Tokenized assets may reach a scale of $40 billion by 2026, with banks and asset management institutions accelerating their entry.

According to Odaily, as stablecoins validate product-market fit (PMF) in 2025, the crypto industry is driving the further role of “on-chain dollars,” seeking to tokenize assets such as stocks, ETFs, money market funds, and gold as tradable on-chain financial building blocks. Multiple industry executives expect the tokenized asset market size to reach approximately 40 billion USD by 2026.

Samir Kerbage, Chief Investment Officer at Hashdex, stated that the current scale of tokenized assets is about 3.6 billion USD, and the next phase of growth will be more driven by structural reshaping of value transfer methods, rather than pure speculative demand. He pointed out that once stablecoins mature as “on-chain cash,” capital will naturally flow into investable assets, becoming a bridge between digital currencies and digital capital markets.

The report notes that by 2025, the scale of tokenized assets will have approached 2 billion USD, with traditional financial institutions such as BlackRock, JPMorgan, and BNY Mellon deeply involved. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino believes that 2026 will be a key year for banks to move from pilot projects to actual deployment, especially in emerging markets, where tokenization can help issuers bypass traditional infrastructure limitations.

Additionally, Centrifuge COO Jürgen Blumberg predicts that by the end of 2026, the total value locked (TVL) of on-chain real-world assets (RWA) may exceed 10 billion USD, and more than half of the world’s top 20 asset management institutions will launch tokenized products. Securitize CEO Carlos Domingo pointed out that native tokenized stocks and ETFs will gradually replace synthetic asset models and become important high-quality collateral in DeFi.

CoinDesk believes that legal clarity, cross-chain interoperability, and unified identity systems remain key prerequisites for the expansion of the tokenization market, but industry consensus has shifted from “whether to go on-chain” to “the scale and speed of going on-chain.” (CoinDesk)