Archax, the UK/EU regulated digital asset platform, has launched a token which combines the safety and familiarity of short-dated US Treasury bills with the removal of the complexity of rolling over positions when the bills mature and the advantages of tokenization such as 24/7 access.
Simon Barnby, chief marketing officer at Archax, told Markets Media that Treasuries have previously been included in tokenized money market funds or in structures such as special purpose vehicles (SPVs.) However, some investors want to directly own Treasury bills, because they are Level 1 high-quality liquid assets (HQLA) that can be used as collateral.
On 17 June 2026 Archax said in a statement that it had launched the $GOVY token, which represents direct ownership of short-dated T-Bills.
Graham Rodford, chief executive and co-founder of Archax, said in a statement that $GOVY brings together the safety and familiarity of US T-Bills with the operational advantages of tokenization.
Graham Rodford, Archax
“Professional and institutional investors can now access government yield in a structure that is fully regulated, legally robust and operationally simple – without the friction of traditional settlement cycles, SPVs or fund wrappers,” Rodford added.
Barnby continued that the token represents a direct investment as investors can break the token at any time and have the traditional Treasury bills delivered. Positions are automatically rolled over at maturity each month, removing the operational complexity of managing positions.
Investors can subscribe through an Archax brokerage account, or from whitelisted wallets using eligible stablecoins. Archax buys the Treasury bills, which are held in custody by Northern Trust, and then uses its platform to tokenize the bills on a 1:1 basis. Legal title to the underlying T-Bills is held in an insolvency-remote nominee vehicle under UK trust law.
The Tokenization Insight newsletter highlighted that title sits with the nominee, not the issuer, which offers strong structural protection for clients. In most tokenized money market funds, investors are exposed not only to the underlying government securities, but also to the legal structure, operational framework, and issuer-specific characteristics of that particular fund. The newsletter said: “GOVY is attempting to invert that model.”
Archax is the regulated digital asset custodian of the $GOVY tokens, as the firm is authorized by the UK Financial Conduct Authority to custody both traditional and tokenized securities.
Simon Barnby, Archax
Barnby said: “The master $GOVY token does not change, although the underlying T-Bill tokens can change every month. A perpetual treasury bill instrument that is Level 1 HQLA has never been done.”
The “pool token” technology has been developed over the last 12 months by Archax, which has a patent pending for the structure. The technology can similarly be used to create perpetual tokenized versions of other assets, according to Barnby. The $GOVY will soon be followed by similar products in other currencies and tenors, including sterling (£GOVY) and euros (€GOVY), and Barnby said the firm is in discussions with Asian investors about other potential currencies.
Collateral
The Tokenization Insight newsletter also highlighted that US Treasuries are recognized as Level 1 High Quality Liquid Assets (HQLA, but money market shares are not.
“For banks and regulated financial institutions, the difference between holding a fund share and holding direct Treasury exposure can affect liquidity treatment, collateral eligibility, balance sheet efficiency, and regulatory capital considerations,” added the newsletter. “Instead of bringing US T-Bills yield onchain, GOVY structure is targeting the preservation of regulatory and balance sheet characteristics of direct Treasury ownership while adding 24/7 settlement, transferability, and programmability.”
Carsten Hermann, co-founder and chief technology officer of Particula Ratings, a risk rating platform for digital assets & real world asset vaults, said on X that HQLA is the regulatory category that determines which assets banks can count toward their mandatory liquidity buffer: the reserve they must hold to survive a 30-day financial stress scenario.
Archax launched GOVY this week – a tokenized UK gilt structured for direct beneficial ownership of the underlying security, not units in a money market fund. That distinction is the entire use case.
Standard tokenized fixed-income products give investors fund units.
The fund… pic.twitter.com/cAMJrWbrTI
— Carsten Hermann (@carstenhermann_) June 22, 2026
Hermann said: “Haircut – discount applied to an asset’s face value for regulatory calculation purposes. Level 2 assets face 15-50% haircuts. Assets outside the HQLA framework don’t count at all.”
U.S. distribution
$GOVY will initially be available to non-US investors and will be issued on Ethereum, Hedera and Stellar blockchains, with support for other blockchains to follow. Transferability is restricted to whitelisted wallets, ensuring compliance with regulatory and investor eligibility requirements.
“This will really help institutions with unlocking the opportunity of collateral mobility,” Barnby added.
On 23 June 2026 tZERO Group, a blockchain-based financial infrastructure, said in a statement that $GOVY tokens will be available for distribution to U.S. qualified purchasers through tZERO’s SEC-registered and FINRA-member broker-dealer and custodial infrastructure for tokenized assets later this year. The U.S. represents the largest addressable market for tokenised government securities, according to Rodford
The announcement builds on the partnership between Archax and tZERO announced last year, which established a framework for distributing digital securities and tokenized real-world assets across both platforms in the U.S., U.K. and European Union.
Alan Konevsky, tZERO
Alan Konevsky, chairman and chief executive of tZERO, said in a statement: “By distributing $GOVY through our infrastructure, we will give U.S. institutional investors seamless exposure to a tokenized treasuries product while demonstrating the power of cross-border collaboration between regulated venues that is at the heart of the global convergence promise of financial asset tokenization. This is the follow-the-sun model in action.”
Most of the interest in the new token is currently from stablecoin issuers, who want to hold their reserves in U.S. Treasuries, according to Barnby. The GENIUS Act was passed in July last year by the U.S. administration and provided the first federal framework for stablecoins, including reserve requirements for stablecoin issuers.
“We are expecting some significant clients to come in over the next week,” said Barnby. “There is a decent pipeline.”
Once a number of clients have joined, onchain metrics will be available for the token.
NEWSLETTER SIGN UP
And receive exclusive articles on securities markets