Original article by: Token Dispatch, Prathik Desai
Original translation: Block unicorn
Preface
Tokenization is booming as Wall Street giants rapidly scale up deployments, a concept that was only in the testing phase just a few years ago.
Several financial giants are simultaneously launching platforms, building infrastructure, and creating products to connect traditional markets with blockchain technology.
In the last week alone, BlackRock, VanEck, and JP Morgan have made major moves, demonstrating that tokenization of real-world assets has moved beyond proof-of-concept to become a cornerstone of institutional strategy.
In today’s article, we’ll show you why the long-awaited inflection point for tokenization may have arrived, and why this still matters even if you’ve never bought crypto.
Trillion-level potential
“Every stock, every bond, every fund — every asset — can be tokenized. If it happens, it will revolutionize investing,” BlackRock CEO and Chairman Larry Fink said in his 2025 annual letter to investors.
Fink was talking about an opportunity that would allow fund managers to tokenize assets worth more than $1 trillion across the global asset industry.
Traditional financial giants have already seized on this opportunity, with adoption surging over the past 12 months.
Tokenized real-world assets (RWA, excluding stablecoins) have surpassed $22 billion, up 40% this year alone. However, this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Consulting firm Roland Berger predicts that the tokenized RWA market will reach $10 trillion by 2030, while the Boston Consulting Group estimates it at $16.1 trillion.
To put this into context, even at the lower end of the spectrum, this would represent a 500x increase from today. If 5% of global financial assets moved on-chain, we are talking about a multi-trillion dollar shift.
Before we delve into fund companies’ tokenization initiatives, let’s first understand what tokenization is and what it means for investors.
Combining physical assets with blockchain
Three simple steps: choose a real-world asset, create a digital token that represents ownership of that asset (partial or full), and make it tradable on a blockchain. That’s tokenization.
The assets themselves (treasury bonds, real estate, stocks) have not changed. What has changed is how their ownership is recorded and traded.
Why tokenization? Four key advantages:
Fractional Ownership: Own a portion of a commercial building for as little as $100, rather than millions of dollars.
Trade 24/7: No need to wait for markets to open or settlements to clear.
Reduced costs: Fewer middlemen means lower fees.
Global Access: Investment opportunities that were previously restricted by geography are now accessible around the world.
“If SWIFT is the postal service, then tokenization is email itself — assets can be transferred directly and instantly, bypassing intermediaries,” BlackRock’s Fink said in the letter.
Silent Revolution
BlackRock’s tokenized Treasury fund, BUIDL, has surged to $2.87 billion, more than quadrupling in 2025 alone. Franklin Templeton’s BENJI holds over $750 million. JPMorgan’s latest move connects its private blockchain, Kinexys, to the public blockchain world.
Further bolstering this growth story, the value of tokenized U.S. Treasuries is now approaching $7 billion, up sharply from less than $2 billion a year ago.
More and more giant companies are joining this trend with unique products.
This week, VanEck launched a tokenized U.S. Treasury bond fund accessible on four blockchains, heating up competition in the rapidly expanding on-chain real-world asset (RWA) market.
Earlier this month, Dubai-based MultiBank Group, the world’s largest financial derivatives firm, signed a $3 billion deal with UAE-based real estate giant MAG and blockchain infrastructure provider Mavryk to tokenize real-world assets (RWA).
Smaller countries are also joining the fray. According to the Bangkok Post, the Thai government is offering bonds to retail investors through tokenization, lowering the entry barrier from the traditional $1,000+ to $3.
Even government agencies have not missed out on this revolution.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) just hosted a roundtable with nine financial giants to discuss the future of tokenization, a stark reversal of the attitude of previous administrations.
For investors, this means 24/7 access, near-instant settlement and fractional ownership.
Think of it as the difference between buying an entire album on CD and streaming just the songs you want to hear. Tokenization breaks assets into affordable pieces, making them accessible to everyone.
Why is it happening now?
Regulatory Clarity: Under U.S. President Donald Trump, his administration has shifted away from enforcement and toward promoting innovation, with several crypto supporters leading government agencies.
Institutional adoption: Traditional financial giants provide legitimacy and infrastructure support for tokenization.
Technology maturity: Blockchain platforms have evolved to meet institutional needs.
Market demand: Investors seek more efficient and accessible financial products.
Paul Atkins, chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), sees tokenization as a natural evolution of financial markets, comparing it to “the transition of audio from analog vinyl records to tapes to digital software decades ago.”
The road ahead
Despite the momentum, challenges remain.
Regulatory fragmentation: The global regulatory landscape remains fragmented. The SEC’s roundtable meeting showed an open attitude in the United States, but insufficient international coordination. Japan, Singapore, and the European Union are advancing at different speeds and have incompatible frameworks, which poses compliance challenges for global tokenization platforms.
Lack of standardization: The industry lacks unified technical standards for tokenizing different asset classes. Should tokenized treasuries on Ethereum be compatible with those on Solana? Who will verify the association of tokens with the underlying assets? Without standardization, isolated liquidity pools may be formed instead of a unified market.
Custody and security concerns: Traditional institutions remain wary of blockchain security. The $1.4 billion Bybit hack earlier this year raised thorny questions about immutability and recoverability.
Market education gap: Wall Street (“Wall Street”) may be accelerating, but Main Street’s understanding of tokenization is still generally insufficient.
Our View
Tokenization could be the bridge that connects blockchain technology to mainstream finance. For those who have been following the evolution of blockchain, this could be the biggest impact the space has had so far — not in creating new currencies, but in changing the way we access and trade the assets we already have.
Most people don’t care about blockchain. They care about getting paid earlier, accessing investment opportunities that were once reserved for the wealthy, and not being squeezed by high fees when transferring funds. Tokenization provides these benefits without requiring users to understand the underlying technology.
As this space develops, tokenization could become “invisible infrastructure” — just like you don’t think about the SMTP protocol when you send an email. You’ll have easier access to your investments, with lower fees and fewer restrictions.
Traditional finance has spent centuries developing a system that favors institutions and excludes ordinary people. For decades, we have accepted a financial system designed around institutional convenience rather than human experience. Want to trade after hours? Sorry, no. Only $50 to invest? Not worth our attention. Want to transfer money internationally without losing 7% in fees? Wait.
Tokenization could break this inequality in just a few years.
As tokenization experiences become more widespread, the conceptual barriers between “traditional finance” and “decentralized finance” will naturally dissolve. Someone who buys a tokenized bond from the Thai government for $3 might later explore yield-generating DeFi protocols. Institutional investors who first came into contact with blockchain through BlackRock’s BUIDL might eventually invest in native crypto assets.
This model drives real adoption, not through ideological shifts but through practical advantages that make old practices seem woefully inefficient by comparison.
