Tokenized Assets Expected to Reach $400 Billion Scale by 2026, Banks and Asset Management Institutions Accelerate Entry

Odaily According to a report by CoinDesk, as stablecoins validate product-market fit (PMF) in 2025, the crypto industry is driving the further utility of "on-chain dollars" by tokenizing assets such as stocks, ETFs, money market funds, and gold, serving as tradable foundational building blocks for on-chain finance. Multiple industry executives predict that the market size for tokenized assets is expected to grow to approximately $400 billion by 2026.

Samir Kerbage, Chief Investment Officer at Hashdex, stated that the current scale of tokenized assets is about $36 billion. The next phase of growth will stem more from a structural reshaping of value transfer methods rather than purely speculative demand. He pointed out that once stablecoins mature as "on-chain cash," capital will naturally flow towards investable assets, becoming a bridge between digital currency and the digital capital markets.

The report notes that the scale of tokenized assets had already approached $20 billion in 2025, with traditional financial institutions like BlackRock, JPMorgan, and BNY Mellon deeply involved. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino believes that 2026 will be a pivotal year for banks to move from pilot programs to actual deployment, especially in emerging markets where tokenization can help issuers bypass traditional infrastructure limitations.

Furthermore, Jürgen Blumberg, COO of Centrifuge, anticipates that by the end of 2026, the total value locked (TVL) in on-chain real-world assets (RWA) could exceed $100 billion, with more than half of the world's top 20 asset management institutions launching tokenized products. Carlos Domingo, CEO of Securitize, added that natively tokenized stocks and ETFs will gradually replace synthetic asset models and become high-quality collateral within DeFi.

CoinDesk argues that legal clarity, cross-chain interoperability, and a unified identity system remain key prerequisites for the expansion of the tokenization market. However, the industry consensus has shifted from "whether to go on-chain" to "the scale and speed of going on-chain." (CoinDesk)