Appold Market Watch - Week ending 13 March 2026
Market Update & Industry News - Week ending 13 March 2026
🔷 Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) has formed a strategic partnership with OKX to introduce tokenised stocks and digital futures products. ICE invested in OKX, valuing it at $25 billion, and will secure a board seat. The collaboration aims to advance retail access to regulated markets and to improve clearing, risk management, and infrastructure offerings.
Appold View: The exact terms of the deal are not officially disclosed, but it appears to be a good result for OKX, which should have broader access to ICE’s regulated markets for its user base, with ICE using its pricing data to support US-regulated crypto futures. Expect more work around tokenisation to come.
🔷 Nasdaq is partnering with Kraken’s parent company, Payward, to develop an issuer-backed tokenised equities framework to allow stocks to move onto blockchain rails while preserving the rights attached to the underlying stock.
Appold View: More significant than the partnership itself is the direction of travel, highlighting that tokenised equities are increasingly being designed as an extension of recognised market infrastructure, with the real challenge now shifting from concept to whether transfer, registry, compliance, and investor rights can work cleanly in practice. With ICE and OKX being in hot competition!
🔷 BlackRock launched the iShares Staked Ethereum Trust ETF, offering spot Ethereum exposure and staking income, trading on Nasdaq with a 0.12% fee on the first $2.5 billion. Coinbase will serve as custodian and staking provider, with validators including Figment, Galaxy Digital LLC, and Bitwise-owned Attestant.
Appold View: Staking income is clearly moving further into a regulated wrapper form, narrowing the gap between passive crypto exposure and products with an active income component. It is also notable that BlackRock is using Attestant, despite Bitwise being a smaller ETF competitor, suggesting the pool of institutional-grade validators remains limited.
🔷 Mastercard has launched a Digital Asset Partner Programme, collaborating with over 85 companies, including Binance, Ripple, Circle, and PayPal. This initiative aims to advance practical uses for digital assets, enhancing their application in the financial ecosystem.
Appold View: This could partly be a defensive move dressed as expansion. Stablecoins created a credible path for moving value outside traditional card networks, and Mastercard could be trying to ensure that, as digital asset use matures, it still passes through infrastructure the firm can help control and monetise. Visa appeared to have moved earlier on this.
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