Apex Group, the global financial services firm that administers more than $3.5 trillion in client assets, will pilot a stablecoin from WLFI — the crypto firm affiliated with U.S. President Donald Trump — as part of a push to tokenise traditional fund operations. The announcement came at the World Liberty Forum at Mar-a-Lago, where Apex and WLFI said the trial will use WLFI’s USD1 stablecoin as a payment rail for subscriptions, redemptions and distributions within Apex’s growing tokenized fund ecosystem. Apex framed the pilot as an effort to speed up settlement and cut operational costs for institutional clients such as hedge funds, pension funds, banks and family offices. WLFI co-founder and CEO Zach Witkoff positioned the USD1 token as “infrastructure for a future financial services ecosystem” during opening remarks at the forum. Apex has already been moving into digital assets by tokenizing fund shares — an approach that can streamline reporting, lower fees and widen investor access. Apex has further expanded its blockchain capabilities this year through acquisitions. In May it bought Tokeny, a Luxembourg firm that builds infrastructure to issue and manage real-world assets (RWAs) on-chain, and it acquired London-based Globacap, an investment platform with a U.S.-registered broker-dealer that strengthens Apex’s ability to tokenize regulated securities for U.S. investors. “Clients increasingly want blockchain-based solutions that deliver tangible benefits and cost savings,” Apex CEO Peter Hughes said in the release. As part of the WLFI collaboration, Apex will also explore listing WLFI tokenized assets — including real estate and infrastructure offerings — on the London Stock Exchange Group’s Digital Market Infrastructure platform, subject to regulatory approval. WLFI said it plans to introduce a mobile app that links traditional bank accounts to digital asset wallets, enabling users to access tokenized holdings more directly. The pilot signals another step in the convergence of traditional asset servicing and crypto rails: large administrators are now testing dollar-denominated tokens to handle core fund operations, while regulators and exchanges weigh how to bring tokenized real-world assets into established markets. Read more AI-generated news on: undefined/news

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