Banks Issue Stablecoins as Wall Street Tokenizes Assets

CME Group, the world's largest derivatives exchange, has announced the launch of LINK and Micro LINK futures contracts. This expansion follows CME's previous addition of XRP futures in April 2025, demonstrating continued institutional interest in cryptocurrency derivatives. The new futures products will allow institutional and retail traders to gain exposure to Chainlink's native token through regulated financial instruments. [Read the full announcement](<https://www.cmegroup.com/media-room/press-releases/2026/1/15/cme_group_to_expandcryptoderivativessuitewithlaunchofcardanochai.html>)

Swift, Chainlink, and UBS Asset Management have successfully demonstrated connecting tokenized assets to existing payment infrastructure. This milestone builds on an 8-year strategic partnership between Swift and Chainlink. The collaboration includes: - Working with 23 major financial institutions on corporate actions - Enabling traditional financial systems to interact with tokenized funds using Swift rails and ISO 20022 messages - Implementing the Chainlink Digital Transfer Agent (DTA) technical standard - Allowing banks to execute blockchain transactions through existing Swift messaging standards The project involved BNP Paribas, Intesa Sanpaolo, and Société Générale in achieving interoperability between traditional finance and blockchain systems. Read more: [Swift and Chainlink Partnership](https://blog.chain.link/the-swift-and-chainlink-partnership/)

Bitwise Co-Founder Hong Kim addresses the growing institutional presence in digital asset markets and the challenges of scaling to meet mainstream demand. **Key Points:** - Institutional investors are increasingly entering the crypto space - Focus on infrastructure needed to scale digital asset markets - Discussion centers on meeting the demands of traditional finance players The conversation highlights the ongoing maturation of the crypto industry as it adapts to serve institutional clients with more sophisticated needs and expectations.

Chainlink co-founder Sergey Nazarov shared his vision for the protocol's growth in 2026, focusing on three key areas: - **Scaling tokenization** to reach trillions in value - **Accelerating adoption** across the blockchain ecosystem - **Advancing the industry** to its next phase of development Chainlink previously enabled DeFi to grow beyond $200 billion and is now positioning itself to power the next wave of onchain finance at a much larger scale.

**Bitwise emphasized Chainlink's essential role in prediction markets during a Bloomberg appearance.** The asset management firm highlighted how Chainlink serves as critical infrastructure enabling prediction markets to function reliably on blockchain networks. **Key points:** - Chainlink provides the data connectivity layer that prediction markets depend on - The infrastructure connects real-world information to blockchain-based prediction platforms - This validation from a major asset manager underscores Chainlink's growing importance in DeFi applications Prediction markets require accurate, tamper-proof data feeds to settle outcomes fairly. Chainlink's oracle network addresses this need by securely bridging off-chain data with on-chain smart contracts. The recognition from Bitwise on a mainstream financial platform like Bloomberg signals increasing institutional awareness of blockchain infrastructure providers.