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 firms did not disclose the notional size of the trade or the specifics of its settlement.

A partnership that keeps going on-chain

In June 2026, DRW and Marex completed a repo transaction on the same network.

DRW founder and CEO Don Wilson highlighted the efficiency of working from a shared record. He also pointed to further potential once cash and collateral movements are integrated into the same framework.

What this means for institutional markets

The cast list matters. A major index provider in S&P Dow Jones Indices, a data firm handling tokenization in Kaiko, a dedicated derivatives platform in Derivnex, and two active trading firms all had to coordinate.

The choice of reference asset is also telling. Investment-grade corporate bond indices are core building blocks of institutional portfolios.

There are clear limits to read into one transaction. The ledger is permissioned, not open. The size is unknown. Cash and collateral have not yet moved onto the same rails, by Wilson’s own framing of where future gains lie.