Every few decades the financial system rewrites itself. The move from paper to electronic records. The rise of electronic trading. The globalization of capital. The next rewrite is already underway, and it is being coded.
Tokenization, or the process of representing ownership rights to real-world assets (RWAs) as digital tokens on blockchains, is rapidly evolving from experimental pilots to institutional strategy. Tokenized assets are expected to be worth trillions of dollars over the next decade, according to analysts. That growth will not be an incremental upgrade to markets; rather, it will alter who participates, how liquidity flows, and which countries lead the next wave of capital formation.
The $30 trillion question and what the data actually shows
When people talk about "$30 trillion," they are summarizing several forecasts and scenarios rather than citing a single agreed-upon figure. Different major reports use different horizons and definitions, but the message is the same: tokenization could reach the multi-trillion range within the next decade.
For context, Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and several industry collaborators have produced tokenization reports that estimate very large addressable markets for tokenized funds and assets, with asset tokenization projected to reach trillions over the next decade. According to a recent BCG report and related industry work, institutions adopting on-chain vehicles will create multi-trillion dollar opportunities for tokenized funds and deposits.
Citi's GPS research has also forecasted significant adoption of tokenized securities and related digital currency flows, with up to several trillion dollars in tokenized securities and digital cash analogues expected this decade. According to Citi, tokenization could reach a few trillion dollars in core use cases by 2030, assuming realistic adoption scenarios.
Independent market coverage also shows rapid recent growth: the tracked real-world asset (RWA) tokenization market reached approximately $24 billion in mid-2025, a nearly fivefold increase in three years, demonstrating that the concept has advanced beyond pilots and into operational markets.
Analysts can reasonably predict tokenization in the tens of trillions over a multi-year horizon thanks to these three data points:
(1) strong early institutional use cases (money market funds, tokenized bonds).
(2) expansion into private credit, real estate, carbon markets, and alternatives.
(3) network effects as interoperability and standards improve. These data points include institutional forecasts from BCG and Citi as well as current market sizing from industry trackers.
Five asset classes likely to make up the first wave
Not all assets will move on-chain at the same pace. The first wave will be driven by assets where tokenization delivers immediate, quantifiable benefits: liquidity, programmability, and accessibility.
Government and institutional debt has already become a popular use case. Tokenized short-term instruments and treasury funds reduce settlement friction while opening up new collateral use cases. Institutional pilots and the launch of tokenized money funds demonstrate that large asset managers want on-chain liquidity.
Small and medium-sized loans and private funds can be fractionalized and distributed to a larger investor base, lowering the cost of capital for borrowers and creating tradable assets for investors. Citi and others believe that private credit will play an important role in the growth of tokenized securities.
Property has been the most visible use case for tokenization because it is tangible and familiar, but infrastructure projects, ranging from solar farms to toll roads, will benefit from fractional funding and programmable cash flows as well.
Tokenized gold and other commodity tokens (including bank-issued tokenized metal products) enable fractional ownership while providing the operational convenience of digital trading; banks like HSBC have already launched tokenized gold offerings.
Sustainability assets and alternates, such as carbon credits, royalties, and intellectual property, can be fractionalized and packaged into new financial products that align with ESG and new yield strategies. Tokenization aids in tracing provenance and automating revenue distribution.
The infrastructure layer and plumbing liquidity for a programmable world.
Tokenization's radical promise is not just fractional ownership; it is programmable finance, which means assets with rules, payouts, and compliance baked into the code. Several infrastructure components must mature in order to deliver on that promise at scale.
Interoperability protocols, such as bridges and cross-chain messaging (e.g., Chainlink's CCIP, Cosmos IBC, Polkadot XCM, and others), are essential for moving tokenized assets between ecosystems while preserving provenance and compliance attributes. Interoperability determines where liquidity pools form.
On-chain identity and compliance: In order for institutions and regulators to accept tokenized instruments, KYC/AML, identity attestations, and regulatory reporting must be built into the stack. This is where permissioned layers, privacy-preserving identity, and compliance oracles will appear.
Custody and institutional settlement models are evolving, including trusted custody for tokenized RWAs. Global banks and custodians are experimenting with digital custody and token transfer services to connect institutional processes with on-chain settlement. Evidence of that shift is visible in bank-led tokenized product launches and institutional custodial pilots.
Verifiable off-chain data (oracles), such as price feeds, audits, reserve attestations, and real-world asset status confirmations, are required to prevent a mismatch between an on-chain token and the underlying physical asset. Oracles are the connecting threads that make tokenized assets reliable in practice.
When these plumbing pieces are integrated, markets will no longer be siloed. They become composable, meaning that a bond issued in one jurisdiction can be used as collateral in another, traded immediately, and programmatically repackaged into yield products.
Tokenization will be as geopolitical as it is technical. Countries with adaptive regulatory approaches and strong digital infrastructure will attract issuance volumes and liquidity. Those still locked into legacy clearing, fragmented registries, and closed capital systems will face higher costs to catch up.
Instead of retrofitting outdated infrastructure, emerging markets, especially those in Africa and parts of Asia, have a rare opportunity to create natively digital capital markets.
Mobile-first economies already proven in payments (e.g., M-Pesa, mobile wallets) can experiment with tokenized instruments backed by local assets and channel diaspora remittances into invested capital rather than pure consumption. The World Bank and regional analyses place African remittances at around tens of billions yearly, a pool that tokenized products could tap for longer-term investment.
For tokenization to hit mass market scale, it must become invisible plumbing, the underlying technology users don’t notice because the experience is seamless.
Risks, standards, and the governance imperative.
Growth without standards risks fragmentation and loss of confidence. That’s why the next phase requires a governance push:
- Verification standards (on-chain proof-of-reserves, standardized audit schemas).
- Tokenization is treated as a legitimate market infrastructure rather than a legal gray zone in regulatory frameworks, as evidenced by recent efforts such as MiCA in the EU and newer policy moves in the United States.
- Open standards for custody and settlement that allow institutions to interoperate without bespoke point-to-point integrations.
Emerging markets can benefit from public-private sandboxes, which allow regulators, banks, and startups to collaborate on approaches to asset registries, digital identity, and on-chain compliance.
The crucial question for the next ten years is not whether tokenization can reach tens of trillions, as data and pilots indicate, but rather who will create the standards, construct the interoperable rails, and oversee them in a way that safeguards users while unlocking capital.
If this work is completed successfully, the end result will be a global financial system in which capital moves as freely and reliably as information is programmable, composable, and accessible. If not, tokenization risks becoming another collection of siloed experiments that never make it to market.
The tokenized decade has already begun. Whether it becomes the infrastructure that transforms finance or merely a footnote in a speculative cycle will be determined over the course of the next ten years. The result will be determined by the institutions, legislators, and builders who handle it like plumbing.
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