would begin testing tokenized deposits for government spending in the fourth quarter. The Bank of Korea has already started trials of its central bank digital currency (CBDC) with commercial banks.