1) Policy is re-drawing payment rails
- Singapore used FinTech Festival week to push from pilots to production-grade tokenisation: MAS said it will trial tokenised MAS bills, expand wholesale-CBDC experiments, and publish a regulatory guide for tokenised capital-markets products; stablecoin rules are slated to land in 2026. The message is clear: settlement assets, market plumbing, and rules will move together—not in silos.
- United Kingdom: the Bank of England proposed a more flexible stablecoin backing regime (allowing a material share of reserves in short-term gilts), while retaining BoE custody for a portion of reserves and caps on user holdings. It’s a pragmatic pivot designed to make a 2026 launch executable without abandoning safeguards.
Why it matters: both centres are converging on bank-grade reserve quality + usable collateral. That combination enables real-world payment corridors and reduces basis risk between on-chain money and traditional cash management.
2) Market structure & tokenised collateral
- Tokenised MMF as collateral: BlackRock’s BUIDL (tokenised USD MMF) was added as off-exchange collateral on Binance and gained a new share class on BNB Chain. This is a notable step from “buy-and-hold tokenised cash” to actively rehypothecable collateral in institutional workflows. Expect more venues to recognise tokenised cash equivalents once counterparty and segregation mechanics are standardised.
- Hong Kong (context): earlier SFC circulars enabling shared order books and broader product menus continue to reset liquidity expectations for licensed VATPs in the region, with surveillance and disclosure obligations as the gating items.
Implication: tokenised liquidity is leaving the demo stage—collateral utility is the catalyst that links treasuries, exchanges, and custodians.
3) Macro backdrop: a data hole and cautious risk budgets
- The BLS did not release October CPI (scheduled for Nov 13) amid the ongoing U.S. government shutdown, leaving policymakers and markets in a data vacuum into the December FOMC window. That absence tends to depress risk appetite and elevates volatility around private-data proxies.
- Flows: CoinShares’ update for the week to Nov 10 showed US$1.17bn net outflows from digital-asset funds (BTC −US$932m; ETH −US$438m), even as select alts attracted capital. The flow tone into our week remained defensive.
Implication: with public macro data impaired, positioning/flow prints carry outsized influence on price discovery; keep that context in mind when evaluating week-on-week moves.
Morgan House View — what to do now
- Treasury & payments: begin scoped pilots where tokenised cash or tokenised bills can settle against wholesale-CBDC or high-grade stablecoins under clear reserve rules (SG, UK). Build runbooks for collateral eligibility, haircuts, and recall before scaling.
- Exchange connectivity: when using tokenised MMF as collateral, require segregated custody and daily attest; document right-of-use, substitution, and failure-to-deliver procedures with the venue and custodian.
- Risk allocation: treat the current data blackout as a reason to throttle beta and favour liquidity. Maintain core BTC exposure sized to depth; use basis, covered-call overlays, and cash-secured optionality until official U.S. prints resume.
What we’re watching next
- MAS follow-ups from SFF: specification of tokenised bill trials and wholesale-CBDC settlement mechanics.
- BoE’s final stablecoin rule text and issuer reserve compositions under the proposed flexibility.
- Whether the post-Nov-10 outflow trend moderates once macro data normalises.