European financial and crypto industry groups are urging the European Union to remove its proposed €100 billion cap on tokenized securities or raise it to at least €1.5 trillion, arguing that the limit could restrict the growth of blockchain-based financial markets.
A coalition including Nasdaq, Boerse Stuttgart and several digital-asset organisations has written to the European Council and European Parliament. The groups say the EU’s distributed-ledger technology pilot needs a much larger capacity limit if Europe wants to compete in the rapidly developing tokenization market.
The EU currently operates a decentralized ledger technology, or DLT, pilot regime that allows financial market operators to experiment with blockchain-based trading and settlement of securities such as stocks, bonds and investment funds.
The framework provides exemptions from certain existing financial rules so that new technologies can be tested in a controlled environment. However, the European Commission has proposed expanding the regime after participation remained relatively modest.
Under the Commission’s proposal, the current €6 billion ceiling would be increased to €100 billion. Industry groups say that would still be far too restrictive.
LATEST: 🇪🇺 Nasdaq, Boerse Stuttgart, and other industry groups have asked the EU to remove or raise the cap on its tokenization trial, calling the current limit too restrictive. pic.twitter.com/Ct5piMTXWO
— CoinMarketCap (@CoinMarketCap) September 11, 2026
The coalition’s preferred option is to remove the cap completely. If lawmakers decide to retain a limit, the groups want it raised to at least €1.5 trillion — 15 times the Commission’s proposed ceiling.
The organisations argue that the market is developing quickly and that existing and planned tokenization projects could soon require much more capacity. They cited some European projects that they said have already reached around €350 billion, although they did not identify those projects or explain how the figure was calculated.
There is also an important technical point behind the debate. The thresholds concern the market value of securities admitted to the platform, rather than trading volume. A platform could therefore approach the regulatory limit even if only a relatively small portion of the securities were actively traded.
The industry groups also object to different limits being applied to different types of market operators. In particular, they oppose rules that could give central securities depositories greater capacity than other blockchain-based market operators.
Their argument is that such a system could favour established institutions and make it harder for newer technology providers to compete.
The coalition also wants the European Commission to have the ability to increase any future cap as the market grows. That would avoid having to repeatedly amend the framework whenever tokenized securities expand beyond the existing limit.
The debate reflects a much bigger question facing European financial markets. Tokenization is the process of representing traditional financial instruments as digital assets on blockchain or distributed-ledger infrastructure. Supporters believe it could improve settlement, reduce operational costs and make financial markets more efficient.
But regulators must balance innovation against risks involving investor protection, market stability and infrastructure.
The industry groups believe the proposed €100 billion limit could become a barrier precisely when tokenization is beginning to move from experimentation towards larger-scale financial applications.
Their message to European policymakers is therefore straightforward: if Europe wants to build a serious tokenized securities market, the regulatory sandbox must be large enough to accommodate growth.
The final shape of the EU framework will determine how much room European financial institutions and blockchain companies have to scale these experiments. For now, the industry is asking lawmakers to think beyond the size of today’s market and prepare for where tokenization could be heading next.
Stay informed with the latest trends in Web3, blockchain innovation, and cybersecurity updates at 3verseTV
You need to login in order to Like
Leave a comment