Retail crypto access will initially cover Bitcoin, Ether, Litecoin and Cardano through participating cooperative banks. DZ Bank, one of Germany’s largest banking groups by assets, secured a license under the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA), clearing a key regulatory hurdle to operate crypto services within the jurisdiction. DZ Bank announced Wednesday that it had received approval from Germany’s Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) to operate its crypto platform, “meinKrypto,” which is designed to provide crypto trading infrastructure to banks within Germany’s cooperative banking network. The platform will be made available to participating local banks in the coming months. Under the model, DZ Bank will act as the central operator of the platform, while individual cooperative banks will determine whether to offer the crypto services to their retail customers. Each participating bank must file a separate MiCA notification with BaFin before enabling crypto trading. Read ...
Onchain gold products added billions in new value last year, outpacing physical bullion and most gold ETFs as trading activity increasingly shifted to blockchain rails. Onchain gold products added billions in new value last year, growing faster than the overall gold market and most major spot gold exchange-traded funds (ETFs) as onchain trading activity accelerated. The market capitalization of tokenized gold jumped 177% over the past year, while the number of holders nearly tripled, with more than 115,000 new wallets added during the year, outpacing most other RWA categories, according to data compiled by Cex.io from public blockchain and market sources. The tokenized gold market added close to $2.8 billion in net value in 2025, expanding from about $1.6 billion to $4.4 billion, per the report. That increase alone represented almost 25% of total net inflows across the RWA sector, exceeding the combined growth seen in tokenized stocks, corporate bonds and non-US Treasurys. Read more
Bankinter joins Tether and BBVA in the $35 million investment round after the Spanish crypto exchange received its MiCA license in 2025. Spanish bank Bankinter has taken a minority stake in Spanish cryptocurrency exchange Bit2Me, joining stablecoin issuer Tether and other investors as traditional banks deepen their ties to the digital asset industry. The investment, announced Wednesday, makes Bankinter the latest large financial institution to back Bit2Me following the exchange’s 30 million euro ($34.9 million) funding round announced in August. That round included Tether and Spain’s BBVA, and was aimed at supporting Bit2Me’s expansion across Spain and the wider European Union. The scope of the investments is to “achieve technological and knowledge synergies,” while supporting Bit2Me's fintech expansion throughout Spain and the European Union, Bankinter said. Read more
Perp DEXs handle only a fraction of the trading activity seen in TradFi investments, but their infrastructure is catching up to the slow and fragmented centralized trading venues. Perpetual decentralized exchanges (DEXs) are gaining traction as traders turn to blockchain-based platforms that promise lower costs and fewer intermediaries than traditional centralized venues. Perp DEXs are blockchain-based venues for trading perpetual futures contracts, allowing traders to bet on the underlying asset's price with leverage and without an expiry date. Crypto research firm Delphi Digital said in its outlook for 2026 that perp DEXs are poised to continue taking market share from traditional finance products. It argued that decentralized infrastructure is structurally more efficient than legacy systems, which it described as fragmented and expensive to operate. Read more