We are making scaled, onchain capital markets a reality. Do you want in? We are building out our UK team because we know building product that delivers real value, requires the very best talent. From onchain repo to fully native tokenised funds, you'll be working with a group who know what it takes to deliver product that not just moves the dial, but the market. More importantly, a team that believes insight is best delivered through deep collaboration, curiosity and intellectual autonomy. If that sounds like you, get in! You can apply below. broadridge.wd5.myworkdayjobs…+

Kaiko's Series B extends to $110 million, led by @SPGlobal alongside @Nasdaq, @BNPParibas, @cbventures, @RBC, @DRWTrading, Susquehanna, @Broadridge, @CantonNetork, @StellarOrg, and our existing shareholders: @anthemis, @PointNineCap, and @Revaia_Cap. This round represents a significant investment in data and data infrastructure from the institutions that lead capital markets and digital assets today. Read the full announcement 🔗 kaiko.com/news/sp-global-lea…

Last month, I left @BaillieGifford after almost five years. I came to investing sideways: a music degree, then journalism. It takes a particular kind of firm to bet on that background, and I'll always be grateful they did. I started on the investment floor, learning to look past the headlines to where the insight actually sits, and to be forensic with parts of the puzzle everyone else finds complex. I covered everything from equities, crypto, energy, commodities etc. It was the weird and wonderful that fascinated me. Catastrophe bonds after Hurricane Ian. Debt collectors after the Intrum blow-up. I landed in Corporate Credit, and then was a Portfolio Manager of an active bond fund. But it was one of my first investment notes that became my biggest obsession: onchain finance, and market plumbing. It started as a private fascination, became research, then the bet I staked my career on. The plumbing beneath the financial system is due an operating system upgrade. I think blockchain is the answer. So, rather than write another piece for the BG research library, I decided to build the thing I wanted to see. Baillie Gifford was bold enough to let me, first alongside investing, then full-time as Tokenisation Lead and later Head of Digital Assets. The easy version was there, and admittedly tempting: layer an existing fund with an SPV, mirror the register onchain or create a digital twin. But BG taught me to strive for better. I wanted an onchain record as the legal source of truth, and to buy and redeem in stablecoins; the plumbing needed upgrading to pass my “same, but better" test. So we built from first principles, working with the regulator rather than against them, and created the UK's first publicly available, fully native, onshore tokenised fund, whose onchain books and records are the legal source of truth. On public blockchains (Ethereum and Solana), something others had scoffed at two years earlier. Designed from the buy-side, with our clients' needs at the core. I'm incredibly proud of what we built, the pipeline behind it, and the investment strategy that @JoeThorpePM and I first built, now run by the Fixed Income team. But it was the team at @BGDA_UK that made it real: we asked "what if?", and then went and answered it. Trust and hard challenge in equal measure. I can’t wait to see their ongoing future success, and delivery of our very exciting roadmap of projects. A massive thank you to BG CEO Tim and the partners for a culture that genuinely thinks in decades, the external champions who educated me, and most of all to our clients: it is all for you. So what next? A short break, and then a new role, tackling even bigger questions to bring the rest of finance onto blockchain rails. More on that soon.

I loved this discussion on getting us closer to the promise of tokenization: the fund interest itself exists natively on-chain, and the blockchain serves as the authoritative record of ownership. In contrast, a lot of what we see today is still essentially a wrapper: the legally meaningful asset, ownership record, custody arrangement, and administration all live off-chain, and a token is placed on top of that structure as a representation of something maintained elsewhere. There is value in that model, given where we are. But in Fairness By Design II, I wrote about what I think is the more interesting end state: for the blockchain to be the native infrastructure itself. Where a vault as the fund, for example, mean ownership, transfer, custody, redemption, and eventually more of the rules governing the asset are all established and enforced on-chain.

fully native /ˈfʊli ˈneɪtɪv/ adjective Of a fund: issued directly onchain, where the blockchain is the legal register of ownership. The token is the holding itself, not a claim on a vehicle that holds it. No wrapper, no SPV, no offchain register to reconcile against. "The books and records are held natively onchain." See also: own it, natively

BAGEY is fast becoming the example. Today, the Government's report to the Chancellor on tokenised markets is out, with a strong shift to action. For me, the question now is how fast the UK can scale it, with up to £33bn a year on the table by 2035, according to the report. That's the race. We, at @BaillieGifford, are glad to be in it. More to come from us; follow at @BGDA_UK for the latest. (theglobalcity.uk/PositiveWeb…)

