Ctrl Alt Technologies has received MiFID II authorisation from the Central Bank of Ireland (CBI), allowing the firm to conduct regulated investment services and securities business in Ireland and, through passporting, across the full European Economic Area. The licence was confirmed on 21 July 2026.
The authorisation is the third major regulatory milestone for the Dublin-and-London-headquartered firm within 14 months. Ctrl Alt received direct FCA authorisation in the UK earlier in 2026 and holds both a Broker-Dealer and an Issuer licence from Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA), where it claims to have been the first firm to receive an Issuer licence from that regulator.
What the MiFID licence unlocks
For Ctrl Alt, the Irish authorisation is principally a distribution mechanism. A MiFID II investment firm licence granted by the CBI carries passporting rights that allow a firm to offer regulated services in all 30 EEA member states without seeking separate national authorisation in each one. That is a materially different commercial position from holding a sandbox status or a limited-scope registration, and it is the reason the CBI authorisation process carries weight: the regulator’s known rigour means equivalence recognition elsewhere is typically smoother.
The firm says it has tokenized more than 1.5 billion US dollars in assets to date across real estate, private credit, funds and commodities. Its stated target client base is institutional: asset managers, capital allocators and regulated financial institutions rather than retail investors. The disclaimer in its release confirms that its services are restricted to professional or institutional investors.
Matt Ong, Founder and Group CEO, said the funds industry in particular was moving towards tokenization, and that the CBI authorisation positioned the firm to support that shift as it develops across Ireland and the EEA. Jordan McMullen, CEO Ireland, described the three-jurisdiction regulatory position as “one of the strongest in the market”, though independent comparisons are difficult to make given that the tokenization infrastructure segment remains fragmented.
Regulatory and market context
The timing is relevant for two reasons. First, the CBI published a Discussion Paper on distributed ledger technology and tokenisation in financial services earlier this year, signalling active regulatory engagement rather than passive observation. Authorising a firm whose entire business model is built around tokenized assets goes further than a bank running a discrete pilot: it embeds the activity inside the established MiFID framework rather than treating it as a novel carve-out.
Second, the broader European policy environment is shifting in ways that favour firms with clean regulatory standing. MiCA, which governs crypto-assets, came into full effect in late 2024 and created a clearer boundary between what is a regulated security and what falls under the new crypto-asset regime. Tokenized funds and private credit instruments that qualify as financial instruments under MiFID II sit outside MiCA and are subject to existing securities law, which is precisely the regulatory lane Ctrl Alt is operating in. That distinction matters to institutional clients who need clear legal treatment for their own compliance obligations.
The competitive landscape for tokenization infrastructure is still taking shape. Several established custodians, transfer agents and fund administrators are building or acquiring tokenization capabilities, and a number of specialist infrastructure providers are pursuing similar multi-jurisdictional licensing strategies. The durability of any first-mover advantage will depend on how quickly institutional asset managers commit to tokenized issuance at scale rather than continuing to run parallel traditional and digital processes.
