CFTC staff issued a Friday notice answering FAQs on the agency's crypto-collateral pilot launched last year, outlining how futures commission merchants should begin accepting crypto margin. The guidance says participating firms must notify the Market Participants Division of their start date and, for the first three months, may take only Bitcoin, Ether, or stablecoins, with weekly reporting of total crypto held. It also sets capital charges at 20% for BTC and ETH positions and 2% for stablecoins, while limiting certain stablecoin uses and excluding crypto from uncleared swap collateral.

On March 21, 2026, Amundi launched the Spiko Amundi Overnight Swap Fund (SAFO) with $100 million in pledged assets to bring corporate cash and collateral management on-chain. The tokenized fund operates across Ethereum and Stellar, with Chainlink publishing NAV data on-chain, and subscriptions available in EUR, USD, GBP, or CHF with a minimum of one unit.

The House Financial Services Committee will hold a hearing, "Tokenization and the Future of Securities: Modernizing Our Capital Markets," on Wednesday at 10AM ET. In the same week, the SEC approved Nasdaq's pilot to test tokenized versions of select Russell 1000 stocks and related index ETFs while reiterating that tokenized assets remain securities under federal law.

The US SEC and CFTC released new guidance on Tuesday outlining a five-part taxonomy for digital assets, including digital commodities, NFTs, digital tools, stablecoins and tokenized securities. Galaxy research head Alex Thorn said the shift to an interpretive rule could give the industry clearer expectations for about the next 30 months, while longer-term certainty would require the CLARITY market-structure bill to become law. Politico later reported a tentative White House–lawmaker deal to advance CLARITY, though details remain undisclosed.

Ledger CTO Charles Guillemet warned crypto users about relying on browsers for sensitive secrets after Google released a Chrome update addressing 26 vulnerabilities, including 4 critical issues. Separately, Binance issued an iOS alert urging immediate updates due to "DarkSword," an exploit chain affecting iOS 18.4 to 18.7 that could expose sensitive data on compromised websites.

In a Mar 21, 2026 guest analysis, Sentora marketing director Vincent Maliepaard argues DeFi should complement Total Value Locked (TVL) with a new metric for how much capital is actually protected. He points to stablecoin usage growth—including Visa’s estimate that global stablecoin transaction volume rose from more than $3.5 trillion in 2023 to more than $5.5 trillion in 2024—as evidence DeFi is becoming real infrastructure. Maliepaard proposes “Total Value Covered” (TVC) to measure capital backed by explicit risk-transfer mechanisms, aiming to better signal institutional readiness.

Five US regional banks, including Huntington Bancshares and KeyCorp, launched the Cari Network to support near-instant settlement for tokenized bank deposits while keeping federal insurance protections. Built on Matter Labs' technology using ZKsync, the system positions bank-issued deposit tokens as a regulated alternative to stablecoins. The initial rollout is expected to focus on institutional payments and corporate treasury use, with broader interoperability planned in phases.

On March 18, 2026, the European Commission unveiled EU Inc., an optional pan-European corporate regime dubbed the "28th regime". The proposal would allow founders to register a company online within 48 hours for under €100, with a minimum share capital of €1. If approved by the European Parliament and the Council, it targets becoming operational by end-2026, with first companies potentially forming around 2027.