# May 2026
This May edition takes a commercial view of blockchain in construction, focusing less on crypto regulation and more on tokenised market infrastructure, real-estate tokenisation, digital product passports and auditable supply-chain records.
The regional signals vary: DTCC is advancing tokenised securities infrastructure globally; Europe is moving on Digital Product Passports under the revised Construction Products Regulation; Dubai is progressing real-estate tokenisation; the Federal Reserve is assessing tokenisation’s funding and liquidity implications; Brazil’s Drex programme remains the clearest South American signal; and BCEAO’s work on crypto-assets, tokenisation and monetary stability leads in Africa.
The practical focus is on payment evidence, circular supply chains, material passports, tokenised assets and professional capability.
Construction Blockchain Newsletter
This May edition takes a more commercial view of blockchain in construction. The useful signal is not another general discussion about crypto regulation, but the emergence of tokenised market infrastructure, real-estate tokenisation, digital product passports and auditable supply-chain records. For construction, these developments matter where project finance, payment certification, asset ownership, material provenance and carbon reporting depend on trusted data across multiple organisations.
Across regions, the emphasis is deliberately different from last month. Worldwide, DTCC is moving tokenised securities infrastructure closer to production. Europe’s strongest construction signal is the Digital Product Passport agenda under the revised Construction Products Regulation. In Asia, Dubai is advancing blockchain-based real-estate tokenisation. In North America, the Federal Reserve is framing tokenisation as both a funding opportunity and a liquidity risk. South America remains thinner for high-quality May-specific construction blockchain news, so Brazil’s Drex programme is used cautiously as the safest regional signal. Africa’s strongest May item is BCEAO’s conference on crypto-assets, tokenisation and monetary stability.
This month’s Research Digest, Events Agenda, Business Opportunities and Knowledge Upgrade focus on the practical layer: payment evidence, circular construction supply chains, material passports, tokenised assets and professional capability.
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Construction Blockchain
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World & Blockchain
Worldwide
DTCC moves tokenised securities service towards production
DTCC announced on 4 May that it is advancing development of DTC’s tokenisation service, with more than 50 financial industry firms involved in an industry working group. The organisation says it plans initial limited production trades of securities tokenised through DTC’s service in July 2026, with a wider service launch planned for October 2026. This is not a construction story in itself, but it matters for built-environment finance. Real estate, infrastructure debt, funds and private-market products all depend on credible post-trade infrastructure before tokenisation can become more than a pilot.
Europe
EU passports push construction materials towards auditable data
Europe’s most relevant construction signal is the continuing development of Digital Product Passports. The revised Construction Products Regulation establishes common rules for construction products and a shared information structure for performance, conformity and market surveillance. Related EU work on DPP content for steel notes that construction products such as rebar, structural sections and reinforcing mesh will need interoperable, machine-readable evidence rather than static PDF documentation. Blockchain is not the only possible technology here, but distributed verification, digital signatures and traceable records are becoming commercially relevant for material compliance and circularity.
Asia, Middle East & Australia
Dubai advances blockchain-based real-estate tokenisation
Dubai Land Department is presenting its Real Estate Tokenization project as part of the Real Estate Evolution Space Initiative. The official page describes the project as blockchain-based tokenisation intended to support fractional ownership, wider investor participation, traceability and security. For construction and real estate, this is one of the more direct built-environment blockchain stories this month. The commercial opportunity is clear, but the limitations are equally important: tokenised exposure to property does not remove the need for land registration, valuation, tenancy law, investor protection, custody, AML controls and dispute resolution.
North America
Fed highlights tokenisation’s funding benefits and liquidity risks
Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook’s 8 May speech is useful because it avoids a simplistic view of tokenisation. The speech recognises that tokenised assets may help firms diversify funding sources and use digital markets for collateralisation, but also warns that tokenisation still depends on links to existing financial infrastructure and may create a mismatch between token liquidity and the liquidity of the underlying asset. For infrastructure and real-estate tokenisation, that warning is central. A tradable token does not make a building, loan book or infrastructure concession liquid in any simple sense.
South America
Brazil remains the safest South American tokenisation signal
I found no stronger construction-specific South American blockchain story from May that met the same source-quality threshold as the other regional items. The safer regional signal remains Brazil’s Drex programme, which the Banco Central do Brasil frames as a digital version of the Brazilian real issued on a platform operated by the central bank. For construction, the relevance is indirect: if Brazil continues developing regulated tokenised settlement and financial-market infrastructure, future applications could include property finance, receivables, guarantees and supplier payments. It should not be overstated as a live construction use case yet.
Africa
BCEAO puts tokenisation on monetary-stability agenda
The Central Bank of West African States held an international conference in Dakar on 8 May on crypto-assets and digital innovations, explicitly including asset tokenisation, stablecoins and CBDCs. The framing is important because BCEAO treats digital assets as a monetary, prudential, cybersecurity, governance and data-protection issue, rather than merely a fintech opportunity. For African infrastructure and construction markets, this matters because tokenised project finance or blockchain-based payment systems will depend on regional supervisory capacity, interoperable payment infrastructure and credible public-sector oversight. The opportunity is real, but premature adoption would carry obvious institutional and compliance risks.
Research & Development Digest
Blockchain for construction value chains and asset evidence
This monthly Research Digest features three recent peer-reviewed studies on how blockchain may support construction business opportunities through payment automation, circular supply chains and material-passport data.
Wu Y; Li Z, 2025
Wu and Li’s paper is directly relevant to the payment opportunity. The study proposes a prototype in which a digital twin, BIM and blockchain are integrated to automate milestone-based construction progress payments. The digital twin acts as a dynamic oracle, comparing site conditions with structured BIM milestones. Verified achievements trigger Ethereum smart contracts, with evidence stored off-chain via IPFS and payment authorisation managed through multi-signature wallets. The paper reports that the prototype reduced payment verification from several days to minutes in a police-station case study. The finding should be treated cautiously, because prototype conditions are not the same as public-sector procurement or adversarial contract administration. Still, the paper demonstrates the key point: payment automation depends on trusted project evidence, not blockchain alone.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dibe.2025.100781
Mankata LM; Antwi-Afari P; Ng ST, 2025
This article addresses a genuinely operational problem: ESG reporting in construction is often fragmented, difficult to verify and weakly connected across organisational boundaries. The authors propose and test a hybrid blockchain architecture using Ethereum, Hyperledger Fabric and IoT-linked inputs to improve transparency and accountability in ESG data handling. Its interest for construction extends beyond ESG itself. The underlying issue is evidential governance: who records data, who can validate it, and how records remain auditable across contractors, consultants and clients. That has obvious implications for embodied carbon claims, supplier reporting and regulated disclosure on major programmes. The paper does not prove that blockchain is ready for routine deployment at scale, but it does offer a more credible architecture for shared reporting than the usual broad claims about immutable trust.
