Appold Market Watch - Week ending 24 July 2026

Market Update & Industry News - Week ending 24 July 2026

🔷 BlackRock, Coinbase, Strategy and six other firms have formed the Bitcoin Security Consortium, pledging $15 million over three years for security research and open-source development. Members will independently fund developers and researchers, with an emphasis on quantum-computing risks, while the consortium will avoid directing Bitcoin governance or protocol decisions.

Appold View: Quantum computing poses a future challenge for all digital security systems, but Bitcoin faces an additional hurdle in migrating to post-quantum cryptography, which will require broad ecosystem consensus rather than a simple software upgrade. Initiatives such as this are a step in ensuring the industry reaches a coordinated, open-source path forward.

🔷 Alpaca has partnered with Broadridge to extend shareholder governance to tokenised equities, enabling proxy voting, investor communications, and access to regulatory disclosures through Broadridge's platform. This collaboration aims to integrate robust governance tools into tokenised equity offerings, enhancing transparency and compliance for investors.

Appold View: Broadridge is not the first to tackle shareholder governance for tokenised equities, with NYSE also outlining similar ambitions. These developments highlight that tokenisation is rapidly maturing beyond simply representing assets on-chain. As governance, voting and shareholder communications become standard features, tokenised securities will increasingly compete with their traditional counterparts and may ultimately become the preferred model for issuing and holding equities.

🔷 Payward Inc., the parent company of Kraken, has expanded its tokenised stock offerings to include equities from Hong Kong, the UK, and South Korea. This initiative aims to enhance the global reach of its xStocks platform amid increasing competition to integrate global stock markets with blockchain technology.

Appold View: Expanding into international markets materially increases the addressable user base while moving crypto exchanges closer to becoming full-service financial applications. Expect competition to accelerate around the breadth of market access and distribution rather than tokenisation alone.

🔷 BitMEX will close its exchange on 23 September 2026, ceasing new account registrations immediately. Users are advised to close positions and withdraw funds before the closure. Remaining positions at closure will be forcefully closed. 

Appold View: This highlights how institutions should incorporate venue-exit planning, data portability, liquidity, legal and operational resilience factors into their standard counterparty risk assessments.

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