From 2023 to 2026, institutions from around the world will once again come together from Hong Kong to the world stage. As the next decade of digital assets unfolds, LTP is looking ahead alongside the industry.
What is it like to observe the front lines of digital assets and traditional finance (TradFi) up close amid market volatility?
February 9, 2026 liquidity 2026the annual flagship institutional digital asset summit hosted by LTP Hong Kongsuccessfully completed in Hong Kong. For the fourth consecutive year, the event once again brought together senior representatives from hedge funds, market makers, high-frequency trading firms, family offices, asset managers, exchanges, custodians, banks and technology service providers, marking another milestone in the accelerating convergence of digital assets and traditional financial markets.
The summit featured keynote speeches, fireside chats, and in-depth roundtable discussions throughout the day’s agenda. Speakers and participants engaged in tough exchanges centered around the evolution of the global financial system, the rise of tokenization, and the rapid consolidation of multi-asset ecosystems, exploring what new opportunities and new paradigms may emerge as institutional adoption increases.
As the summit drew to a close, a clear consensus emerged from diverse perspectives. At a turning point in the restructuring of the global financial landscape, Infrastructure development, regulatory dialogue and cross-agency cooperation will be a key variable in shaping the industry’s sustainable growth.
This was more than just a forum of ideas, it was a decisive step in the advancement of the digital asset industry. Standardization, institutionalization, and mainstream relevance.
Highlights and key points from the entire agenda
in liquidity 2026LTP convened global experts to consider the future of institutional digital asset markets through multiple lenses, including core infrastructure, liquidity connectivity, tokenization, and emerging market paradigms.
Multi-asset trading and market integration: compatibility and resilience
Participants broadly agreed that crypto assets are increasingly being redefined as a core asset class that needs to be integrated into institutional investors’ portfolio management frameworks, rather than being treated as a standalone alternative market. Stefan LutzBitMEX’s CEO pointed out that CIOs can no longer afford to ignore this asset class. As financial institutions formally incorporate digital assets into their allocation frameworks, the design logic of trading systems shifts from seeking the best performance to enabling seamless integration within existing governance structures, API architectures, and risk management.
System resilience was repeatedly emphasized. tom higginsGold-i’s founder and CEO said during the roundtable that system design must assume failure is inevitable and enable redundancy and survivability through aggregation of multiple venues. At the macro level, regulatory fragmentation remains a major barrier to global market interoperability. Without cross-jurisdictional coordination, true multi-asset integration remains constrained.
A new payment layer: clearing, custody and interoperability
Discussions on payments and custody provided a clear direction. Custodians are evolving from passive asset storage to a core infrastructure layer that supports clearing, settlement, and risk management. With increasing agency participation, custody is no longer seen as just a compliance requirement, but as a critical link between regulatory certainty and operational scalability.
The definition of trust is also evolving. Ian LawCEO of Ceffu, emphasized the need to embed trust into viable on-chain mechanisms where assets generate tangible yields through the cooperation of custodians and prime brokers. The importance of mature third-party technologies is becoming increasingly clear. amy chanFireblocks’ Head of APAC highlighted the industry’s increasing reliance on established infrastructure providers, noting that regulatory clarity and infrastructure maturity mean Europe is emerging as a strategic hub for institutional digital assets.
Technical redundancy was widely recognized as essential to reduce system disruption. as darren jordanKomainu’s chief commercial officer, said the future of custody is about the ease of use of assets, with the core question moving from whether assets are securely stored to whether they can be moved safely and securely.
Infrastructure Rebuild and Data Pricing
Johan KelblattRobinhood Crypto’s SVP and GM shared how Robinhood has evolved from a crypto trading platform to a general-purpose financial infrastructure provider, leveraging blockchain to redesign payments, settlements, and traditional asset transactions while removing complexity from end users.
In his view, while the core bottleneck for TradFi remains payment efficiency, often operating at T+1 or higher, crypto-native systems offer 24/7 availability, near-instantaneous transfers, configurability, and significantly reduce capital costs and counterparty risk. Robinhood is proceeding with the tokenization of stocks on a fully collateralized, 1:1 basis within a regulatory framework, and expects tokenization to expand beyond stablecoins to stocks, ETFs, and private markets. He argued that the central challenge is not technology, but regulatory enforcement and collective adoption.
cory louHead of Asia Pacific at Pais Network, said market data is a structurally undervalued industry, with annual revenues exceeding $50 billion and data costs rising more than 15 times over the past 25 years. He pointed out that the real cost does not come from information asymmetry, but from the quality of the data that ultimately determines whether a trader can achieve the best execution.
Pyth Network aims to reimagine traditional data pipelines by ingesting price inputs directly from trading firms and exchanges into a shared price layer. It is then redistributed to financial institutions with high quality and low cost through millisecond level multi-asset updates. Lou revealed that Paispro Within two months of launch, we had over 80 subscribers and achieved over $1 million in ARR in our first month. The project also plans to implement a value capture mechanism where subscription revenue flows into the DAO and buys back tokens to build long-term reserves.
