Appold Market Watch - Week ending 27 March 2026
Market Update and Industry News - Week Ending 27 March 2026
🔷 Invesco has agreed to become the investment manager of Superstate's Short Duration US Government Securities Fund (USTB), a tokenised fund backed by short-term U.S. Treasury bills which currently holds approximately $900 million in assets under management.
Appold View: Invesco’s move into USTB highlights further credibility from a tier-one asset manager into live tokenised fund infrastructure and, with competition already being shaped by earlier moves from BlackRock, demonstrates that institutional participation is increasingly strategic. Appold is pleased to have assisted Invesco on this project.
🔷 The UK government announced an immediate moratorium on cryptocurrency donations to political parties, citing risks of hidden foreign interference and poor traceability. The move, informed by the Rycroft review, requires parties to return any crypto received within 30 days once legislation passes, with criminal penalties to follow, and is embedded in the Representation of the People Bill.
Appold View: While presented as a transparency measure, the UK's proposed ban on political crypto donations may also be read as limiting a fundraising channel that the party in power appears materially less equipped than some rivals to access at scale. Nonetheless, transparency and governance is critical.
🔷 Ripple has entered the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) BLOOM sandbox to test its RLUSD stablecoin for automating cross-border trade finance payments in partnership with supply chain firm Unloq. The pilot aims to replace slow, manual processes with programmable, condition-triggered settlements using RLUSD on the XRP Ledger.
Appold View: The sandbox's 16 members include JP Morgan, DBS, Circle, Stripe, and Coinbase, and getting through that door means Singapore's strict regulators may consider the RLUSD-on-XRPL stack credible enough for real trade flows. It also places RLUSD in direct competition with Circle's USDC, even if the two are being tested for slightly different niches. Regardless of who graduates from this sandbox first, the real prize is the same: becoming mainstream infrastructure.
🔷 UK challenger bank, Monument, announced plans to tokenise up to £250 million ($335 million) of retail customer deposits on the Midnight public blockchain, marking a UK first for a regulated bank. The tokenised deposits will remain fully backed, interest-bearing, and protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS).
Appold View: UK stablecoins continue to lag global competitors, while Monument Bank clearly charts a different course. It’s a bold move as Midnight remains largely untested at scale, and £250 million in regulated deposits is a serious commitment. Still, for the sake of the UK's blockchain ambitions, we hope it delivers.
