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House of block
July 2026
At the fourth iteration of the House of Block digital assets and Web3 conference, Matthew Challis uncovers how digital asset experts are utilising blockchain, and what regulatory and compliance changes must be made for the technology to reach its full potential
Image: valex/stock.adobe.com
It was a good couple of days for those in England just a few weeks ago; on the 17 June 2026, the men’s national team comprehensively dismantles Croatia, and on 18 June 2026, experts from across the globe and throughout the digital assets sector come together at the Ham Polo Club in Richmond, London, for the fourth iteration of the House of Block digital assets and Web3 conference. The panels set out to comprehensively tackle tokenisation’s place within the next generation of the financial market, the real-world application of digital currencies, and how mismatched regulatory frameworks and a lack of education are the constraints holding the technology back.
Geopolitics
Opening the first panel on the macroeconomic fallout of recent global conflicts, the speakers looked at how geopolitical crises are reshaping the monetary system. Conflict is, predominantly, bad for growth, inflation, and confidence, but the panellists understand markets to react in a more complex way.
For instance, the war in Iran, forcing the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, resulted in a watershed moment for the digital assets market. The fee to reopen the trade route was paid entirely in digital currencies, geopolitically validating cryptocurrency and stablecoins as tools that can be utilised in times of crisis. For all the casualties of war, a new monetary system is being born out of this conflict, according to the panel.
Away from the frontlines, China has launched its own digital battle: the de-dollarisation of the global digital economy through the e-CNY, a Chinese renminbi-pegged stablecoin initiative. In response, the US introduced private US dollar stablecoins operating under emerging federal frameworks like the GENIUS Act. Historically, the US dollar was anchored by gold, fiscal strength, and oil, but now, with the structural anchors breaking down as the digital battle wages, the US is building a “new petrodollar”, anchored not by physical assets, but by stablecoins and raw computing power. The speakers believe that this shifting landscape is reflected in retaliatory military strikes now targeting data centres as opposed to physical bases.
One panellist described bitcoin as “money for enemies”, in that once you correctly sign a bitcoin transaction and broadcast it to the network, it cannot be stopped. Conversely, a centralised stablecoin can be frozen by issuers under government pressure; it exists under more constraints than the deregulated bitcoin. For the speakers, this creates an amoral financial environment that legacy sanctions are ill-equipped to police. Iran utilising this facet of the cryptocurrency is the exact watershed moment alluded to earlier.
Stablecoins
Turning the discussion to stablecoins, the second panel addressed the regulatory medley left in the wake of the US GENIUS Act and the EU’s Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) regulation. In the eyes of the speakers, the US’s framework has simultaneously legitimised stablecoins for institutional treasury management while still subject to significant compliance hurdles.
The experts debated the potential credit risks embedded in stablecoin backing, highlighting the fact that, even if two stablecoins are pegged one-to-one, the underlying risk profile of each individual digital currency can differ greatly depending on whether they hold 90-day US Treasuries or keep cash reserves at commercial banks. The lack of transparency and a standardised risk framework are challenges that remain to be seen.
Moreover, the speakers are of the belief that a lack of standardised compliance that aids investors in understanding the underlying risks that are beneath different forms of digital money — including tokenised deposits and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) — has led to a lack of understanding and an environment where investors are unable to properly assess the specific risks associated with the digital asset they are buying. Often, the panel says, this lack of regulatory governance causes different types of digital currency to be incorrectly mistaken for one another.
These underlying issues have been recognised at the highest governance level, with different jurisdictions taking different approaches. The Bank of England’s proposal to grant stablecoin issuers direct access to central bank reserve accounts was praised as a critical safeguard in preventing bank runs. Conversely, MiCA’s requirement to place 30 to 60 per cent of reserves in commercial banks was critiqued for introducing systemic cross-contagion.
Sandbox regimes
The next discussion centred around the practical execution of tokenisation under the UK’s Digital Securities Sandbox (DSS) along with other global experimental regimes. Despite what the name may suggest, one speaker explains that the DSS represents a live environment, with licensed firms executing real-time issuance, secondary trading, repo, and custody. The result culminates in alternative asset classes — like property real estate investment trusts (REITs) — which are being digitised on unified platforms, intended to collapse the traditional three-to-six-month transaction timelines to three weeks, and deliver yield of between 8 and 12 per cent to wealth managers.
