EU finance groups push to remove tokenized securities cap
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Written by
Simonas Brazionis - Updated 2026-09-11 06:03:26
A coalition of European financial and tokenization organizations is advocating for the removal or significant increase of a proposed 100 billion euro ($116.3 billion) tokenized securities cap on financial instruments. This cap was part of the European Commission's Market Integration and Supervision Package.
The groups, which include Nasdaq, Boerse Stuttgart Group, Securitize, the European Ethereum Institute, and Axiology, sent a draft letter to EU Council members and the European Parliament’s Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee on September 7. They suggested that if a cap is maintained, it should be at least 500 billion euro.
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Arguments Against the Proposed Cap
The letter highlighted that some existing European projects already operate at a scale of 350 billion euro and anticipate further expansion. This indicates that the 100 billion euro ceiling would be inadequate for current and future market needs.
The organizations drew a comparison with the US, where a dominant settlement platform is permitted to tokenize US equities and other assets without volume restrictions. This could potentially cover assets valued at up to 150 trillion euro, dwarfing the proposed European limit.
Background of the DLT Pilot Regime
The European Commission had previously proposed increasing the current 6 billion euro limit to 100 billion euro. This was part of its Market Integration and Supervision Package, which includes revisions to the Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) Pilot Regime.
Implemented in 2023, the DLT Pilot Regime allows financial firms to test blockchain-based trading and settlement of assets like stocks and bonds. It provides exemptions from certain EU financial regulations to facilitate this innovation. The letter clarified that these thresholds apply to the market value of financial instruments on DLT infrastructure, not their trading volume, making the proposed 100 billion euro tokenized securities cap relatively small compared to global equity markets.
Previous Advocacy Efforts
This recent communication follows several months of advocacy from financial and tokenization firms seeking amendments to the EU’s DLT Pilot Regime. In April, 39 financial firms and industry groups, including Nasdaq and Boerse Stuttgart, urged EU policymakers to accelerate changes to the DLT Pilot Regime and raise its overall limit to between 100 billion euro and 150 billion euro.
That April letter also advocated for broader asset eligibility and the elimination of time limits on licenses issued under the regime. Prior to this, in February, tokenization and market infrastructure firms such as Securitize, 21X, and Boerse Stuttgart warned that existing asset limits, volume caps, and time-limited licenses were hindering the scalability of regulated on-chain markets in Europe.
The February warning suggested that without prompt changes, liquidity might shift to US markets, where regulators were progressing toward larger-scale tokenization and on-chain settlement. The total value of distributed real-world assets (RWA) currently stands at approximately $39.15 billion, with US Treasury debt comprising about $15.8 billion of this total.
