And pretty soon you're talking real money.
From Ledger Insights, April 8:
Yesterday Ripple published a tokenization report developed by Boston Consulting Group (BCG), which predicts tokenized assets will reach $18.9 trillion by 2033, including stablecoins and tokenized deposits.
The report outlines three stages of adoption. It describes the first phase as low risk adoption, including pilots involving money market funds and corporate bonds. BlackRock’s BUIDL tokenized money market fund launched in 2024 is given as an example, alongside Singapore’s Project Guardian. Rather than attempting to scale, the goal of this phase is institutional readiness.
Phase two starts to involve more complex assets such as private credit, structured finance and corporate bonds. The aim is to earn a return, enhance liquidity and enable composability, as opposed to the simpler transactions in the earlier phase. This is when institutions start to move beyond private blockchains to explore permissioned public blockchains. However, BCG observes some reluctance from institutions to collaborate to reshape markets as they want to defend existing revenue streams.
Market transformation is achieved in phase three. The tokenized asset classes expand to include private equity, hedge funds, infrastructure and real estate-backed debt. This step requires secondary markets with sufficient liquidity, as well as the willingness to accept tokenized assets as collateral. We’d observe that aspects of each phase are currently in evidence, although the current market status fits closest with the early steps of phase two.
Profitable tokenization use cases....
....MUCH MORE
Most recently:
BIS/New York Fed: Hell Yes We Can Run Monetary Policy In A Tokenized World
"Tokenization’s trillion dollar promise: Wall Street leaders make their case to the SEC"
Treasury Management: HSBC Hong Kong To Offer Tokenized Deposits
Also at Ledger Insights:
April 30 - BlackRock to issue DLT shares in Treasury fund via BNY
BlackRock recently filed a registration statement about plans for the issuance of DLT shares in its $143 billion Treasury Trust Fund (TTF). The shares will only be available via Bank of New York Mellon (BNY), which will use blockchain to mirror the share ownership on-chain. Institutional investors are the primary target with a minimum investment of $3 million, which is the same across the whole fund.
While BlackRock has leaned into tokenization with its BUIDL tokenized treasury fund issued on permissionless blockchains via Securitize, the target market (for now) is primarily crypto institutions. Stablecoin and tokenized money market fund (MMF) issuers are the primary BUIDL token holders....
May 6 - Citi plans to tokenize private companies on SIX Digital Exchange
May 12 - Hong Kong arm of China’s largest broker to launch tokenized securities
May 13 - VanEck launches tokenized money market fund with Securitize
May 16 - Franklin Templeton unveils Singapore tokenized money market fund
The outro from that post on the SEC roundtable: "It's all happening right now and as the kids used to say, ya snooze, ya lose"
Previously on the commercial side of things:"Tokenized, Inc: BlackRock's Plan To Own The Fractionalized World"