Liquidity 2026 (LTP Summit) was an infrastructure-first event focused on how digital assets and tokenized products can fit into traditional markets. The core theme was what institutional adoption actually requires: clear risk frameworks for collateral, enforceable ownership, resilient custody and settlement, and exchange mechanics that don’t break under stress, especially in a 24/7 market.
An Event for the Annals
Liquidity 2026 (the LTP Summit) was one big infrastructure conversation.
Focused discussions, expert panels, and small-group dialogues homed in on how digital assets and tokenized products can coexist with traditional markets.
That focus stayed true to the summit’s theme: “Bridging Digital Assets and Traditional Finance: Building the Next Generation of Multi-Asset Financial Infrastructure.”
The fourth edition took place on 9 February 2026 at the JW Marriott in Hong Kong, pitched as a gathering for institutions and market-structure builders. Organizers promoted a large institutional turnout (1,000+ in-person attendees and 400+ institutions) and a program focused on market trends, regulatory frameworks, and operational realities.
Also at the event, we witnessed:
Institutional discussions on the strength of post-trade systems and how exchanges behave under stress;
Debates over whether current infrastructure is up to the task in terms of interoperability, custody, and risk management.
Additionally, the community’s wants and needs, as infrastructure scales, were given attention.
As Adrian Tan, Binance’s APAC Head of VIP and Institutional, put it:
“It’s always about user demand. If there’s demand, you build the product to serve it. You don’t try to sell a product that has no demand.”
So, how did demand shine through at the LTP Summit this year?
Demand is leading to more digital and tokenized assets being added to institutional multi-asset setups, with clear risk limits, consistent execution, reliable settlement and dependable custody.
That’s why Liquidity 2026 kept steering toward how liquidity is produced, priced, and risk-managed across venues. The program reflected that directly, with sessions on “Trading Is Merging – How Institutional Liquidity Is Bridged, Priced, and Risk-Managed,” discussions of capital flow and allocation trends, and a push to establish products that institutions can plug into.
Also, if more assets are going to be treated as balance-sheet tools (staked assets, stablecoins, RWAs, tokenized credit), then the market has to get sharper on how those instruments behave under stress, how they connect to financing, and where friction still hides.
Liquidity 2026 broadcast that in panel 7: “Crypto After the Hype: What Stayed, What Left, What’s Next”.
The conference landed as a grounded read on what adoption actually demands.
Risk Frameworks: Collateral, Ownership, and Where Deals Fail
Topics such as “Everything is collateralizable: staked assets, RWAs, stablecoins, and tokenized credit,” forced panelists into answering the question: what makes an asset eligible, and what makes it dangerous?
From what we saw, instead of institutions seeking out a killer product, they’re trying to build a repeatable way to evaluate many different assets, even when markets change. That means taking on-chain collateral and breaking it into clear risks.
Emmanuelle Pecenicic from Fidelity International laid out the checklist:
“We see four main risks: legal ownership risk, operational risk of moving capital and tokens on-chain, custodial risk, and liquidity risk.”
The uncomfortable point is that these risks don’t show up evenly. Legal ownership can be clean while liquidity is thin. Liquidity can look deep until custody terms get stress-tested. Operational pathways can work in a steady state and fail exactly when markets gap and everyone needs certainty at the same time.
‘Collateralizable everything’ only works when the foundations hold, especially under stress, and especially outside traditional market hours.
Pecenicic offered an example:
“In a fund context, you have digital twins (where someone else creates a twin version of your product) and the end investor can’t claim direct ownership of the underlying asset. As a result, those digital twins can’t be eligible as collateral.”
BitMEX’s CEO, Stephan Lutz, framed another constraint:
“Founders usually focus on the business case and whether there’s something to offer. But what they miss is that most institutions work with other people’s money, so they have fiduciary duties. They need to balance the business case with building trust that the money will not be lost.”
As part of such conversations at Liquidity 2026, trust was broken down into its measurable constituents: ownership clarity, operational controls (approvals, access, monitoring, limits), custody design, and stress-tested liquidity.