Institutional investor capital allocation: From speculation to systematic exposure
Significant changes in capital allocation are underway. Institutional investors are rotating away from narrative-driven assets to products with clear demand drivers and regulatory visibility. Fabian DoriCIO at Sygnum, observed that as the metaverse narrative fades, institutions are refocusing on leveraging smart contracts for value chain integration and process automation. Risk management is increasingly replacing estimation of returns as the primary screening criterion.
Tokenization is widely expected to drive structural rather than incremental change, but the scale will depend not only on technical capabilities but also on demonstrable client demand. There is growing interest in index-based and structured products. Giovanni ViceosoGlobal Head of Cryptocurrency Products at CME Group, said the future market landscape is likely to be defined by the coexistence of multiple technologies and market structures.
Trading convergence: Bridging liquidity, pricing, and risk
In discussions on liquidity and risk management, participants focused on the stability of the system in extreme market conditions. Jeremy LongLudisia’s CIO, highlighted that infrastructure upgrades have significantly improved execution quality and stressed that risk management must be designed for the worst-case scenario.
Improving capital efficiency across venues was identified as a key solution to fragmented capital deployment. Cooperation models between exchanges and custodians are increasingly being considered, allowing for the sharing of pools of capital. In this context, transparency has become paramount. Giuseppe Giulianivice president of the Kraken institutional team, emphasized that liquidity depends on clearly priced risks, and that the exchange’s transparency and operational stability directly impact market maker participation.
Building institutional rails for a digital asset economy
At the organizational and infrastructure level, multiple case studies signal the transition from proof of concept to real-world deployment. Stablecoin pilots in insurance and payments demonstrate tangible efficiency gains for on-chain payments. Some institutions are now considering moving their flagship products directly on-chain to access broader global liquidity.
System stability is increasingly seen as a form of revenue protection. Zengxina senior Web3 solutions architect at AWS, pointed out that stability acts as “income insurance” and that cloud infrastructure provides the resiliency and elasticity necessary for digital markets. Meanwhile, traditional regulatory frameworks continue to impose structural constraints on capital allocation. sherry juFutu Group Global Head of Digital Assets, Futu Holdings Limited, while recognizing the capital constraints imposed by frameworks such as Basel, emphasized the opportunity for trust and convenience to be at the core of securities platforms. Balancing compliance, privacy, and control remains a key criterion for institutions to participate in DeFi.
Everything as collateral: RWA, stablecoins, tokenized credits
The debate over whether tokenized assets can serve as core collateral is moving from theory to practice. Compared to traditional structures, on-chain collateral with 24/7 settlement is suitable for meeting sudden margin requirements in derivatives markets. However, legal clarity remains a determining factor.
Chetan KarhanisSenior Vice President at Franklin Templeton, emphasized the importance of choosing native on-chain asset structures over digital replicas and ensuring a single source of legal truth. Regulatory classification and its impact on capital requirements are equally important. Institutions evaluating tokenized collateral tend to focus on four aspects: legal ownership, operational risk, custodial structure, and liquidity depth.
Beyond the Hype: Where Will the Industry Go Next?
At the conclusion of the summit, participants came together on the common view that tokenization alone does not constitute a competitive advantage. The real differentiator lies in delivering measurable improvements across reserves, trading and settlement.
Erkan KayaCEO of ABEX, suggested that tokenization has the potential to completely absorb traditional finance into crypto-native systems, and that a tipping point is likely to occur within the next decade. The evolution of financial infrastructure appears irreversible, with regulatory credentials, system stability, and user experience becoming decisive factors. Digital assets are no longer complementary peripherals to TradFi, but are increasingly capable of reshaping TradFi’s operating logic and power structure.
moses leeHead of APAC at Anchorage Digital, summed up this sentiment succinctly: Tokenization does not equal success. Its value depends on its ability to provide a clear functional advantage in preparation, trading, or settlement.
lastly
For LTP, the transition to a more mature phase of the industry, marked by a decline in hype, is also the right time for infrastructure, compliance and sustainable innovation to take root. We strongly believe that lasting value creation lies in the fundamental systems that quietly support market operations.
From 2023 to 2026, LTP remains committed to observing, documenting, and actively participating in the structural, institutional, and regulatory evolution of the digital asset industry, from regional markets to a global perspective. A successful conclusion is liquidity 2026 This is another significant milestone in our long-term commitment to further integrating digital assets with TradFi.
Looking to the future, LTP will continue to invest heavily in developing an ecosystem that drives more resilient infrastructure and more open collaboration to help shape the next decade of digital assets.
A confluence of infrastructure construction, regulatory efforts, and cross-institutional collaboration is shaping an era of healthier, more professional, and increasingly mainstream digital assets.
meanwhile liquidity 2026 has just concluded, we are only in the second half of the marathon towards deep integration of digital assets and TradFi. As a long-term participant and observer, LTP will continue to dedicate resources to ecosystem building and industry dialogue to help usher in the next decade of digital assets.