Really looking forward to spending time with the Ethereum community in Hong Kong and talking about the launch of BAGEY on Ethereum. Excited to see friends from around the ecosystem, including @Sharplink (@joechalom) and (@snzholding). Cc/ (@ethereuminsti) and (@ethereumJoseph)"

Traditional finance and onchain finance aren't colliding. They're collaborating. Our Head of Digital Assets, @TFGolden, on why the age of proof-of-concept is over, and why it's time to build. ↓

Less friction. Utility for assets that used to sit inert. @TFGolden, our Head of Digital Assets, on what tokenisation actually changes: shared infrastructure that delivers better outcomes for clients, and better access in the places they want it. Full conversation in our latest podcast ↓ linktr.ee/BaillieGifford

🚨 Ep. 89 of @TokenizedPod: Capital Markets Are Going Onchain @cuysheffield is joined by: 👉 @nlevine19, Partner, @a16z 👉 @wesarn_real, Co-Founder & Head of Network Strategy, @digitalasset 👉 @TFGolden, Head of Digital Assets, @BaillieGifford To discuss: 📈 Growth of tokenized stocks through crypto exchange models 🌐 Onshore versus offshore tokenized asset market bifurcation 🛠️ Increased utility of equities via securities lending 🤝 Democratizing prime brokerage services for retail users 🤖 Separating ownership from control in robo-advisory 🚀 Baillie Gifford launches UK native tokenized fund on Solana and Ethereum 🎯 Target customers for tokenized real world assets 💥 Intersection of tokenized assets and payment systems 🏦 Bank of England stablecoin holding limits and issuance guardrails *** Timestamps: 00:00 Introduction 4:26 Growth of tokenized stocks through crypto exchange models 5:33 Onshore versus offshore tokenized asset market bifurcation 7:25 Increased utility of equities via securities lending 12:35 Democratizing prime brokerage services for retail users 16:07 Separating ownership from control in robo-advisory 19:37 Baillie Gifford launches UK native tokenized fund on Solana and Ethereum 24:19 Target customers for tokenized real world assets 31:50 Intersection of tokenized assets and payment systems 34:31 Bank of England stablecoin holding limits and issuance guardrails *** 👉𝘚𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘤𝘩 '𝘛𝘰𝘬𝘦𝘯𝘪𝘻𝘦𝘥 𝘗𝘰𝘥𝘤𝘢𝘴𝘵' 𝘖𝘯 𝘠𝘰𝘶𝘛𝘶𝘣𝘦. 𝘈𝘱𝘱𝘭𝘦, 𝘚𝘱𝘰𝘵𝘪𝘧𝘺 𝘰𝘳 𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘗𝘰𝘥𝘤𝘢𝘴𝘵 𝘗𝘭𝘢𝘺𝘦𝘳! 👈

The @TheFCA's Chief Executive, this week: "On Monday, we approved Baillie Gifford, alongside BNY Mellon, to launch the UK's first natively tokenised authorised fund. The entire transaction journey, end-to-end, on chain." The regulator gets it. It’s coming home. Full speech: fca.org.uk/news/speeches/ret…

Our guest for Monday's Tokenized Podcast @cuysheffield is joined by: 👉 @nlevine19, Partner, @a16zcrypto 👉 @wesarn_real, Co-Founder & Head of Network Strategy, @digitalasset 👉 @TFGolden, Head of Digital Assets, @BaillieGifford Out on Monday at 8am PT / 11am ET / 4pm GMT Find it on 𝗔𝗽𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗣𝗼𝗱𝗰𝗮𝘀𝘁𝘀, 𝗦𝗽𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗳𝘆 or 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗧𝘂𝗯𝗲 by searching "Tokenized Podcast" 📷 💙

Convinced one of our Portfolio Managers to start posting on X. You can follow @JoeThorpePM for all the bond market insights you want. Check him out. Joe and I cut our teeth together at @BaillieGifford, and used to sit next to each other as trainees. Years later - still working together.

Tokenisation: Same, but better. The @BGDA_UK way.

JUST IN: 118-year-old Scottish investment firm @BaillieGifford has launched a tokenized corporate bond fund on @Ethereum and @Solana, offering ~7% yield with BNY providing the tokenization infrastructure.

Onchain shouldn’t mean cutting corners. @TFGolden, Head of Digital Assets, on why native issuance is the unlock for how the next wave of capital will come onchain. It’s time to remove the caveat that has plagued adoption for a decade. The case for native, in full. ↓