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The International Organization of Securities Commissions’ board has published its “2026 Work Program” (OR/01/2026), setting out planned priorities for the year, including work on crypto, digital assets, and tokenization. In the document, IOSCO says it plans to advance its crypto-asset roadmap by finalising a “formal methodology for crypto and digital assets assessments” and initiating “regular thematic reviews,” while also continuing to monitor developments related to tokenization.
IOSCO frames the 2026 agenda in the context of its earlier policy packages for crypto and decentralised finance. The work program references IOSCO’s 2023 recommendations for Crypto and Digital Assets markets, which IOSCO published as a final report with 18 recommendations, and its 2023 DeFi final report with nine policy recommendations.
The 2026 plan also follows IOSCO’s move from publishing recommendations to reviewing implementation. In October 2025, IOSCO released a pilot thematic review assessing implementation of selected crypto and digital asset recommendations, noting it was conducted in coordination with the Financial Stability Board. Separately, IOSCO published a “Tokenization of Financial Assets” final report in November 2025, based on a monitoring exercise through its Fintech Task Force.
IOSCO is an international standard-setting body for securities regulation whose members regulate more than 95% of the world’s securities markets across more than 130 jurisdictions, and it states that the IOSCO Board sets the organisation’s work program. In that context, the 2026 Work Program is a planning document rather than a binding rulemaking instrument, but it signals the areas IOSCO intends to prioritise across its committees and workstreams.
Alongside its technology-related priorities, the work program reiterates IOSCO’s emphasis on cross-border enforcement cooperation tools, including its Multilateral Memorandum of Understanding (MMoU) and the Enhanced MMoU (EMMoU), which IOSCO describes as benchmarks for consultation, cooperation, and information exchange among regulators.
For market participants, the immediate effect is informational rather than operational: the document does not introduce new rules for issuers, platforms, or investors, but it sets expectations that IOSCO will structure crypto and digital-asset implementation assessments and expand the use of thematic reviews, while continuing to track tokenization developments that can include real-world-asset models used in areas such as tokenized real estate.
