Financial institutions are increasingly accelerating their transition toward an onchain future through targeted tokenization initiatives, opening the door to entirely new markets while delivering structural efficiencies that traditional investment products simply cannot match. According to Matthew Horne, head of digital asset strategists at Fidelity Investments, the institutional shift is no longer a speculative experiment but a fundamental transformation of modern market infrastructure.
Speaking during a panel discussion at the Longitude conference in Singapore on Thursday, Horne emphasized that institutional sentiment has shifted irrevocably over the past year and a half. "In the last 18 months, if you look at the push by true institutions to move toward an onchain future, it’s really no going back," Horne told attendees, highlighting a growing consensus among traditional finance heavyweights.
US asset managers, in particular, are facing powerful commercial and operational incentives to migrate traditional assets onto blockchain infrastructure. Horne explained that tokenization provides significantly better investor access, enabling firms to seamlessly "reach new markets" that were previously constrained by legacy clearing and settlement bottlenecks.
Market data underscores this accelerating adoption. Demand for tokenized assets surged by 41% over a recent 30-day window, with the total number of unique holders surpassing 493,000, according to tracking data from RWA.xyz. This metric specifically captures the total number of blockchain addresses holding tokenized real-world assets while excluding stablecoins, pointing to broad and expanding organic participation across digital asset networks.
The panel discussion in Singapore featured a prominent lineup of industry leaders, including Jihye Lee of The Wall Street Journal, Fidelity’s Matthew Horne, Ka Yan Chan of UBS, Chongwu Du of Securitize, and Sidney Powell of Maple, who gathered to debate the practicalities and timeline of institutional blockchain integration.
Treasuries and Equities May Bring Billions Onchain with More US Tokenization Adoption
While alternative real-world assets have paved the way for early blockchain adoption, the true transformation of global capital markets will occur when foundational portfolio staples—such as US Treasuries and equities—are brought onchain at scale. Ka Yan Chan, head of digital assets business development at UBS, noted that while current adoption figures are impressive, the market is still waiting for the catalyst that will unlock monumental liquidity.
"What would really drive the billions to the trillions is when market infrastructure players like the Fed or DTCC make the first move in transforming the custody layer to a tokenized platform," Chan said during the panel session.
Chan pointed out that private financial institutions are poised and ready to "piggyback" on these foundational institutional initiatives by building out the user-facing distribution layers required to deliver tokenized financial products directly to retail and institutional end-users.
Recent regulatory milestones in the United States have created a more permissive environment for these foundational developments. In December 2025, the US Securities and Exchange Commission issued a crucial "no-action" letter to a subsidiary of the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation, clearing the way for the organization to introduce an innovative securities market tokenization service.
Furthermore, the regulatory landscape shifted in September when the SEC approved a temporary exemption permitting limited trading of tokenized US stocks across designated onchain venues. Demonstrating the rapid pace of commercial execution following these regulatory clearances, Securitize announced earlier on Thursday the official launch of trading for tokenized shares representing a dozen of the most widely held US-traded equities, complete with proper security entitlements.
The cumulative effect of these regulatory greenlights and institutional deployments is visible in broader capital flows. More than $1.2 billion in fresh capital migrated onto blockchain networks over a recent 30-day period, pushing the combined market capitalization of stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets past the $323 billion milestone, according to data from OnchainBenchmark.
Industry forecasts suggest that this is merely the beginning of a multi-year supercycle. Geoff Kendrick, global head of digital asset research at Standard Chartered, projected in August that tokenized real-world assets could scale dramatically to reach a staggering $4 trillion by the end of 2028, driven by institutional demand for yield, transparency, and operational efficiency.