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2025.145966
KC A; Senaratne S; Perera S; Nanayakkara S, 2026.
This review examines blockchain-based material passports as a means of managing built-asset information for circularity. It is particularly relevant to this month’s European Digital Product Passport story. The paper argues that BIM and digital twins are central to modelling, visualising and managing material information, while blockchain can provide decentralised, transparent and immutable records across long asset lifecycles. Its proposed conceptual model links BIM, digital twins and blockchain for built asset elements, including off-chain storage and on-chain indexing. The contribution is useful because it avoids treating material passports as static documents. In practice, construction material data must remain accessible and trustworthy through design, construction, operation, repair, deconstruction and reuse. The limitation is that the model still requires empirical testing, governance design and integration with ISO 19650-style information management.
Events Agenda
Digital Construction Week
3–4 June 2026, ExCeL London, United Kingdom
Digital Construction Week is the most construction-specific event in this issue. The official programme positions the event around digital technology in design, construction, engineering, manufacturing and operation, with more than 230 sessions and over 150 exhibitors. It is not a blockchain conference, which is precisely why it matters. Blockchain opportunities in construction will not scale in isolation; they will need to connect with BIM, digital twins, AI, robotics, sustainability tools, data platforms and CDEs. For CBC readers, this is the right environment to test whether blockchain use cases are genuinely useful within wider digital construction workflows.
Global Blockchain & Crypto Symposium 2026
24 June 2026, Andaz London, United Kingdom
The Global Blockchain & Crypto Symposium is a legal and regulatory event covering blockchain, crypto-assets, compliance, crypto-asset tracing and the professionalisation of the sector. Its relevance to construction lies in legal framing. Firms considering tokenised payments, blockchain-based evidence records, smart contracts or real-estate tokenisation need to understand enforcement, tracing, regulatory perimeter, dispute resolution and professional liability. This is therefore useful for legal, compliance, procurement, finance and enterprise-architecture professionals who need to separate practical blockchain adoption from weak or speculative claims.
London Blockchain Finance Summit: RWA Tokenisation
7 July 2026, DLA Piper, London, United Kingdom
This summit focuses specifically on real-world asset tokenisation, including issuance, investment, trading, collateral, post-trade infrastructure, custody, interoperability and legal frameworks. It is relevant to construction because real estate, infrastructure debt, project-finance receivables, private credit and funds are among the asset classes most often discussed in tokenisation strategies. The event is best suited to readers interested in the financial layer around the built environment: how assets are structured, serviced, transferred and governed once represented digitally. It should be approached as an institutional finance event, not a construction technology showcase.
Knowledge Upgrade
Introduction to Digital Assets & Securities
Provider: International Capital Market Association
Format: Classroom, London
Start date: 23 June 2026
Duration: 2 days, with 3 months’ course access
ICMA’s course remains the strongest fit for this issue because it covers digital assets, DLT, blockchain fundamentals, CBDCs, stablecoins, tokenisation and regulatory frameworks from an institutional capital-markets perspective. It is directly relevant to construction business opportunities because tokenised real estate, infrastructure finance, escrow arrangements and programmable settlement cannot be assessed only as technology projects. They sit within securities law, market infrastructure, custody, collateral, settlement and compliance. The course is particularly useful for professionals who need a serious foundation rather than trading-oriented content.
Understanding Blockchain in Construction: A Practical Guide
Provider: Routledge
Format: Book
Publication date: 2026
Understanding Blockchain in Construction: A Practical Guide, is intended to address a persistent gap in the sector: the lack of practical, construction-focused material on blockchain that moves beyond general hype or purely financial use cases. The book examines how blockchain relates to trust, traceability, smart contracts, data exchange and implementation challenges across construction and infrastructure contexts.
# April 2026
This April edition centres on a clearer institutional shift in digital assets: the current signal is less about speculative crypto markets and more about regulated payment instruments, tokenised securities and the market infrastructure needed to support them. Recent developments from the BIS, ECB, SEC, HKMA and national authorities show continued movement towards formal frameworks for stablecoins, tokenised deposits and blockchain-based settlement. For construction and the built environment, that matters where payments, provenance, compliance and multi-party record-keeping intersect with regulated financial and data systems.
Construction Blockchain Newsletter
This April edition centres on a clearer institutional shift in digital assets: the current signal is less about speculative crypto markets and more about regulated payment instruments, tokenised securities and the market infrastructure needed to support them. Recent developments from the BIS, ECB, SEC, HKMA and national authorities show continued movement towards formal frameworks for stablecoins, tokenised deposits and blockchain-based settlement. For construction and the built environment, that matters where payments, provenance, compliance and multi-party record-keeping intersect with regulated financial and data systems.
Across regions, the pattern is uneven but coherent. Europe is debating how euro-denominated tokenised money should scale without reinforcing dollar dependence. In Asia, Hong Kong has moved further into licensing and formal market structure. North America has continued to clarify legal treatment and prudential handling. In South America, the more notable signal remains practical commercial use, particularly the shift away from proprietary tokens towards dollar-linked instruments. In Africa, South Africa’s policy work on rand-pegged and foreign-currency-pegged stablecoins remains one of the more concrete regulatory exercises on the continent.
This month’s Research & Development Digest examines governed digital infrastructure in construction, with a focus on supply chains, ESG reporting and BIM-linked data architecture. The Events Agenda and Knowledge Upgrade then point to current opportunities to follow these developments in greater depth, including a more practice-oriented construction perspective.
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Construction Blockchain
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World & Blockchain
Worldwide
BIS urges coordinated stablecoin rules
The clearest global signal this month came from the BIS. In a 20 April speech in Tokyo, Pablo Hernández de Cos argued that stablecoins should be treated as a matter of monetary and financial architecture, not merely as a fast-moving product market. He noted that the market had reached roughly $315 billion in early April 2026, but that real-economy use remained modest relative to traditional payments. His main point was regulatory: fragmented national approaches risk arbitrage, market fragmentation and policy spillovers, especially in more vulnerable economies. For construction, the implication is indirect but relevant: any blockchain-based payment or assurance layer that scales internationally will depend on coordinated rules, not only technical interoperability.