Another panellist used the Dutch National Bank as an example of an institution giving greater importance to energy and computing in the form of tokenised energy. They explained that European pilots are attempting to transition consumers into “prosumers”, who use micropayments to trade surplus renewable energy with neighbours. The expert believes that, without tokenisation, a practical, real-world application, such as this, would not be possible.
On the contrary, the speakers note the fact that there is a disproportionately low level of adoption relative to the perceived potential for benefits stemming from tokenisation, which they attribute to “regulatory confusion” and a “lack of education”. One of the panellists’ institutional clients is having to train its staff in-house to talk to asset managers and banks, with the panel further lamenting the fact that corporate treasurers and wealth managers often fail to grasp the fact that depositing physical cash in a traditional bank transforms a personal asset into a bank liability.
In keeping with the broader views on regulatory governance, or lack thereof, shared among the prior panels, the experts believe that the severe regulatory restrictions placed on domestic UK financial institutions under the Prudential Regulation Authority’s (PRA) guidelines effectively bar UK banks from issuing sterling-denominated stablecoins. The looming threat of regulatory fears of deposit flight draining the fractional reserve system’s credit creation multiplier forces banks to shift their focus solely to wholesale tokenised deposits for interbank clearing. In doing so, the panel notes, the retail payment space is left entirely open to “dollarisation by the back door”, with global tech behemoths — like Google — open to launching their own US dollar-pegged stablecoins, naturally adopted by UK consumers, and threatening London’s share of the global FX market.
Closing remarks
Concluding the jam-packed day, speakers offered their final prediction on the trajectory of the digital assets ecosystem as it enters its next phase of production.
The overarching consensus was that the market itself is heading toward a highly fragmented, multi-rail reality where traditional and digital networks have to co-exist seamlessly, and without a single dominant standard gaining institutional favour.
Instead, the future of the market will bear a semblance to a hybrid model that simultaneously supports tokenised assets and legacy TradFi systems.
While the technological infrastructure has matured — now supporting always-on, high-velocity commerce — its greatest hurdle will remain operational and regulatory. Institutions must prioritise robust internal governance and clear legal recourse, ensuring compliance frameworks are interoperable rather than focusing on just pure speed.
For the experts, blockchain was initially presented as an “answer to almost everything”, and in some cases, it functioned as a sophisticated answer “to a question nobody is really asking”. Now they view the technology under a different lens: blockchain does not create value; the utility that it brings does, and adoption happens when solving real client problems.
Geopolitics
Opening the first panel on the macroeconomic fallout of recent global conflicts, the speakers looked at how geopolitical crises are reshaping the monetary system. Conflict is, predominantly, bad for growth, inflation, and confidence, but the panellists understand markets to react in a more complex way.
For instance, the war in Iran, forcing the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, resulted in a watershed moment for the digital assets market. The fee to reopen the trade route was paid entirely in digital currencies, geopolitically validating cryptocurrency and stablecoins as tools that can be utilised in times of crisis. For all the casualties of war, a new monetary system is being born out of this conflict, according to the panel.
Away from the frontlines, China has launched its own digital battle: the de-dollarisation of the global digital economy through the e-CNY, a Chinese renminbi-pegged stablecoin initiative. In response, the US introduced private US dollar stablecoins operating under emerging federal frameworks like the GENIUS Act. Historically, the US dollar was anchored by gold, fiscal strength, and oil, but now, with the structural anchors breaking down as the digital battle wages, the US is building a “new petrodollar”, anchored not by physical assets, but by stablecoins and raw computing power. The speakers believe that this shifting landscape is reflected in retaliatory military strikes now targeting data centres as opposed to physical bases.
One panellist described bitcoin as “money for enemies”, in that once you correctly sign a bitcoin transaction and broadcast it to the network, it cannot be stopped. Conversely, a centralised stablecoin can be frozen by issuers under government pressure; it exists under more constraints than the deregulated bitcoin. For the speakers, this creates an amoral financial environment that legacy sanctions are ill-equipped to police. Iran utilising this facet of the cryptocurrency is the exact watershed moment alluded to earlier.
