39 firms urge EU to fast-track DLT pilot, warn US may lead

Thirty-nine financial firms and industry bodies, including Nasdaq and Boerse Stuttgart, sent a joint letter on Tuesday asking EU lawmakers to fast-track the DLT Pilot Regime and review it as a standalone law. The letter was addressed to European Commissioner for Financial Services Maria Luís Albuquerque and circulated by industry association Adan.

The group asked that the DLT Pilot Regime be carved out of the wider Market Integration and Supervision Package to avoid lengthy negotiations that could delay the rollout of tokenized trading and settlement across the EU. The signatories argued that folding the pilot into the broader package could slow adoption of distributed ledger technology in regulated markets.

Signatories asked for specific changes to the pilot rules. They want the range of eligible assets broadened, the overall volume cap raised to €150 billion, and time limits on pilot licenses removed. Under current rules, only relatively small products may be tested on-chain: shares from companies valued under about $588 million, bonds with issuance sizes below roughly $1.17 billion, and investment funds with assets near $588 million.

The letter states, “These pragmatic adjustments enjoy broad support among market participants across Europe,” and warns that “negotiations are likely to be lengthy” and could “risk dampening Europe’s momentum in DLT adoption.”

The appeal referenced regulatory steps taken in the United States. U.S. regulators have clarified that broker-dealers may custody tokenized stocks and bonds under existing investor-protection rules and issued a no-action letter allowing a Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation subsidiary to offer a tokenization service for real-world assets held in custody. The group that wrote to Brussels said delays in expanding the EU pilot could move liquidity and market activity to jurisdictions with clearer or larger-scale frameworks.

Earlier this year, a smaller group of nine European tokenization and infrastructure firms made a similar request to update the pilot regime, citing limits on asset size, low issuance caps and time-bound licenses as constraints on scaling regulated on-chain markets.

Launched in 2023, the DLT Pilot Regime functions as a regulatory sandbox that lets financial firms test blockchain-based trading and settlement under real market conditions by granting temporary exemptions from certain rules. The joint letter lists market operators, exchanges and infrastructure firms among its signatories. Nasdaq and Boerse Stuttgart were named as participants; they did not immediately respond to requests for comment.