CME Group and Google Cloud revealed that they are collaborating to pilot solutions for easy and safe wholesale payments and asset tokenization. CME Group has completed the first step of testing and integrating Google Cloud Universal Ledger (GCUL), a new distributed ledger from Google Cloud.
According to a press release sent out today, the two companies plan to start direct tests with market players later this year and aim to begin offering new services in 2026.
TO TEST TOKENIZATION LATER THIS YEAR, THE DERIVATIVES TRADING GIANT CME GROUP HAS PARTNERED WITH THE U.S. IT GIANT GOOGLE CLOUD, WITH PLANS TO LAUNCH SERVICES IN 2026!
CLASSIFIED FOR PAYMENTS AND STORES OF VALUE, CME GROUP HAS ALREADY LAUNCHED $XRP FUTURES AND LISTED #XRP! pic.twitter.com/JQPgmEDzAr
— Tehseen Ahmed (@Tahseenahmed22) March 25, 2025
Google Cloud’s new Universal Ledger, a private network that can be programmed, will be used by CME to test how digital asset infrastructure can make settlement and clearing faster.
Rohit Bhat, General Manager of Financial Services at Google Cloud, said, “Partnering with CME Group to innovate with GCUL exemplifies this commitment, demonstrating how Google Cloud helps partners transform their businesses through strategic collaborations and modern infrastructure, unlocking significant opportunities for the global financial market.”
On the other hand, Terry Duffy, CME Group Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, said, “As the President and new Administration have encouraged Congress to create landmark legislation for common-sense market structure, we are pleased to partner with Google Cloud to enable innovative solutions for low-cost, digital transfer of value”
According to CME, Google Cloud Universal Ledger has the potential to deliver significant efficiencies for collateral, margin, settlement and fee payments as the world moves toward 24/7 trading. The tectonic plates are moving, and a new era in global banking is beginning.
The market for tokenized assets could reach a multi-trillion-dollar size in a decade.
The move by these two big companies shows how hot the tokenization trend is. It has caught the attention of both crypto firms and traditional financial firms. Asset managers and banks around the world are looking into more and more ways to use blockchain’s rails to move traditional financial objects like bonds, funds, and other securities.
This is in order to be more efficient and make payments faster, cheaper, and around-the-clock settlements. Several industry studies from BCG, McKinsey, and Bernstein say that the market for tokenized assets could reach a multi-trillion-dollar size by the end of the decade.
These improvements open up a huge number of growth possibilities. Based on research, only $25 trillion worth of assets can be used as collateral right now. This is a very small part of the possible $230 trillion pool. Tokenization makes it easier to move collateral and use capital more efficiently.
Institutional crypto firms and early adopters in traditional finance, like Broadridge, BNP, HSBC, Goldman Sachs, and others, show that this is true. They are bringing the world closer to a new normal of an always-open, accessible ecosystem that can change with the needs of a globalized economy that moves quickly.
How tokenization has dealt with the liquidity problem
The thing that keeps financial markets going is liquidity. It’s easy to buy and sell stocks because they have deep liquidity. This means that someone is always willing to buy or sell them at a fair price. However, that’s not the case for real estate, bonds, and private equity.
These assets are often locked up for long periods of time, which requires large amounts of cash and long settlement times. Even for bonds traded on a stock market, settlement can take days or weeks. This is not reasonable in a constantly changing market.
This changes when assets are broken up into tokens, which can then be quickly traded on blockchain networks. Tokenization allows for small pieces that can be bought and sold like stocks instead of a $100,000 minimum investment in a bond or real estate deal.
Even better, these assets don’t depend on bank hours or old infrastructure because they move on-chain, where trades happen instantly instead of taking days to clear.
Besides making things easier to access, tokenization also creates new ways for money to flow. Tokenized forms of assets can work with DeFi protocols, automated trading, and blockchain-based lending. In contrast, traditional assets can only be used in certain markets and by certain types of investors.
In other words, tokenized securities can be used as collateral, staked, or lent against. This makes new liquidity pools that didn’t exist in traditional finance.
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