Europe
Europe pushes harder on euro-denominated digital money
Europe’s April story is not one announcement but a convergence. ECB and Bank of France speeches have continued to frame tokenised deposits and euro-denominated stablecoins as part of Europe’s future market plumbing, with central bank money retained as the stability anchor. At the same time, Reuters reported on 17 April that France’s finance minister called for more euro-pegged stablecoins and backed a banking-sector initiative involving ING, UniCredit and BNP Paribas to launch one later in 2026. The direction is plain enough: Europe is trying to reduce dependence on dollar-linked digital payment instruments while keeping tokenisation inside supervised financial architecture.
Asia
Hong Kong moves from pilots towards licensed stablecoins
Asia’s strongest recent development came from Hong Kong. Reuters reported on 10 April that the HKMA granted its first licences for fiat-backed stablecoins to HSBC and Anchorpoint Financial, the latter a joint venture involving Standard Chartered, Animoca Brands and HKT. That matters because Hong Kong is moving beyond broad tokenisation strategy into actual licensing under a formal stablecoin regime. It fits with the HKMA’s March message that the future lies in integrating traditional and digital finance rather than choosing between them. The regional lesson is straightforward: serious jurisdictions are now testing whether digital money can be embedded into banking, payments and investment workflows under conventional supervisory controls
North America
SEC Clarifies the Application of Federal Securities Laws to Crypto Assets
North America’s most relevant updates remain regulatory. On 17 March, the SEC issued a clarifying release setting out a token taxonomy covering digital commodities, collectibles, tools, stablecoins and digital securities, and explaining how federal securities laws apply across those categories. Earlier, Reuters reported that U.S. banking regulators said banks would not face extra capital charges merely because securities are tokenised, stressing technology-neutral prudential treatment. Neither development resolves the wider political and legislative contest in Washington, but both reduce uncertainty at the level that institutions actually care about: legal classification, supervisory treatment and operational feasibility. That is more consequential than another cycle of crypto rhetoric.
South America
Mercado Pago drops loyalty token, keeps stablecoin focus
South America still offers more evidence of practical use than grand architecture. On 31 March, Reuters reported that Mercado Pago discontinued Mercado Coin, the proprietary token it had launched in 2022, while leaving in place its broader digital-assets activity, including Meli Dolar, its dollar-backed stablecoin introduced in Brazil in 2024. The move is modest, but it is telling. It suggests that branded ecosystem tokens are proving less durable than instruments linked to more familiar monetary functions. For built-environment observers, that distinction matters. Where blockchain survives in enterprise settings, it is more likely to be attached to payments, treasury or settlement logic than to promotional token schemes with thin operational value.
Africa
South Africa deepens formal work on stablecoin policy
Africa’s most concrete recent update remains South Africa’s Exchange Control Circular No. 3-2026. The document states that the Intergovernmental Fintech Working Group will assess in 2026 whether existing regulatory frameworks apply to rand-pegged stablecoin arrangements and examine the policy implications of foreign-currency-pegged stablecoins, with discussion papers intended for public consultation this year. That is a more serious development than most market commentary because it signals regulatory system-building rather than commentary from the sidelines. For infrastructure and real-asset sectors, this is the sort of work that eventually determines whether blockchain-based payment, escrow or reporting mechanisms can operate credibly in regulated settings.
Research & Development Digest
Blockchain & Governed Construction Infrastructure
This monthly Research Digest features three recent, verified papers that are directly relevant to construction rather than generic blockchain advocacy. The common thread this month is governed integration: supply-chain coordination, ESG assurance and BIM-linked data architecture.
Blockchain applications in the construction supply chain
Heydari M; Shojaei A, 2025.
This paper reviews 197 studies on blockchain applications in construction supply chains and is one of the stronger recent syntheses in the field. Its value lies in refusing to treat blockchain as a standalone cure. Instead, it maps recurring supply-chain problems such as poor coordination, weak information sharing, fragmented records and delayed payments, then assesses where blockchain may add value when combined with adjacent technologies and redesigned workflows. The paper also draws lessons from manufacturing, which is useful because construction literature too often behaves as though its problems are uniquely intractable. For practice, the real contribution is not enthusiasm but discrimination: the authors show that visibility, traceability and collaboration benefits depend on governance, interfaces and process design, not on ledger adoption alone. That makes it directly relevant to procurement, materials assurance and off-site delivery chains in the built environment.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.autcon.2025.105998
Singh AK; Dugyala NR; Rahimian F; Elghaish F; Mohandes SR, 2025.
This article addresses a genuinely operational problem: ESG reporting in construction is often fragmented, difficult to verify and weakly connected across organisational boundaries. The authors propose and test a hybrid blockchain architecture using Ethereum, Hyperledger Fabric and IoT-linked inputs to improve transparency and accountability in ESG data handling. Its interest for construction extends beyond ESG itself. The underlying issue is evidential governance: who records data, who can validate it, and how records remain auditable across contractors, consultants and clients. That has obvious implications for embodied carbon claims, supplier reporting and regulated disclosure on major programmes. The paper does not prove that blockchain is ready for routine deployment at scale, but it does offer a more credible architecture for shared reporting than the usual broad claims about immutable trust.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36680/j.itcon.2025.061
Hijazi AA; Alashwal A; Baghalzadeh Shishehgarkhaneh M; Calheiros RN, 2026.
This 2026 review is particularly useful because it moves the BIM–blockchain conversation onto firmer analytical ground. The authors identify six lifecycle stages, 29 workflows and 30 technical methods for integration, showing where blockchain is being linked to design, delivery, compliance and operational information. The strongest contribution is conceptual clarity. Rather than repeating vague claims about “trusted BIM”, the paper distinguishes data types, workflows and implementation mechanisms, including storage choices, smart contracts, hybrid architectures and access controls. For construction organisations, that matters because the real question is not whether BIM can be put on a blockchain, but which records should be anchored, automated or shared, and under what legal and operational controls. It is therefore directly relevant to digital assurance, traceability and model-governance strategy.
Events Agenda
Consensus 2026
5–7 May 2026, Miami, USA
Consensus remains one of the largest global gatherings in the sector, but the 2026 framing is notably institutional: stablecoins, tokenisation and the convergence of crypto, finance and policy are positioned at the centre of the programme. That does not guarantee substance; large events still tend to mix infrastructure with spectacle. Even so, it is a useful barometer of where market attention currently sits. For construction and real-asset professionals, the value is not the wider Web3 theatre but the concentration of discussion around settlement, custody, asset tokenisation and the operational claims now being made by financial institutions and infrastructure providers.
