European blockchain cooperative RL1 launches with €700M already on-chain

Europe’s banks have spent years experimenting with blockchain in isolation — separate pilots, incompatible ledgers, no shared settlement layer. That fragmentation is now what ten major financial institutions are trying to fix with a single, jointly owned European blockchain cooperative called RL1, formally launched on July 28.

Key takeaways

• Ten European banks launched RL1 (Regulated Layer One), a jointly owned blockchain network structured as a European Cooperative Society domiciled in Luxembourg, where each member holds an equal vote.
• The network inherits infrastructure from SWIAT, which processed more than 50 transactions worth over €700 million across three years of production before ownership transferred to the cooperative.
• Founding members span Germany, the Netherlands, France, and Spain and include ABN AMRO, DekaBank, DZ BANK, Natixis CIB, LBBW, Crédit Mutuel Alliance Fédérale, Cecabank, SC Ventures, Chartered Investment, and Seturion.
• RL1 targets regulated workflows including digital bond issuance, tokenized real-world assets, onchain collateral mobilization, bank-issued stablecoins, and repo and derivatives margining.
• The network aligns with the European Central Bank’s Appia and Pontes initiatives, which aim to settle tokenized transactions in central bank money.

Launch of RL1: What It Is and Why Banks Built It Together

RL1 — short for Regulated Layer One — is a permissioned blockchain network built specifically for regulated financial institutions. It is not a startup, not a public chain, and not a crypto exchange. It is a cooperative infrastructure project owned collectively by the banks that use it, with no single institution holding more power than any other.

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