Tokenization Gave Private Assets Rails. Pontoro is Building the Liquidity Layer.

Pontoro and Archax are launching the first Automated Liquidity Pool (ALP) on Stellar at Meridian 2026

LISBON, Portugal, October 28, 2026. Pontoro Inc. today announced the launch of the first Pontoro Automated Liquidity Pool (ALP), a single investment pool that pairs liquid money market assets with private market funds and uses rules-based pricing to manage liquidity between them, on the Stellar network. The Stellar Development Foundation (SDF), the non-profit foundation that supports the Stellar network, is collaborating with Pontoro on the ALP, along with Archax, and the tokens will be issued on the Stellar network.

Tokenized finance has been assembled one layer at a time. Blockchains supplied the rails. Tokenization supplied a digital form for assets. Stablecoins, which are digital currencies backed by dollars, and tokenized money market funds supplied on-chain cash. One layer remained open: liquidity for private assets.

Tokenization gives a private asset a faster, cleaner way to move. Liquidity is a different thing. It is capital standing ready to buy, a price that adjusts as conditions change, and incentives that draw in new capital as liquidity becomes scarce. The ALP is designed to supply that missing liquidity layer, and to connect the pieces already in place into functioning market infrastructure.

"Private markets have engineered nearly every layer of their infrastructure except one: liquidity," said Antonio Vitti, CEO and Co-Founder of Pontoro. "Tokenization has given private assets better rails. A market also needs capital, a price, and a mechanism for managing that capital as conditions change. That is the missing layer the ALP is designed to provide. With a group of institutions contributing across the investment and operating stack, we can now move that idea from architecture to a live pilot."

How the pool works

An ALP holds two sleeves in one vehicle. The liquid sleeve holds money market funds and similar cash-like assets. The private sleeve holds interests in private market funds, such as private credit. Three functions, run by Pontoro's platform under the direction of the pool's manager, connect the two:

• Designed for continuously priced liquidity. An investor in a private fund who wants liquidity can offer to sell that interest to the pool, subject to the pool’s available liquidity and the manager’s discretion, and the fund itself keeps its portfolio intact. The platform prices the liquidity each purchase consumes. As the pool's liquid share falls, the discount the pool requires on new private-asset purchases widens. As liquidity is replenished, the discount narrows. The manager's assessment of each asset and the price of liquidity stay separate.
• Redemptions from the pool are met from the liquid sleeve first. Redemption requests from the pool’s own investors draw on the liquid sleeve, so private assets can remain invested. If the liquid sleeve is exhausted, redemptions may be delayed, reduced or suspended in accordance with the Offering Documents.
• Incentives help restore the balance. As liquidity is consumed, pricing and yield can adjust under rules set in advance, making it more attractive to supply new liquidity and helping move the pool back toward its target balance.

The aim is liquidity that is standing where it has been episodic.

Tokenize the pool, and the portfolio becomes an on-chain product

The pilot also introduces a new route to tokenization. The assets inside an ALP could be tokenized funds or traditional funds, the pilot uses tokenized funds. The pool's interests are always on-chain, and with the growing scope of tokenized asset available much of the model could be smart contract driven in the future as well, issued as permissioned tokens on the Stellar network and held in approved, identity-verified wallets. The funds inside the pool stay exactly as they are. Managers gain an on-chain product built from their existing fund range, and on-chain investors gain a single token representing an interest in a managed portfolio with a liquidity engine built in.

Pontoro supplies the technology, modeling, and operating infrastructure. The pool's manager keeps full authority over investment strategy, asset selection, valuation and governance.

The pilot: one stack, six roles

The pilot brings six critical functions together in one live pool: network and capital, liquid assets, private assets, tokenization, institutional operations, and the liquidity architecture that connects them.

About the statements below: The Stellar Development Foundation is an investor in Pontoro and in Archax. No specific compensation was provided for any statement. 

"The Stellar network was built for real-world assets, and liquidity is the layer that turns tokenized private funds into a working market,” said Jose Fernandez da Ponte, President & Chief Growth Officer of the Stellar Development Foundation. “The ALP aims to show what is possible when cash, credit and tokenization meet on the same open network.”

Tokenization: Archax. Archax, the UK/EU/US-regulated digital asset platform issues the pool's interests as permissioned tokens on Stellar.