Digital Assets Summit 2026
13–14 May 2026, Convene, 200 Aldersgate, London
This is the more obviously relevant May event for an enterprise audience. Innovate Finance positions the summit around the convergence of crypto, blockchain and mainstream finance, with an in-person and digital format in London. The attraction here is less scale than focus. Events like this are where banks, infrastructure firms, policy stakeholders and institutional market participants test the practical contours of tokenisation, digital money and regulated digital-asset services. For built-environment readers, that matters because any serious application in construction will likely arrive through mainstream financial, legal and compliance channels rather than through crypto-native experimentation alone.
Point Zero Forum 2026
23–25 June 2026, Kongresshaus Zurich, Zurich
Point Zero Forum is useful precisely because it sits at the policy-technology boundary. The 2026 programme in Zurich brings together regulators, central banks and industry on themes including digital assets, payments, AI and financial policy. That makes it more relevant than a typical commercial blockchain event. The forum is not construction-specific, obviously, but it does address the institutional design questions that will shape whether blockchain-based systems for payments, reporting, tokenised assets or digital identity can become credible components of wider enterprise infrastructure. For this newsletter’s purposes, it is a better signal source than most vendor-led showcases.
Knowledge Upgrade
[New Book] Understanding Blockchain in Construction
Understanding Blockchain in Construction: A Practical Guide
Provider: Routledge
Format: Book
Publication date: 2026
This month’s knowledge upgrade is slightly closer to home. Alongside writing this newsletter, I have also recently published Understanding Blockchain in Construction: A Practical Guide, a book intended to address a persistent gap in the sector: the lack of practical, construction-focused material on blockchain that moves beyond general hype or purely financial use cases. The book examines how blockchain relates to trust, traceability, smart contracts, data exchange and implementation challenges across construction and infrastructure contexts. It is written for professionals, researchers and decision-makers who want a more grounded understanding of where the technology may have real value in the built environment, and where its limits still need to be taken seriously.
# March 2026
Welcome to the March edition of the Construction Blockchain Newsletter. This month’s theme is tokenised money as governed infrastructure: the question is no longer whether the technology functions, but whether programmable instruments can be integrated into existing legal, payment, and settlement rails without diluting controls. Cambridge’s latest work is useful precisely because it treats interoperability, claims clarity, and supervisory-grade risk management as the binding constraints. For construction, that is the decisive test: blockchain-enabled payment or assurance layers will only scale where identity, access control, provenance, reporting, and dispute pathways are engineered end to end.
Europe is moving tokenisation from strategy into execution, with the UK’s Digital Gilt Instrument pilot progressing while the Bank of England signals possible revisions to systemic sterling stablecoin constraints. Australia is taking a wholesale, sandbox-first route after Project Acacia, and North America is testing tokenised securities inside regulated market infrastructure under SEC oversight. South America and Africa, meanwhile, highlight the tightening compliance perimeter: Brazil is operationalising supervision through new Central Bank rules, and South Africa’s draft travel-rule guidance makes transfer traceability a non-negotiable requirement.
Construction Blockchain Newsletter
Welcome to the March edition of the Construction Blockchain Newsletter. This month’s theme is tokenised money as governed infrastructure: the story is no longer whether blockchains “work”, but whether regulated institutions can integrate programmable instruments into existing legal, payments, and settlement rails without weakening controls. Cambridge’s latest analysis is valuable precisely because it treats interoperability, claims clarity, and supervisory-grade risk management as the binding constraints. For the built environment, that is the right lens: construction will only adopt blockchain-enabled payment or assurance layers where identity, access control, provenance, reporting, and dispute resolution are engineered end to end.
Regionally, Europe is pushing tokenisation into execution mode, with the UK’s Digital Gilt Instrument pilot advancing while the Bank of England signals it may recalibrate proposed constraints for systemic sterling stablecoins. Asia and Australia show a wholesale, sandbox-first approach, with the RBA positioning a DFMI sandbox after Project Acacia’s lessons on tokenised assets and settlement forms. North America is moving through regulated market infrastructure rather than retail crypto narratives, as exchanges test tokenised securities under SEC oversight. South America and Africa underscore the compliance perimeter tightening: Brazil is operationalising supervision through new Central Bank rules, and South Africa’s draft “travel rule” guidance makes transfer traceability an enforceable expectation.
The Research & Development Digest follows the same logic, focusing on procurement governance, evidence-driven progress payments, and carbon accounting that can withstand audit. The Events Agenda and Knowledge Upgrade are selected to strengthen practical literacy in regulated tokenisation and enterprise deployment, not speculative trading.
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Construction Blockchain
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World & Blockchain
Worldwide
Cambridge: tokenised money is an integration and governance challenge
Cambridge’s Centre for Alternative Finance has published a detailed report arguing that “tokenised money” (including stablecoins and tokenised bank liabilities) is advancing, but scale depends on interoperability, programmability constraints, and regulatory design. The report’s useful discipline is that it treats market plumbing as the bottleneck: legal clarity around claims, credible risk controls, and integration with existing payment and settlement rails. For construction, the implication is blunt: any blockchain-enabled payment or assurance layer will be adopted only where data provenance, access control, reporting, and dispute pathways are engineered end-to-end.
Europe
UK tokenised gilt pilot advances; BoE reconsiders stablecoin constraints
HM Treasury has appointed HSBC as platform provider for the UK’s Digital Gilt Instrument pilot issuance, pushing sovereign tokenisation from “strategy” into an execution programme. In parallel, reporting indicates Bank of England Deputy Governor Sarah Breeden has said the BoE is open to revising proposed rules for systemic sterling stablecoins (including the balance of backing assets held as BoE deposits and caps on holdings), while maintaining that financial stability objectives must be met. For construction and infrastructure finance, this is the pattern to watch: tokenised instruments may arrive, but only inside a strict compliance and resilience envelope.
Asia & Australia
RBA signals wholesale tokenisation sandbox after Acacia pilot lessons
In a speech published 25 March 2026, the Reserve Bank of Australia described outcomes from recent wholesale experiments (via Project Acacia) spanning tokenised assets and multiple settlement forms (private money and central bank money). The RBA’s framing is pragmatic: pilots revealed appetite, but the next step is a technology sandbox that lets industry test designs under controlled conditions. For built-environment stakeholders, Australia’s relevance is indirect but important: tokenised trade payables, milestone payments, and supply-chain finance are explicitly in scope for wholesale tokenisation thinking, provided governance and risk controls are demonstrable.
