CoinDesk's Crypto for Advisors newsletter focused this week on tokenization, with Jason Barraza examining how the discussion at TokenizeThis 2026 moved from whether real-world assets should be brought on-chain to how they can be used in practice. The issue also included an "Ask an Expert" section in which Joshua de Vos of CoinDesk Research addressed tokenized investment products and current market trends.

Tokenization grew up in 2026, now it has to get to work

At TokenizeThis 2026, the debate was no longer centered on whether real-world assets belong on-chain. Instead, speakers focused on whether tokenized assets are being used and what infrastructure is still needed for broader institutional adoption.

Bitcoin traded around $60,000 for much of the conference, but it was not the main focus on stage. The broader crypto market narrative and the tokenization narrative have increasingly separated. Tokenized real-world assets, or RWAs, have surpassed $30 billion, roughly six times their level at the start of 2025. That growth has been driven primarily by tokenized U.S. Treasuries, private credit, and commodity-backed instruments — asset classes where institutional demand for faster settlement and programmable cash flows already existed.

During their keynote, RedStone's founders cited an EY and Coinbase Institutional survey showing that 64% of asset managers now want to tokenize, up from 40% a year earlier. The keynote's message was that the debate over demand for tokenization has largely ended.

Regulation was a major reason for the change in tone from last year. The GENIUS Act, the first U.S. federal framework for payment stablecoins, gave the sector legitimacy, while speakers repeatedly described the CLARITY Act, which is still moving through the Senate, as the larger potential catalyst. The CLARITY Act would establish a clearer division of regulatory authority between the SEC and CFTC over digital assets, potentially resolving a question that has constrained product launches for years. RedStone co-founder Marcin Kazmierczak said CLARITY could be a 10x or even 100x moment compared with GENIUS because it could open the door to the full range of asset classes.

Cash and collateral emerge as early use cases

Collateral is one area where tokenization is already showing practical value. On the repo panel, Broadridge's Robert Krugman said the firm now moves around $370 billion of tokenized repo per day on the Canton network, a privacy-enabled blockchain designed for institutional financial markets developed by Digital Asset. That remains a small share of the $12 trillion U.S. repo market, but it is a real use case, and the programmability argument is straightforward.

“If you want to borrow for five minutes, you pay for five minutes [instead of a full day]. It's a no-brainer,” said Ami Ben-David, CEO at Ownera.

Asset managers also emphasized usefulness over novelty. A recurring theme was that a tokenized product must be a net improvement over the product it replaces. Apollo's Christine Moy said the firm's tokenized private credit fund has demonstrated what she called the “superpowers” of on-chain assets: secondary liquidity for products that are otherwise illiquid, and the ability to use private credit as collateral in DeFi protocols such as Aave and Morpho, two of the largest decentralized lending markets on Ethereum.

Treasury desks are showing interest for similar reasons. On the Onchain Treasury Management panel, WisdomTree's Maredith Hannon described a small U.S. construction company paying an Argentine vendor through a tokenized money market fund using a familiar web interface. The company did not need a second bank account, and the treasurer earned yield while the payment moved.

Citi's Ryan Rugg discussed the bank's tokenized deposits and its 24/7 dollar clearing, while emphasizing that clients “don't want just a Citi token.” He said they want multi-bank rails.

The gap between minting and utility

Panelists also identified several unresolved problems.

Distribution was the first. Moy argued that the next wave of investors began with bitcoin and a cartoon monkey rather than a blue-chip stock, so providers need to meet those investors in their wallets. Maple has applied that approach by originating loans on-chain in stablecoins.

Compliance is another challenge. Fidelity's Jasmine Jia described a manager who had to respond quickly after a client received a token through an airdrop. The amount was trivial, but it still triggered internal alerts and pushed compliance modernization onto the agenda. The EY and Coinbase Institutional survey supported that concern, with 49% of respondents identifying the integration of blockchain into traditional portfolio and risk frameworks as their largest readiness gap.

Fragmentation and a lack of interoperability remain major issues. On the settlement panel, Stellar's Raja Chakravorti called interoperability the single greatest long-term unlock because assets confined to one platform or blockchain cannot move freely. With hundreds of chains and competing definitions of finality, liquidity becomes increasingly fragmented.

Ripple's Lauren Berta noted that finality varies across chains, and a trade recorded as settled can still reverse, a situation she said does not scale. No speaker on stage claimed the industry had solved the issue.

The mood at the Glasshouse was not driven by hype. It reflected an industry that understands both what it has built and what remains missing. The next test is whether the necessary infrastructure — the “boring parts” — gets built.

Additional recordings of the conference sessions are available on the Tokenize This YouTube channel.

— Jason Barraza, director of institutional strategy, RedStone

Ask an Expert

Q. Tokenized equity trading volumes hit a new all-time high in June. How significant is that number really?

June recorded $3.86 billion in on-chain tokenized equity trading volume, a 145% increase from May. The SpaceX IPO was the main catalyst, with tokenized SPCX generating $1.19 billion across platforms including Backpack and xStocks.

However, most activity runs through synthetic wrappers rather than issuer-sponsored structures, and a large share of the volume is in perpetual futures rather than spot products. The on-chain market capitalization of tokenized equities is $1.53 billion, compared with $1.5 trillion in combined trading volume year-to-date. The data indicates strong demand for on-chain equity exposure, but it does not yet show that demand being met through direct ownership.

Q. Not all tokenized equity products are the same. What is the most important distinction to understand?

The central issue is what the token actually represents. In the strongest model, the token is the share itself, meaning ownership, voting rights and dividends move with it. In a synthetic wrapper, the investor holds a contractual claim against another entity rather than the underlying share. That introduces counterparty risk, tracking risk and the possibility that corporate actions may not pass through correctly.

Two tokens with the same ticker can represent very different instruments. The SEC's January 2026 staff statement drew that distinction explicitly. For advisors evaluating these products, structure is not merely a technical detail. It determines what rights the holder actually has.

Q. How developed is the regulatory framework at this point?

The framework is more developed than many people realize, though important gaps remain. Over the past eight months, the SEC issued a no-action letter for DTC tokenization services, published a staff statement establishing an ownership taxonomy and approved Nasdaq's proposal to trade tokenized securities alongside conventional shares. DTCC, the primary post-trade clearing and settlement infrastructure for U.S. securities markets, completed its first live production transactions this month.

Even with that progress, uncertainty remains. Tokenized equities are still largely limited to non-U.S. or accredited investors, the CLARITY Act has not been enacted, and third-party synthetic models carry more legal uncertainty than issuer-sponsored structures. The framework is moving in a clearer direction, but additional work is still needed to support confidence and adoption.

— Joshua de Vos, head of research, CoinDesk

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