UK Treasury Selects HSBC Orion for DIGIT Pilot

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• 2026 – the year of RWA perps?

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• Bybit x Block Scholes: “2026: It's Different This Time?”

• Tokenised Markets on Bitget UEX: Unlocking Real-World Assets On-Chain for 24/7 Global Access

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Market Snapshot: Overnight Moves

Daily Updates:

• BTC is currently trading rangebound between $65K and $68K, while the wider crypto market is in a consolidation phase. ETH is stuck in the same $1,800 to $2,000 range we’ve seen it trade within over the past week and SOL trades around $80. 
• Spot exchange traded funds continue to show tepid demand — after three days of modest inflows, yesterday the funds collectively sold $276.3M of bitcoins. 
• Bitcoin ETFs saw $276.30M in daily net outflows and Ethereum ETFs had $129.18M in daily net outflows.
• Solana ETFs recorded $478.90K of daily net inflows yesterday while Avalanche ETFs saw $447.41K of daily net inflows over the same session.
• Traders pared back their bets on the number of rate cuts that will be delivered by the Fed after a stronger-than-expected jobs report. 

• Yesterday, the BLS’s nonfarm payrolls report showed US employers added 130,000 jobs in January, the largest single-month increase since December 2024, while the unemployment rate declined from 4.4% to 4.3% — suggesting a stabilisation in the US labour market on all fronts. 
• The report did however show considerable revisions to the pace of hiring recorded last year: “The change in total nonfarm employment for 2025 was revised from +584,000 to +181,000”, meaning job gains averaged only 15,000 a month last year, down from the initially reported 49,000.
• Job gains in January were led by the health care sector, which added the most jobs since 2020 (82,000), and also accounted for the majority of job growth in 2025), while the manufacturing sector saw its first monthly gain in employment since November 2024. 

• Short-dated US treasuries were most impacted, with the two-year treasury yield rising nearly 10bps to 3.54% yesterday (before now settling near 3.5%). Fed funds futures now show traders expecting the Fed’s next rate cut to take place in July, compared to the previously estimated June. 
• Concerns over artificial intelligence continued to weigh on sentiment in US equities, with the S&P 500 and Dow Jones ending the day negatively, despite opening higher following the NFP numbers. Bloomberg’s iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF, an ETF tracking software firms in the US (which have been declining recently) fell more than 2.6%. 

• Japan’s PPI increased to 2.3% y/y in January 2026, down from 2.4% in December and in line with expectations, marking the slowest annual increase since May 2024.
• Meanwhile, the UK economy expanded by 0.1% m/m in December 2025, matching forecasts and following an upwardly revised 0.2% increase in November.

• UK Treasury has selected HSBC Orion, a strategic platform for asset tokenisation, as the platform provider for its Digital Gilt Instrument (DIGIT) pilot, a programme testing the issuance of a digitally native, short-dated gilt using distributed ledger technology within the UK’s Digital Securities Sandbox, according to their press release today.
• The pilot is designed to assess how tokenised sovereign debt could improve market infrastructure, including faster settlement and more efficient post-trade processes, while remaining separate from the government’s core debt management programme.
• The Treasury is also engaging additional suppliers to support delivery of the required functionality, including on-chain settlement.

• Coinbase has launched Agentic Wallets, a wallet infrastructure built for autonomous AI agents, allowing bots to hold funds, send payments, trade, and transact on-chain within user-defined controls and limits.
• The product builds on Coinbase’s x402 protocol for automated crypto payments and complements its earlier AgentKit by offering a plug-and-play way to “give any agent a wallet.”
• Initial support includes EVM chains and Solana, with optional gasless transactions on Base, plus tooling such as a CLI and security features like spending caps and session limits.

• Decentralised perp exchange Aster, is preparing to launch the Aster Chain mainnet in March as part of its 2026 roadmap. 
• Aster Chain is intended to strengthen its on-chain infrastructure, offering dedicated support for its products, builder tools, and integrated fiat on- and off-ramps, following a testnet phase that drew more than 50,000 participants. 
• In 2026, Aster will prioritise community-led upgrades, including token-based governance, staking, and broader access to real-world asset markets such as stock perpetuals to expand beyond crypto-only trading.

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