North America
US exchanges push tokenised securities under SEC oversight
Reporting indicates the SEC has approved Nasdaq’s proposal to pilot trading and settlement of certain stocks in tokenised form, while the NYSE (via ICE) has announced a partnership with Securitize to develop a tokenised securities platform and associated standards for digital transfer and tokenisation agents. This is not “crypto adoption”; it is regulated market infrastructure exploring whether tokenisation can reduce settlement friction without weakening investor protections. For construction, the enabling implication is that regulated tokenised rails for equities and funds could accelerate institutional comfort with tokenised cashflows, receivables, and project-linked instruments—provided auditability and recourse are clear.
South America
Brazil tightens virtual-asset perimeter with new BCB rules and CMN measures
Reporting indicates the SEC has approved Nasdaq’s proposal to pilot trading and settlement of certain stocks in tokenised form, while the NYSE (via ICE) has announced a partnership with Securitize to develop a tokenised securities platform and associated standards for digital transfer and tokenisation agents. This is not “crypto adoption”; it is regulated market infrastructure exploring whether tokenisation can reduce settlement friction without weakening investor protections. For construction, the enabling implication is that regulated tokenised rails for equities and funds could accelerate institutional comfort with tokenised cashflows, receivables, and project-linked instruments—provided auditability and recourse are clear.
Africa
South Africa issues draft “travel rule” guidance for crypto asset transfers
South Africa’s Financial Intelligence Centre has issued draft public compliance communication guidance on the “travel rule” for crypto asset service providers, setting expectations for the collection and transmission of originator/beneficiary information in crypto transfers. This is a concrete supervisory move: it treats crypto transfer data as enforceable AML/CFT infrastructure rather than voluntary best practice. For construction and infrastructure delivery (where cross-border supplier payments and layered subcontracting are common), the implication is not theoretical. Any proposal to use crypto rails or tokenised settlement in African contexts will be assessed on traceability, screening, record retention, and audit response—i.e., compliance-by-design from day one.
Research & Development Digest
This monthly Research Digest features three peer-reviewed papers selected for direct relevance to construction’s settlement and evidence problems: procurement governance, automated progress payments, and verifiable embodied-carbon accounting.
Blockchain for settlement, evidence, and assurance in construction delivery
Applications of blockchain for construction project procurement
Kim M; Kim Y-W, 2024.
A procurement-focused review (Automation in Construction) that maps where blockchain is actually proposed in construction delivery: tendering, contract administration, payment certification, and auditability. The key takeaway is sceptical and useful: many claimed benefits assume well-defined workflows, robust data governance, and clear dispute pathways. Without those, the technology simply preserves ambiguity more permanently. For enterprise teams, it supports a staged approach: stabilise procurement evidence and approvals first; then decide where shared records add accountability without increasing friction.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.autcon.2024.105550
Wu Y; Li Z, 2025.
This paper (Developments in the Built Environment) treats the “oracle problem” as the centre of gravity: smart contracts are only as trustworthy as the progress evidence they consume. It proposes a digital-twin workflow that verifies progress against BIM milestones and triggers payments via smart contracts, storing evidence off-chain and governing disbursements with multi-signature control. Even if prototype performance claims do not generalise, the construction insight is robust: payment automation is a governed evidence system problem first, and a contract-code problem second.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dibe.2025.100781
Kim H; Kim S; Lee J; Jeong K; Hong T; An J, 2026.
A Building and Environment paper proposing BC-LCAP, a platform combining APIs, a web application, and a blockchain layer with role-specific chaincode to calculate and record emissions across ordering, manufacturing, transport, and construction stages. The construction relevance is increasingly hard-nosed: embodied-carbon claims are drifting into contractual liability space, pushing provenance and calculation transparency into assurance design. The paper helps teams think about carbon evidence as an operational data product with attribution, governance, and tamper resistance—not a post-hoc report.
Events Agenda
Financial Times Live: Digital Assets Summit 2026
A market-infrastructure forum: tokenisation, custody, settlement, and regulation discussed by mainstream finance. For construction and infrastructure, the value is reconnaissance on what will be “bankable” in the next 12–24 months (e.g., tokenised cash equivalents and compliant settlement rails that could underpin escrow/retention and receivables finance). Expect constraints: resilience, governance, and enforceability, not demos.
City Week 2026 (includes The Future of Digital Assets Summit)
18–19 May 2026, London (in-person + livestream)
A broader capital-markets programme with a digital assets summit (19 May, morning). Useful for pressure-testing assumptions because digital assets sit alongside mainstream market structure and regulatory narratives. Bring a blunt question: which designs survive supervision and dispute resolution, and which depend on “trust us” governance?
OMFIF: Digital Money Summit 2026
Focused on the public–private boundary of money: stablecoins, tokenised deposits, CBDCs, and resilience. For built-environment organisations, it is enabling-infrastructure insight: if wholesale digital money primitives mature, conditional settlement tied to evidence becomes more plausible, but only with rigorous controls and supervisory comfort.
Knowledge Upgrade
Training Course: “Blockchain, Web3 and Tokenization”
Provider: Universidade de Lisboa
Format: Online
Start date: 1 Apr 2026
Duration: 21 hours (1–16 Apr 2026)
This short, structured course is a pragmatic option for enterprise teams who need vocabulary, design patterns, and risk awareness without drifting into trading culture. Its tokenisation emphasis is relevant to construction where the “asset” is often a right or obligation: payments, warranties, materials provenance, carbon attributes, and contractual triggers. The value is not learning to “deploy a chain”; it is learning to ask competent questions about identity, governance, data quality, and enforceability—because in regulated adoption, weak requirements engineering is what kills pilots.
