Ripple and SettleMint Partnership
Ripple has announced a strategic partnership with SettleMint, a digital asset infrastructure provider, to offer financial institutions in Asia-Pacific an integrated solution for custody, issuance, and management of tokenized assets across their full lifecycle. The collaboration, announced on Tuesday, will combine Ripple Custody with SettleMint’s Digital Asset Lifecycle Platform (DALP), aiming to reduce the operational complexity of handling digital assets for banks and other regulated entities.
According to the companies, the integration is designed to help institutions manage tokenized assets from issuance through ongoing administration, avoiding the need to stitch together multiple vendors. The partnership positions Ripple and SettleMint to address what they describe as an infrastructure gap that has slowed crypto adoption within regulated finance.
Coincheck Group Teams with DFNS
A day before Ripple’s announcement, Coincheck Group, a digital asset service provider, partnered with DFNS, a wallet infrastructure provider, to build digital asset wallet technology and custody services in Japan. DFNS’s wallet-as-a-service offers institutions full transaction lifecycle management, including workflow orchestration and governance controls, under a single platform that supports more than 100 blockchain networks.
The two partnerships highlight an ongoing push by Asia-Pacific institutions to strengthen digital asset infrastructure, particularly in the context of evolving regulatory frameworks.
Regional Adoption and Regulatory Context
The Asia-Pacific region has emerged as the fastest-growing area for onchain crypto activity, recording a 69% year-over-year increase in value received, according to Chainalysis’ 2025 global adoption index.
Regulatory momentum is also building. In July, Japan’s parliament passed revisions that classify crypto assets as financial assets under the country’s Financial Instruments and Exchange Act. In January, Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama signaled the government’s intent to bring crypto under the same regulatory umbrella as traditional financial assets, stating that the move aims to ensure citizens “benefit from digital and blockchain-based assets.”
Outlook
With institutional interest rising and Japan’s regulatory framework evolving, the Ripple-SettleMint and Coincheck-DFNS partnerships underscore a broader trend toward integrating digital asset custody and management into mainstream financial workflows in Asia-Pacific. Both deals are expected to provide regulated institutions with the tools needed to operate across the token lifecycle.