Exchange Mechanics, Auto-Deleveraging, and the Reality of 24/7 Liquidation
The event put real weight on the idea that trading is coming together across digital and traditional venues. That concerns how liquidity is bridged, priced, and risk-managed.Institutions don’t judge trading venues the way retail traders do. Retail mostly cares about price, fees, and how easy it is to trade. Institutions care about what happens when markets get chaotic: how the venue handles volatility, how liquidations work, and whether the venue’s risk engine can suddenly change the outcome.
Here, Ian Weisberger, CoinRoutes’ CEO, made a good point about auto-deleveraging:
“I think the elephant in the room is really the auto deleveraging that’s been happening on these crypto exchanges. If you look at October 10, when a lot of firms potentially got washed out and even the last couple of days, you have people that are just getting washed out of their positions.”
He continued:
“And so if you’re a TradFi manager, you’re used to getting a call, a margin call. They’re literally going to pick up the phone and call you when you need to post collateral. Whereas in crypto, it just could happen at 2 a.m. and then you’re washed out of your position.”
“So you really need a system like CoinRoutes to tell you when you’re getting auto-deleveraged, how close you are to being auto-deleveraged across all of your counterparties.”
Ultimately, the more portfolios span digital, tokenized, and traditional instruments, the less tolerance there is for exchange mechanics that can close positions asynchronously (especially when collateral usage and capital efficiency are part of the institutional pitch).
What still Holds Institutions Back, and What’s Changing
Of course, the path isn’t frictionless. The summit’s own framing kept returning to the things institutions start caring about the moment they move past curiosity. For example, risk management, compliance practices, policy developments and the regulatory frameworks that determine how tokenized and digital assets can be used at scale.
Ian Loh, Ceffu’s CEO, explained why:
“In leading jurisdictions, infrastructure has developed quickly alongside regulatory clarity. When the rules are clearly defined, infrastructure tends to follow.”
He continued:
“Compliance comes first. When an institution operates within regulatory frameworks, it signals adherence to defined standards and governance requirements. That, in turn, implies the underlying infrastructure meets institutional-grade expectations.”
As such, the event leaned hard into compliance. You could see it in the language and in the rules: who could attend based on jurisdiction, clear ‘not an offer or solicitation’ disclaimers, and reminders that speakers were sharing their own views, not the organizer’s.
This is also a reflection of how institutional adoption will move forward, through controlled access and clear boundaries on what’s being said and offered.
In an interview with BeInCrypto, Warren Burke, Co-founder of NXMarket, answered: What still quietly scares institutions about crypto that the industry underestimates?
“Cybersecurity, but I really see this changing with RWA adoption. Regulatory bodies globally are enforcing standards in smart contracts to ensure investor safety, transparency, and compliance.”
Burke then answered: Do institutions move because of opportunity, or because competitors force them to?
“I’d say it’s about opportunity, even if a competitor is presenting a new opportunity. Most institutions don’t want to spearhead or be the first. Past performance matters, and it’s often the strongest indicator of success.”
Attendees left Liquidity with the sense that the market is moving, but understanding that institutions will only move faster when the infrastructure becomes predictable, auditable, and resilient.
What’s the Endgame?
If Liquidity 2026 had one consistent throughline, it would be that the ‘institutional’ chapter won’t be won by loud one-off products. The industry needs systems that behave predictably. For example, custody and post-trade that support real products, risk frameworks that translate on-chain exposure into committee-friendly language, and venue mechanics that don’t surprise you at 2 a.m. when markets are thin.
That framing is baked into the summit’s stated theme: bridging digital assets and traditional finance by building the next generation of multi-asset financial infrastructure. This has to be an operating requirement for institutions that want digital and tokenized exposure to sit inside normal portfolio construction.
The takeaway is that once we see credible infrastructure, the ceiling changes. You get new workflows, new instruments, and new ways to distribute and finance risk (without forcing every participant to accept crypto’s historical quirks).
Adrian Tan captured that direction of travel cleanly:
“I think the endgame is more than a TradFi overhaul. It’s going to be a brave new world of polished applications and game-changing developments. We’ve come a long way as an industry, but in the grand scheme of things, we’re still incredibly young.”
The next edition of the LTP Summit, expected in 2027, will likely gauge how far 2026’s conversations have translated into live systems. Learn more about the firm behind the summit here.
