Overview
- The Financial Conduct Authority set out its thinking on Monday and is exploring a narrow exemption from UK collective investment scheme and alternative investment fund rules for certain tokenized gold products.
- The Bank of England is assessing whether tokenized assets including stablecoins could qualify as collateral under its Sterling Monetary Framework and plans a consultation on central counterparty acceptance later this year.
- The FCA and BoE’s work builds on a Digital Securities Sandbox and 123 industry responses and will feed into a tokenisation roadmap that sets next steps and timelines.
- Tokenized gold tokens such as Tether Gold and Pax Gold already exist and have been used as collateral on platforms like Aave and by lenders such as Arch Lending, but regulators flagged custody, bridging, oracle and wallet-security risks.
- Regulators say clarifying the rules matters because London handles about 70% of global wholesale gold trading and a clearer perimeter could let bullion held in UK vaults be used more easily in digital settlement and collateral systems.