UK’s Afghanistan evacuation effort ‘down to hours, not weeks’, defence secretary says

Published

4 years ago

August 23, 2021

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The UK’s evacuation effort in Afghanistan is “down to hours now, not weeks”, the defence secretary has said.

Ben Wallace conceded the UK’s involvement will end when the US leaves the country, which is expected to be on 31 August.

“The prime minister is, obviously at the G7, going to try and raise the prospect of seeing if the United States will extend,” he said on a visit to Port George, near Inverness.

“It’s really important for people to understand the United States have over 6,000 people in Kabul airport and when they withdraw that will take away the framework, and we will have to go as well.

“I don’t think there is any likelihood of staying on after the United States. If their timetable extends even by a day or two, that will give us a day or two more to evacuate people.

“Because we are really down to hours now, not weeks, and we have to make sure we exploit every minute to get people out.”

A G7 leaders summit is due to take place virtually tomorrow, with Boris Johnson expected to push US President Joe Biden for an extension of the US pullout at the end of August.

Politics

Securitize hires former PayPal exec as US tokenization gains traction

Published

2 hours ago

December 9, 2025

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Securitize hires former PayPal exec as US tokenization gains traction

Major tokenization platform Securitize has doubled down on its push to bring tokenized equity to US investors, naming a former PayPal executive as its new general counsel.

Securitize on Tuesday announced the appointment of ex-PayPal executive Jerome Roche, who led the company’s expansion into digital asset projects, including the PayPal USD (PYUSD) stablecoin.

Securitize also said its tokenized securities are already available to US investors, challenging the notion that most issuers prefer to offer such products abroad due to local stock access.

“There’s been a perception that tokenized securities must be offered primarily outside the US, but our experience shows the opposite,” Securitize CEO Carlos Domingo told Cointelegraph.

“Clear regulatory path” for tokenized stocks in the US

According to Securitize, operating real-world asset (RWA) tokenization offerings inside the US regulatory perimeter is “not only possible, but scalable, at institutional quality.”

“We’ve demonstrated that there is a clear regulatory path for issuers to natively tokenize assets for US investors,” Domingo said.

“These are not synthetic representations, or derivatives, but real securities onchain,” the CEO said, adding:

“We operate using SEC-regulated infrastructure, including a registered transfer agent broker-dealer, and fund admin, which allows US investors to access and legally hold tokenized securities in a fully compliant framework.”

Securitize’s optimistic outlook on the US tokenization comes days after the platform obtained regulatory approval to operate as an investment company and a trading ánd settlement system in the European Union on Nov. 26. According to the company, the approval positioned it as one of the first operators for regulated digital securities infrastructure in both the US and EU.

“For the first time, modern ledger technology is giving us the ability to record ownership, settle transactions, and move value in ways that are fundamentally better than the fragmented systems we’ve inherited,” Securitize’s newly appointed general counsel, Roche, said in the announcement.

“Innovation only works when it fits squarely within the guardrails of applicable law,” he added, underscoring Securitize’s global push for regulated tokenized securities.

Securitize’s news is another sign of the US warming to tokenization. On Monday, the Securities and Exchange Commission dropped its investigation into rival tokenization platform Ondo Finance.

Ondo said the decision marks a new chapter for tokenized securities in the US, where they are poised to become a “core part of the capital markets.”