Tokenized assets are opening new trading opportunities across financial markets, but the growing supply of real-world assets (RWAs) being brought onchain has yet to be matched by investor demand, according to Alex Taaffe, chief revenue officer at crypto trading firm GSR.

The gap matters because liquidity underpins tradability: an onchain asset with few willing buyers can be difficult to exit, and secondary-market depth is widely viewed as a precondition for tokenized products to win broader adoption.

Speaking on a panel about liquidity and market fragmentation at CONNECT by Cointelegraph: Singapore Edition on Oct. 9, Taaffe said liquidity is improving areas such as pre-IPO stocks, commodities and global equities that investors previously had limited access to. Even so, he noted that demand for fully tokenized RWAs has not kept pace with the growing number of assets being issued.

“Specifically on RWAs, and fully tokenized assets, there’s a supply and demand imbalance. There’s a ton of supply. Every asset manager issuer wants to do capital formation onchain,” Taaffe said.

He added that the growing number of asset issuers and blockchains has further fragmented liquidity across tokenized markets — a byproduct of a sector in which virtually any chain can host tokenized versions of the same instrument.

Lingling Jiang, partner at DWF Labs, agreed that fragmentation remains a challenge, particularly when different issuers tokenize the same underlying asset but create separate liquidity pools. However, Jiang said cryptocurrency liquidity has improved significantly in recent years, even as the industry has more work to do.

How issuers and trading venues consolidate that liquidity — through shared venues, cross-chain infrastructure or aggregation — remains one of the open questions for the tokenization sector.

Related: Securitize stock jumps over 10% after launching tokenized US equities on Solana

Cointelegraph brought together Web3 founders, investors and industry executives for four panel discussions at the event, covering tokenization, stablecoin payments, onchain trading infrastructure and venture capital exits, alongside a startup pitch competition.

Stablecoin adoption hinges on everyday payments

During the “Stablecoins at the Point of Sale: Cards, Wallets and the Race for Everyday Spend” panel, Mike Silagadze, founder and CEO of ether.fi, said that while stablecoins have made it easier to move money across borders, wider adoption depends on whether consumers can use them for everyday expenses.

Silagadze pointed to Singapore, where consumers may hold USDC but still need local currency to pay bills, highlighting the gap between blockchain payment infrastructure and everyday financial services. The example reflects a broader hurdle for dollar-pegged stablecoins: merchants and service providers in most economies still price and settle in local currency, leaving a conversion step between onchain balances and everyday spending.

Yvonne Chia, head of communications at stablecoin issuer USDD, said that from the user’s point of view, “the most important thing for you is the user experience.”

“That’s the kind of direction that we want to move in, to make it as easy as possible for the user to have stablecoins, use stablecoins, to the point where it doesn’t cross their mind that they are using a stablecoin. It’s just a regular part of their lives,” Chia said.

“The reason no one uses stablecoins in many parts of the world is because it just doesn’t plug into your day-to-day life,” Silagadze said.

Beyond everyday usability, regulatory hurdles remain, according to Ilya Podoynitsyn, co-founder and CEO of FinHarbor. He pointed out that providers must navigate rules that differ across jurisdictions, forcing them to adapt their infrastructure and compliance systems to individual markets. That burden has grown as major jurisdictions, including the European Union and Singapore, have introduced dedicated stablecoin frameworks on separate timelines.

Ashna Vela, chief customer officer at crypto payments provider Mercuryo, said stablecoin payments should become as straightforward as using Apple Pay, with users able to complete transactions without leaving an application. “I think that’s the whole point, to be invisible,” she said.

The discussion came as stablecoin market capitalization stood at $306 billion, up about 2% year over year after growing roughly 74% in the preceding 12 months, according to DefiLlama.

Onchain trading faces liquidity fragmentation and risk management challenges

Crypto trading platforms face challenges identifying available liquidity across blockchain networks and managing counterparty risk, according to panelists discussing “What’s Still Missing in the Onchain Trading Stack in 2026.”

Austin Federa, co-founder of DoubleZero, said moving liquidity between blockchain networks remains more difficult than in traditional financial markets. He said that “fragmentation is not just an execution problem, it’s like a data problem,” adding that “it’s actually very hard to figure out how much liquidity truly exists onchain.” Unlike traditional markets, where trading data is consolidated, crypto liquidity is dispersed across many independent networks, each maintaining its own records.

On the risk management side, Miguel Morel, founder and CEO of blockchain analytics firm Arkham Intelligence, said trading firms can use onchain data to assess counterparty risk, particularly in prediction markets, where some participants may hold an informational advantage over others.

“If you know who’s on the other side and you’re taking less risk, you can offer a tighter spread,” Morel said, adding that this can lead to better prices for customers.

The same blockchain data can also help exchanges evaluate customer deposits, Morel said, allowing them to assess where funds originated and inform compliance decisions. “Without needing to ask for a passport, you can know where those deposits are coming in from,” he said. He added that exchanges can use the information to determine whether to permit trading with deposited funds or refer them for compliance review.

Related: Bitcoin.de trading remains halted as German regulator rejects MiCA application

Crypto investors face tougher exits as markets mature

Liquidity challenges have complicated exits for crypto venture capital investors, according to panelists discussing “The Exit Problem: How Investors Get Their Money Back.”

Pulkit Gupta of Nomad Capital said liquidity in crypto markets has been particularly weak over the past three months, with much of it concentrated in larger cryptocurrencies. “For me, on the altcoins, it has been really tough for us to get an exit,” he said. The venture capital firm has backed several crypto projects with publicly traded tokens, including Movement, Solayer and Berachain.

Crypto fund exits often route through liquid token markets rather than the IPOs and acquisitions more common in traditional venture capital, meaning exit timing depends directly on available market depth.

Echoing the shift toward longer-term expectations, Sonia Shaw, CEO of OneAsset, said the market has matured, requiring startups to demonstrate stronger business fundamentals. Recalling an investor who expected an exit within six months, she said, “I don’t think the market’s like that anymore.”

Shaw characterized the move away from rapid exits as a positive sign of market maturity.

Aleksandr Nechaev, partner at Funders VC, highlighted the challenges presented by the speed of change for both products and markets. “The rapid pace of change makes founders’ expertise and ability central to investment decisions,” he said.

Change, and how founding teams navigate the uncertainty, came up later in the day during the event’s pitch competition, powered by Funders VC.

Related: Ledger attack spreads to EU, AI finds '18 trillion XRP' bug: Hodler’s Digest

Source: Cointelegraph