Liquidity 2026: Where Global Institutions Converged On The Future Of Digital Assets And Tradfi

What Happened

Pyth Network aims to reconstruct traditional data pipelines by bringing price inputs directly from trading firms and exchanges into a shared price layer, which is then redistributed to institutions at higher quality and lower cost with millisecond-level multi-asset updates. Loo disclosed that Pyth Pro attracted over 80 subscribers within two months of launch, achieving more than $1 million in ARR in its first month. The project also plans to implement a value-capture mechanism whereby subscription revenue flows into a DAO, which repurchases tokens and builds long-term reserves.

In discussions on liquidity and risk management, participants focused on system stability during extreme market conditions. Jeremi Long, CIO of Ludisia, highlighted how infrastructure upgrades have materially improved execution quality, while emphasizing that risk management must be designed for worst-case scenarios.

Market Context

What does it feel like to observe—at close range—the front-line pulse of digital assets and traditional finance (TradFi) amid market volatility?

On Feb. 9, 2026, Liquidity 2026, the annual flagship institutional digital asset summit hosted by LTP Hong Kong, concluded successfully in Hong Kong. Now in its 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.

As the summit drew to a close, a clear consensus emerged across diverse perspectives: at a turning point in the reshaping of the global financial landscape, infrastructure development, regulatory dialogue, and cross-institutional collaboration will be the critical variables shaping the industry’s sustainable growth.This was not merely a forum for ideas, but a defining step in the digital asset industry’s progression toward standardization, institutionalization, and mainstream relevance.

At Liquidity 2026, LTP convened global experts to examine 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 Convergence: Compatibility and Resilience

Participants broadly agreed that crypto assets are increasingly being redefined as a core asset class that must be integrated into institutional portfolio management frameworks, rather than treated as a standalone alternative market. Stephan Lutz, CEO of BitMEX, noted that CIOs can no longer afford to ignore this asset class. As institutions formally incorporate digital assets into allocation frameworks, the design logic of trading systems is shifting—from pursuing peak performance to enabling seamless integration within existing governance structures, API architectures, and risk controls.

System resilience was repeatedly emphasized. Tom Higgins, Founder and CEO of Gold-i, remarked during a roundtable that system design must assume failure as inevitable, with redundancy and survivability achieved through multi-venue aggregation. At a macro level, regulatory fragmentation remains a key obstacle to global market interoperability; without cross-jurisdictional alignment, genuine multi-asset convergence will remain constrained.

Rebuilding Infrastructure and the Price of Data

Johann Kerbrat, SVP and GM of Robinhood Crypto, shared how Robinhood is evolving from a crypto trading platform into a general-purpose financial infrastructure provider, leveraging blockchain to re-architect payments, settlement, and traditional asset trading—while abstracting complexity away from the end user.

In his view, TradFi’s core bottleneck remains settlement efficiency, often operating at T+1 or longer, whereas crypto-native systems offer 24/7 availability, near-instant transfers, and composability that materially reduce capital costs and counterparty risk. Within regulatory frameworks, Robinhood is advancing equity tokenization on a fully collateralized, 1:1 basis, anticipating that tokenization will expand beyond stablecoins into equities, ETFs, and private markets. The central challenge, he argued, lies not in technology, but in regulatory implementation and collective adoption.

Cory Loo, Head of APAC at Pyth Network, described market data as a structurally underappreciated industry—generating over $50 billion in annual revenue, with data costs rising more than 15-fold over the past 25 years. The true cost, he noted, stems not from information asymmetry, but from data quality, which ultimately determines whether traders achieve best execution.

Institutional Capital Allocation: From Speculation to Systematic Exposure

A notable shift in capital allocation is underway. Institutional capital is rotating away from narrative-driven assets toward instruments with clear demand drivers and regulatory visibility. Fabian Dori, CIO of Sygnum, observed that as metaverse narratives faded, institutions have refocused on leveraging smart contracts for value-chain integration and process automation. Risk management has increasingly displaced return speculation as the primary screening criterion.

Tokenization is widely expected to drive structural, rather than incremental, change—but scale will depend on demonstrable client demand rather than technological capability alone. Interest in index-based and structured products is rising, and Giovanni Vicioso, Global Head of Cryptocurrency Products at CME Group, noted that the future market landscape will likely be defined by the coexistence of multiple technologies and market structures.

Trading Convergence: Bridging Liquidity, Pricing, and Risk

Why It Matters

Throughout the full-day agenda, the summit featured keynote addresses, fireside chats, and in-depth roundtable discussions. Speakers and participants engaged in rigorous exchanges around the evolution of the global financial system, the rise of tokenization, and the rapid integration of multi-asset ecosystems—exploring what new opportunities and new paradigms may emerge as institutional adoption deepens.

Discussions around settlement and custody pointed to a clear direction: custodians are evolving from passive asset safekeeping toward becoming a core infrastructure layer supporting clearing, settlement, and risk management. As institutional participation grows, custody is no longer viewed solely as a compliance requirement, but as a critical nexus connecting regulatory certainty with operational scalability.

Details

From 2023 to 2026, from Hong Kong to a global stage, institutions from around the world convened once again. As the next decade of digital assets unfolds, LTP looks ahead alongside the industry.

Full Agenda Highlights and Key Takeaways

The New Settlement Layer: Clearing, Custody, and Interoperability

The definition of trust is also evolving. Ian Loh, CEO of Ceffu, emphasized that trust must be embedded in executable on-chain mechanisms, with assets generating tangible yield through collaboration between custodians and prime brokers. The importance of mature third-party technology has become increasingly evident. Amy Zhang, Head of APAC at Fireblocks, highlighted the industry’s growing reliance on established infrastructure providers, noting that Europe is emerging as a strategic hub for institutional digital assets due to its regulatory clarity and infrastructure maturity.

Technological redundancy was widely seen as essential to mitigating systemic disruptions. As Darren Jordan, Chief Commercial Officer at Komainu, observed, the future of custody lies in asset usability—shifting the core question from whether assets are safely stored to whether they can be securely and reliably mobilized.