# February 2026
Welcome to this month’s Construction Blockchain Newsletter. This month’s tracks blockchain’s shift from speculation towards governed infrastructure across finance and industry. In the news section, the common thread is regulated experimentation and tighter oversight: stablecoins edging into supervised trials, banks testing tokenised instruments on public rails under permissioned access, and authorities and policymakers reinforcing reporting and compliance—alongside reminders that stablecoins can also carry geopolitical and legislative risk when policy coalitions fracture. The research digest focuses on what can be engineered and verified in construction delivery: smart-contract automation for IPD financial administration, scan-to-BIM progress evidence triggering payments, and a five-year mapping of the field that highlights where maturity is real and where adoption constraints still dominate. The events agenda points to three different “signal types” in March—expo, finance summit, and institutional conference—each useful for a different purpose (vendor scanning, compliance and tokenised money, or market-structure narratives). Finally, the knowledge update highlights structured upskilling via the Oxford Fintech Programme, relevant to practitioners seeking a credible grounding in tokenisation, payments, and governance.
Construction Blockchain Newsletter
Welcome to this month’s Construction Blockchain Newsletter. This month’s tracks blockchain’s shift from speculation towards governed infrastructure across finance and industry. In the news section, the common thread is regulated experimentation and tighter oversight: stablecoins edging into supervised trials, banks testing tokenised instruments on public rails under permissioned access, and authorities and policymakers reinforcing reporting and compliance—alongside reminders that stablecoins can also carry geopolitical and legislative risk when policy coalitions fracture. The research digest focuses on what can be engineered and verified in construction delivery: smart-contract automation for IPD financial administration, scan-to-BIM progress evidence triggering payments, and a five-year mapping of the field that highlights where maturity is real and where adoption constraints still dominate. The events agenda points to three different “signal types” in March—expo, finance summit, and institutional conference—each useful for a different purpose (vendor scanning, compliance and tokenised money, or market-structure narratives). Finally, the knowledge update highlights structured upskilling via the Oxford Fintech Programme, relevant to practitioners seeking a credible grounding in tokenisation, payments, and governance.
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Construction Blockchain
🔊 Listen to the GenAI Newsletter Podcast 🔊 收听 GenAI 新闻通讯播客t 🔊 Ouça o podcast do boletim GenAI Construction Blockchain
World & Blockchain
Worldwide
Revolut to test stablecoin in UK trial
A convergence in the financial system is taking shape. It’s quieter than the hype cycles and far more durable: banks are adopting blockchain infrastructure, and blockchains are evolving to the needs of regulated institutions and global enterprises. The result isn’t a replacement for the old system or a wild leap into a new one – it’s a convergence.
Europe
BNP Paribas pilots money market fund tokenisation on public Ethereum (permissioned access)
BNP Paribas says its Asset Management arm has issued a tokenised share class of an existing French-domiciled money market fund, recorded on the public Ethereum network via its AssetFoundry™ platform. Crucially, it uses a permissioned access model: only eligible, authorised participants can hold or transfer the tokenised shares, aiming to combine public-chain resilience and ecosystem maturity with regulated-fund controls. The bank frames this as a limited intra-group experiment testing end-to-end processes (issuance, transfer agency, tokenisation, wallet operations, and connectivity), and positions it alongside an earlier Luxembourg issuance conducted on a private blockchain—suggesting BNP Paribas is deliberately comparing operating models rather than betting on a single architecture.
Asia
Iran, sanctions, and stablecoins: report links central bank activity to large USDT flows
A Guardian investigation citing findings from crypto-analytics firm Elliptic reports that Iran’s central bank appears to have channelled at least c.$507m in Tether (USDT) through accounts Elliptic assesses to be under its control. Because USDT is dollar-pegged and highly liquid, the report argues it may form part of a deliberate strategy to bypass the global banking system under sanctions pressure, potentially to facilitate trade or stabilise the rial. The story also politicises the issue domestically in the UK by noting public advocacy of Tether by Nigel Farage.
North America
US policy volatility: White House “could drop” crypto market-structure bill after Coinbase row
Reporting cited by Cointelegraph suggests the White House is considering withdrawing support for the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act after Coinbase pulled its backing, allegedly without warning administration officials. The flashpoint is said to be stablecoin “yield”/rewards language, where banking interests reportedly want tighter constraints, while Coinbase argues the draft would undermine DeFi and broader on chain finance use cases. The episode is a useful reminder that “regulatory clarity” remains politically fragile: even industry aligned bills can stall quickly when coalitions fracture or the banking lobby exerts pressure.
Africa
Ghana Legalizes Crypto While Ghanaian Village Shows Bitcoin’s Potential
Ghana’s parliament made headlines at the end of last year as it passed the Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASP) bill, which establishes a legal framework for regulating bitcoin and crypto assets as well as crypto service providers. According to a press release from the Bank of Ghana, the Bank in conjunction with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will issue regulatory instruments and directives in the coming months as part of their mission to “create a safe, transparent, and innovative virtual asset ecosystem.”
Research & Development Digest
This monthly Research Digest features some notable papers produced or suggested by our academic and industry Members and Partners that we hope will be of interest.
Blockchain & Integrate Project Delivery (IPD)
Integrated project delivery with blockchain: An automated financial system
Elghaish F; Abrishami S; Hosseini M R, 2020.
This paper proposes a blockchain-enabled financial platform to address a persistent barrier to Integrated Project Delivery (IPD): transparent, tamper-resistant administration of reimbursable costs, profit, and shared savings, where profit is typically deferred until project completion. The authors develop a framework that encodes the three core IPD financial transactions as smart-contract functions, aiming to reduce ambiguity, prevent unauthorised changes, and give all parties a common, auditable view of entitlements. A proof of concept is implemented and validated using an IPD case project on a Hyperledger Fabric environment (IBM Blockchain Cloud), and the study reports on practicality, usability, and the completeness of required blockchain components. The contribution is positioned as moving beyond conceptual discussion towards empirical feasibility, while recognising that deeper BIM data integration and fully operational prototypes remain future work.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.autcon.2020.103182
Construction Payment Automation Through Scan-to-BIM and Blockchain-Enabled Smart Contract
Elsharkawi H; Elbeltagi E; Eid M S; Alattyih W; Wefki H, 2025
This study develops and tests a payment automation workflow that links verifiable site progress to automatic payment execution. It integrates scan-to-BIM (reality capture to produce near-real-time as-built information) with blockchain-enabled smart contracts, using a “chain-link” mechanism to securely relay off-chain progress data on-chain. The goal is to reduce payment delays and disputes that arise from manual measurement, documentation, and approval cycles. The approach is implemented on a real case study using periodic site scans captured with a 360° photogrammetry/3D scanning camera, converted into BIM outputs (e.g., Revit), and then translated into quantities and completion states that trigger contract conditions in an Ethereum-based smart contract. The authors argue that tying payments to independently verifiable progress provides a more transparent basis for valuation, improves trust, and accelerates release of funds, while also enabling granular progress tracking.
https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings15020213
Idrissi Gartoumi K, 2024
This review maps how blockchain technology (BCT) research has developed in construction management from 2017 to 2023, treating the field as relatively young but fast-expanding. Using a mixed-methods approach, it analyses 237 documents through scientometric techniques (to characterise publication trends, influence, and diffusion) and thematic analysis (to classify application themes and track their evolution). The results organise construction-related blockchain applications into eight thematic categories, and the paper highlights recurring implementation challenges alongside “critical success factors” and related enabling technologies. A key emphasis is that many proposed applications focus on automation and dispute-related problems (including the handling of claims and trust deficits), yet deployment barriers remain substantial. The review is mainly valuable as a structured research map: it consolidates what has been studied, where the concentration of effort sits, and which gaps—technical, organisational, and governance—still constrain practical adoption.
