Europe’s securities regulator has opened a formal call for evidence on whether tokenized collateral can be reliably sold or converted into cash when a clearing member defaults or markets come under stress. The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) issued the request on 9 October 2026, asking central counterparties (CCPs) to demonstrate that tokenized government bonds and other approved assets remain as liquid, legally enforceable and operationally accessible as their traditional equivalents.
The review comes roughly ten months after Washington began allowing futures brokers to post crypto assets as margin. In December 2025, the CFTC’s Market Participants Division and Division of Clearing and Risk issued Staff Letter 25-39 and later Staff Letter 26-05. Those letters permit futures commission merchants to accept payment stablecoins, bitcoin and ether as margin. Under the US framework, derivatives clearing organizations may take crypto and stablecoins as initial margin if they clear a “minimal credit, market, and liquidity risk” bar, with haircuts reviewed monthly. Brokers must hold at least 20% against their own bitcoin and ether positions and 2% against payment stablecoins, matching SEC broker-dealer guidance.
ESMA’s consultation covers tokenized assets issued natively on distributed ledgers as well as “digital twins” that mirror holdings kept in traditional systems, plus hybrid arrangements. The regulator stressed that tokenization should not by itself change an asset’s credit or market risk, but it can change how collateral is transferred, accessed and converted into liquidity. Even a liquid government bond could face friction if its tokenized version depends on specific redemption procedures, platforms, settlement assets or transfer restrictions.
Klaus Löber, chair of ESMA’s CCP Supervisory Committee, said collateral must be good quality, legally enforceable and easy to sell, and must also be accessible in practice even in a crisis or after a clearing member defaults. ESMA is also examining legal certainty, including whether moving a token actually transfers ownership or creates enforceable rights over the underlying asset, and operational resilience risks such as smart-contract failures, key compromise, outages and reconciliation errors.
Responses to ESMA’s questions are due by 15 January 2027, and ESMA plans to assess the feedback in the first quarter of 2027 before deciding whether EU rules are sufficient or whether regulatory or supervisory action is needed. The regulator has not proposed new eligibility rules at this stage.
Some industry participants are already moving. Eurex Clearing launched a DLT-based collateral service in July 2025, which it described as the first of its kind from a CCP. JPMorgan carried out the first live deal for Dutch pension investor PGGM, moving securities in from a separate custody location. In September, the Eurosystem launched Pontes, a system that lets institutions settle tokenized asset trades in central bank money, which ESMA said could support tokenized collateral by connecting blockchain systems with existing settlement infrastructure.
ESMA Chair Verena Ross said the review is part of a broader effort to create “the conditions for tokenised markets to operate safely and at scale” by providing clear legal rules, interoperable systems and proper oversight.