"Institutions adopt new market structures when those structures arrive inside a regulated framework," said Nick Donovan, Chief Revenue Officer at Archax. "Issuing interests in the pool as permissioned tokens through regulated digital-market infrastructure gives investors the controls they expect, verified ownership and clear records, together with the speed and programmability of a modern network. Pairing that infrastructure with systematic liquidity management moves tokenized private assets toward a much richer investment ecosystem."

Liquidity architecture: Pontoro. Pontoro's platform runs the pricing, redemption and yield-allocation rules that connect every other layer.

Liquidity and distribution are one problem

For asset managers, liquidity architecture is also a capital formation tool. Greater visibility into how liquidity is provided and priced can remove an important barrier to private-market allocation. A systematic liquidity layer is designed to help managers reach new distribution channels and retain capital within the manager's broader ecosystem. Tokenization can also create an additional distribution channel, allowing eligible investors to access the structure through programmable digital infrastructure, subject to applicable eligibility and regulatory requirements. In a 500-respondent study published by Pontoro in April 2026, first-time readers demonstrated strong objective comprehension of the ALP after a single reading. The study suggested that the remaining adoption gap was less about basic understanding than institutional sponsorship, operational credibility and proof of execution. This pilot is designed to begin supplying that proof.

"Liquidity and distribution are two sides of the same problem," Vitti added. "A clearer, more systematic liquidity framework can make private-market products easier to distribute and can help managers attract, retain and redeploy capital. Better liquidity infrastructure has implications far beyond secondaries. It can change how private-market capital is formed and distributed."

The pilot is the first live deployment of the ALP. Pontoro's platform is designed for asset managers, fund platforms and financial institutions to launch and operate their own pools, and Pontoro expects further launches with institutional partners to follow.

See it at Meridian

Pontoro will present the pilot at Meridian 2026 in Lisbon on October 28th and 29th, 2026.

About the Stellar Network

The Stellar network is a decentralized, fast, and scalable blockchain built for financial products and services. It enables smart contracts and supports issuing, managing, and moving real-world regulated assets at institutional scale.

Assets can be fully decentralized or configured for KYC, clawbacks, and sanctions compliance. Franklin Templeton runs a tokenized money market fund on Stellar, and MoneyGram moves money across it daily.

Open means no vendor lock-in. Configurable means enterprise-ready. The Stellar network has been servicing payments and financial use cases since 2014.

About Pontoro

Pontoro is a financial infrastructure company building the liquidity and distribution layer for private markets. Its Automated Liquidity Pool (ALP) platform lets asset managers, fund platforms and financial institutions launch and operate pools that combine liquid and private assets, with rules-based liquidity pricing, redemption management and yield allocation. Pontoro is based in Mountain View, California, and is backed by Unbound, the Stellar Development Foundation, Ulu Ventures, Illuminate Financial, and Neva SGR (an Intesa Sanpaolo Group affiliated fund). Learn more at www.pontoro.com. Partnership inquiries: [email protected].

About Archax

Archax is a UK/EU/US regulated digital asset platform, targeted at professionals and institutions.

Founded by experts from traditional capital markets, Archax supports all types of digital assets – from unregulated cryptocurrencies through to regulated tokenised real-world assets (RWAs).

Archax also covers the full digital lifecycle from token issuance and fundraising through to trading and custody.

Archax provides the global, regulated on-chain capital markets infrastructure that allows traditional financial markets participants to bridge into the digital/crypto/DeFi space.

Learn more at www.archax.com.

Important information

This press release is not an offer to sell securities of any investment fund or a solicitation of offers to buy any such securities. Securities of Pontoro Stellar ALP, LP (the “Fund”) managed by Pontoro ALP Management, LLC (the “General Partner”) are offered to selected investors only by means of a complete offering memorandum and related subscription materials which contain significant additional information about the terms of an investment in the Fund (such documents, the “Offering Documents”). Any decision to invest must be based solely upon the information set forth in the Offering Documents, regardless of any information investors may have been otherwise furnished, including this press release.

An investment in the Fund is subject to significant liquidity risk. Redemptions are met first from the Fund's liquid assets, and if those assets are exhausted, redemptions may be delayed, reduced or suspended in accordance with the Offering Documents. Fund interests are issued as permissioned tokens, are subject to significant transfer restrictions and have no secondary market.

An investment in any strategy, including the strategy described herein, involves a high degree of risk. There is no guarantee that the investment objective will be achieved. Past performance of these strategies is not necessarily indicative of future results. There is the possibility of loss and all investment involves risk including the loss of principal. Securities of the Fund are not registered with any regulatory authority, are offered pursuant to exemptions from such registration, and are subject to significant restrictions.