Events Agenda
Crypto Expo Europe 2026
Dates: 1–2 March 2026 (Bucharest, Romania)
A large Eastern European crypto and blockchain expo-style conference aimed at practitioners, startups, investors, and service providers. The programme typically mixes market commentary, product showcases, and partner networking rather than deep technical workshops. The organisers position it as a regional hub event, with a substantial exhibition floor and a broad “Web3” scope (trading, exchanges, infrastructure, and applications). If your objective is business development in CEE, lead generation, or surveying vendors, it is plausibly useful; if you want rigorous research content, you should expect a lighter academic footprint and more commercial signalling than peer-reviewed substance
London Blockchain Finance Summit: Payments & Digital Currencies
12 March 2026 (London, UK)
A finance-led, one-day summit focused on the real deployment of digital money: stablecoins, CBDCs, tokenised cash, treasury and settlement, and the regulatory perimeter around these instruments. It is pitched at the intersection of banks, fintech/PSPs, enterprise users, and regulators, so the framing is more “market structure and compliance” than “ideology”. Expect sessions on how tokenised liabilities and stablecoins affect payment rails, liquidity management, and operational risk, with an emphasis on what is implementable under current rules rather than speculative roadmaps. For enterprise architects, it can be useful for understanding integration patterns and governance constraints.
Digital Asset Summit (Blockworks) — New York 2026
24–26 March 2026 (New York City, USA)
Blockworks’ flagship institutional event targets allocators, market infrastructure, and policy—think ETFs, custody, trading venues, stablecoins, and how legislation or agency positions shape investability. The event is explicitly framed around “public market activity” and institutional adoption rather than grassroots crypto culture. In practice, you should expect senior buy-side and sell-side voices, plus compliance and legal perspectives, alongside large industry sponsors. It is typically strong for mapping narratives (what institutions claim they are doing) and for networking, but you should be cautious about mistaking panel confidence for empirical evidence of adoption at scale.
Knowledge Upgrade
Oxford Fintech Programme (Saïd Business School)
Online: A 7-week executive programme that includes digital assets/tokenisation within the broader fintech landscape (payments, market structure, strategy). It’s not a “hands-on Solidity” course, but it’s credible if you want institutional/strategic grounding.
# January 2026
Welcome to the CBC Newsletter and the first edition of 2026, opening the year with a clear signal that blockchain is settling into its role as critical digital infrastructure rather than speculative novelty. This issue highlights an emerging convergence between traditional finance and blockchain platforms, as regulated institutions quietly adopt distributed ledger technologies while blockchains adapt to compliance, governance, and enterprise demands.
In Europe, the regulatory environment tightens as UK crypto users are now required to disclose account details to HMRC, marking a decisive shift towards tax enforcement and institutional oversight. Asia showcases industrial-scale innovation, with Fujitsu launching a blockchain-based pilot to trace green steel value flows across complex supply chains, aligning sustainability goals with verifiable data. North America reflects political uncertainty, as tensions between the White House and Coinbase threaten momentum behind crypto market legislation. Africa offers a more constructive trajectory, with Ghana legalising crypto through its VASP bill and signalling ambitions for a transparent and innovation-friendly digital asset ecosystem.
Research features underline blockchain’s growing maturity in construction, spanning governance, ESG reporting, and adaptive smart-contract automation. Upcoming highlights include the Digital Assets Forum in London and Consensus 2026 in Hong Kong.
Construction Blockchain Newsletter
Welcome to the CBC Newsletter and the first edition of 2026, opening the year with a clear signal that blockchain is settling into its role as critical digital infrastructure rather than speculative novelty. This issue highlights an emerging convergence between traditional finance and blockchain platforms, as regulated institutions quietly adopt distributed ledger technologies while blockchains adapt to compliance, governance, and enterprise demands.
In Europe, the regulatory environment tightens as UK crypto users are now required to disclose account details to HMRC, marking a decisive shift towards tax enforcement and institutional oversight. Asia showcases industrial-scale innovation, with Fujitsu launching a blockchain-based pilot to trace green steel value flows across complex supply chains, aligning sustainability goals with verifiable data. North America reflects political uncertainty, as tensions between the White House and Coinbase threaten momentum behind crypto market legislation. Africa offers a more constructive trajectory, with Ghana legalising crypto through its VASP bill and signalling ambitions for a transparent and innovation-friendly digital asset ecosystem.
Research features underline blockchain’s growing maturity in construction, spanning governance, ESG reporting, and adaptive smart-contract automation. Upcoming highlights include the Digital Assets Forum in London and Consensus 2026 in Hong Kong.
🔊 Listen to the GenAI Newsletter Podcast 🔊 收听 GenAI 新闻通讯播客t 🔊 Ouça o podcast do boletim GenAI
Construction Blockchain
🔊 Listen to the GenAI Newsletter Podcast 🔊 收听 GenAI 新闻通讯播客t 🔊 Ouça o podcast do boletim GenAI Construction Blockchain
World & Blockchain
Worldwide
The new foundation of global finance: a dialogue between banks and blockchains
A convergence in the financial system is taking shape. It’s quieter than the hype cycles and far more durable: banks are adopting blockchain infrastructure, and blockchains are evolving to the needs of regulated institutions and global enterprises. The result isn’t a replacement for the old system or a wild leap into a new one – it’s a convergence.
Europe
Crypto users forced to share account details with tax officials
People buying cryptocurrency in the UK now need to share their account details or face penalties, in changes that came into effect on 1 January. The move by the UK's tax body is designed to ensure they pay all relevant tax on buying and selling crypto, including capital gains tax. HMRC will begin automatically collecting information on all users of cryptocurrency exchanges - which are effectively the industry's banks - in a bid to start collecting tens of millions in unpaid tax.
