DRW and Marex complete first OTC derivative referencing a tokenized index

Trading firm DRW and financial services group Marex have completed what they describe as the first over-the-counter derivative referencing a fully tokenized index on blockchain infrastructure. The trade was a total return swap, executed on October 13, 2026, on the Canton Network. How the trade worked Marex provided the swap, and DRW acted as the counterparty. The arrangement gave exposure to the index’s performance without either side needing to own the underlying bonds. The reference asset was the iBoxx USD Liquid Investment Grade Index from S&P Dow Jones Indices. That index was tokenized by Kaiko, the market data firm. The plumbing came from Derivnex, an institutional derivatives platform built on Canton’s permissioned distributed ledger. Once agreed, the swap was converted into a smart contract. That contract holds every term of the trade and handles ongoing valuation and lifecycle management. The trade terms were structured using the Common Domain Model framework. The practical upshot is one record instead of two. Both DRW and Marex look at the same centralized, tamper-proof version of the deal, rather than each maintaining their own books and comparing notes later. The fir...