Stablecoins
Turning the discussion to stablecoins, the second panel addressed the regulatory medley left in the wake of the US GENIUS Act and the EU’s Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) regulation. In the eyes of the speakers, the US’s framework has simultaneously legitimised stablecoins for institutional treasury management while still subject to significant compliance hurdles.
The experts debated the potential credit risks embedded in stablecoin backing, highlighting the fact that, even if two stablecoins are pegged one-to-one, the underlying risk profile of each individual digital currency can differ greatly depending on whether they hold 90-day US Treasuries or keep cash reserves at commercial banks. The lack of transparency and a standardised risk framework are challenges that remain to be seen.
Moreover, the speakers are of the belief that a lack of standardised compliance that aids investors in understanding the underlying risks that are beneath different forms of digital money — including tokenised deposits and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) — has led to a lack of understanding and an environment where investors are unable to properly assess the specific risks associated with the digital asset they are buying. Often, the panel says, this lack of regulatory governance causes different types of digital currency to be incorrectly mistaken for one another.
These underlying issues have been recognised at the highest governance level, with different jurisdictions taking different approaches. The Bank of England’s proposal to grant stablecoin issuers direct access to central bank reserve accounts was praised as a critical safeguard in preventing bank runs. Conversely, MiCA’s requirement to place 30 to 60 per cent of reserves in commercial banks was critiqued for introducing systemic cross-contagion.
Sandbox regimes
The next discussion centred around the practical execution of tokenisation under the UK’s Digital Securities Sandbox (DSS) along with other global experimental regimes. Despite what the name may suggest, one speaker explains that the DSS represents a live environment, with licensed firms executing real-time issuance, secondary trading, repo, and custody. The result culminates in alternative asset classes — like property real estate investment trusts (REITs) — which are being digitised on unified platforms, intended to collapse the traditional three-to-six-month transaction timelines to three weeks, and deliver yield of between 8 and 12 per cent to wealth managers.
Another panellist used the Dutch National Bank as an example of an institution giving greater importance to energy and computing in the form of tokenised energy. They explained that European pilots are attempting to transition consumers into “prosumers”, who use micropayments to trade surplus renewable energy with neighbours. The expert believes that, without tokenisation, a practical, real-world application, such as this, would not be possible.
On the contrary, the speakers note the fact that there is a disproportionately low level of adoption relative to the perceived potential for benefits stemming from tokenisation, which they attribute to “regulatory confusion” and a “lack of education”. One of the panellists’ institutional clients is having to train its staff in-house to talk to asset managers and banks, with the panel further lamenting the fact that corporate treasurers and wealth managers often fail to grasp the fact that depositing physical cash in a traditional bank transforms a personal asset into a bank liability.
In keeping with the broader views on regulatory governance, or lack thereof, shared among the prior panels, the experts believe that the severe regulatory restrictions placed on domestic UK financial institutions under the Prudential Regulation Authority’s (PRA) guidelines effectively bar UK banks from issuing sterling-denominated stablecoins. The looming threat of regulatory fears of deposit flight draining the fractional reserve system’s credit creation multiplier forces banks to shift their focus solely to wholesale tokenised deposits for interbank clearing. In doing so, the panel notes, the retail payment space is left entirely open to “dollarisation by the back door”, with global tech behemoths — like Google — open to launching their own US dollar-pegged stablecoins, naturally adopted by UK consumers, and threatening London’s share of the global FX market.
Closing remarks
Concluding the jam-packed day, speakers offered their final prediction on the trajectory of the digital assets ecosystem as it enters its next phase of production.
The overarching consensus was that the market itself is heading toward a highly fragmented, multi-rail reality where traditional and digital networks have to co-exist seamlessly, and without a single dominant standard gaining institutional favour.
Instead, the future of the market will bear a semblance to a hybrid model that simultaneously supports tokenised assets and legacy TradFi systems.
While the technological infrastructure has matured — now supporting always-on, high-velocity commerce — its greatest hurdle will remain operational and regulatory. Institutions must prioritise robust internal governance and clear legal recourse, ensuring compliance frameworks are interoperable rather than focusing on just pure speed.
For the experts, blockchain was initially presented as an “answer to almost everything”, and in some cases, it functioned as a sophisticated answer “to a question nobody is really asking”. Now they view the technology under a different lens: blockchain does not create value; the utility that it brings does, and adoption happens when solving real client problems.
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