Asia
Fujitsu announced that it has commanced a demonstration experiment into the value flow of green steel [1] in the steel industry starting in December 2025. This project was previously selected by Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) as part of its FY2025 Industrial Research Project under the theme Survey Project on the Transmission of Green Steel Information Linked to Steel Materials Across Supply Chains in November 2025.
North America
White House threatens to pull support for crypto bill after Coinbase standoff
The White House is considering withdrawing its support for crypto market structure bill following a similar move from crypto exchange Coinbase, according to Fox Business reporter Eleanor Terrett, citing a source close to the Trump administration. In a Sunday post on X, Terrett reported that the White House is furious over Coinbase’s decision to pull its backing for the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, describing the move as a “unilateral” action that blindsided administration officials.
Africa
Ghana Legalizes Crypto While Ghanaian Village Shows Bitcoin’s Potential
Ghana’s parliament made headlines at the end of last year as it passed the Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASP) bill, which establishes a legal framework for regulating bitcoin and crypto assets as well as crypto service providers. According to a press release from the Bank of Ghana, the Bank in conjunction with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will issue regulatory instruments and directives in the coming months as part of their mission to “create a safe, transparent, and innovative virtual asset ecosystem.”
Research & Development Digest
This monthly Research Digest features some notable papers produced or suggested by our academic and industry Members and Partners that we hope will be of interest.
Blockchain & Integrate Project Delivery (IPD)
Integrated project delivery with blockchain: An automated financial system
Elghaish F; Abrishami S; Hosseini M R, 2020.
This paper proposes a blockchain-enabled financial platform to address a persistent barrier to Integrated Project Delivery (IPD): transparent, tamper-resistant administration of reimbursable costs, profit, and shared savings, where profit is typically deferred until project completion. The authors develop a framework that encodes the three core IPD financial transactions as smart-contract functions, aiming to reduce ambiguity, prevent unauthorised changes, and give all parties a common, auditable view of entitlements. A proof of concept is implemented and validated using an IPD case project on a Hyperledger Fabric environment (IBM Blockchain Cloud), and the study reports on practicality, usability, and the completeness of required blockchain components. The contribution is positioned as moving beyond conceptual discussion towards empirical feasibility, while recognising that deeper BIM data integration and fully operational prototypes remain future work.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.autcon.2020.103182
Construction Payment Automation Through Scan-to-BIM and Blockchain-Enabled Smart Contract
Elsharkawi H; Elbeltagi E; Eid M S; Alattyih W; Wefki H, 2025
This study develops and tests a payment automation workflow that links verifiable site progress to automatic payment execution. It integrates scan-to-BIM (reality capture to produce near-real-time as-built information) with blockchain-enabled smart contracts, using a “chain-link” mechanism to securely relay off-chain progress data on-chain. The goal is to reduce payment delays and disputes that arise from manual measurement, documentation, and approval cycles. The approach is implemented on a real case study using periodic site scans captured with a 360° photogrammetry/3D scanning camera, converted into BIM outputs (e.g., Revit), and then translated into quantities and completion states that trigger contract conditions in an Ethereum-based smart contract. The authors argue that tying payments to independently verifiable progress provides a more transparent basis for valuation, improves trust, and accelerates release of funds, while also enabling granular progress tracking.
https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings15020213
Idrissi Gartoumi K, 2024
This review maps how blockchain technology (BCT) research has developed in construction management from 2017 to 2023, treating the field as relatively young but fast-expanding. Using a mixed-methods approach, it analyses 237 documents through scientometric techniques (to characterise publication trends, influence, and diffusion) and thematic analysis (to classify application themes and track their evolution). The results organise construction-related blockchain applications into eight thematic categories, and the paper highlights recurring implementation challenges alongside “critical success factors” and related enabling technologies. A key emphasis is that many proposed applications focus on automation and dispute-related problems (including the handling of claims and trust deficits), yet deployment barriers remain substantial. The review is mainly valuable as a structured research map: it consolidates what has been studied, where the concentration of effort sits, and which gaps—technical, organisational, and governance—still constrain practical adoption.
Events Agenda
Crypto Expo Europe 2026
1–2 March 2026 (Bucharest, Romania)
A large Eastern European crypto and blockchain expo-style conference aimed at practitioners, startups, investors, and service providers. The programme typically mixes market commentary, product showcases, and partner networking rather than deep technical workshops. The organisers position it as a regional hub event, with a substantial exhibition floor and a broad “Web3” scope (trading, exchanges, infrastructure, and applications). If your objective is business development in CEE, lead generation, or surveying vendors, it is plausibly useful; if you want rigorous research content, you should expect a lighter academic footprint and more commercial signalling than peer-reviewed substance
London Blockchain Finance Summit: Payments & Digital Currencies
12 March 2026 (London, UK)
A finance-led, one-day summit focused on the real deployment of digital money: stablecoins, CBDCs, tokenised cash, treasury and settlement, and the regulatory perimeter around these instruments. It is pitched at the intersection of banks, fintech/PSPs, enterprise users, and regulators, so the framing is more “market structure and compliance” than “ideology”. Expect sessions on how tokenised liabilities and stablecoins affect payment rails, liquidity management, and operational risk, with an emphasis on what is implementable under current rules rather than speculative roadmaps. For enterprise architects, it can be useful for understanding integration patterns and governance constraints.
Digital Asset Summit (Blockworks) — New York 2026
24–26 March 2026 (New York City, USA)
Blockworks’ flagship institutional event targets allocators, market infrastructure, and policy—think ETFs, custody, trading venues, stablecoins, and how legislation or agency positions shape investability. The event is explicitly framed around “public market activity” and institutional adoption rather than grassroots crypto culture. In practice, you should expect senior buy-side and sell-side voices, plus compliance and legal perspectives, alongside large industry sponsors. It is typically strong for mapping narratives (what institutions claim they are doing) and for networking, but you should be cautious about mistaking panel confidence for empirical evidence of adoption at scale.
Knowledge Upgrade
Oxford Fintech Programme (Saïd Business School)
Online: 4 February 2026 (online). A 7-week executive programme that includes digital assets/tokenisation within the broader fintech landscape (payments, market structure, strategy). It’s not a “hands-on Solidity” course, but it’s credible if you want institutional/strategic grounding.