Institutional momentum toward tokenized on-chain finance has reached a point of no return, according to Matthew Horne, head of digital asset strategists at Fidelity Investments. Speaking on a panel at Longitude Singapore on Thursday, Horne said the past 18 months of activity by major institutions have locked in a lasting direction for capital markets.

Horne noted that U.S. asset managers in particular see clear business incentives. Tokenization improves investor access and allows firms to reach new markets that traditional products often cannot serve efficiently. The shift, he indicated, is no longer experimental but a structural change in how institutions operate.

UBS Sees Treasuries and Equities as Scale Drivers

Ka Yan Chan, head of digital assets business development at UBS, focused on the assets most likely to move large volumes onchain. She identified Treasuries and equities—core components of many investment portfolios—as candidates that could bring billions of dollars into tokenized form once operational foundations are ready.

Chan said other market participants could then build distribution layers on top of those upgraded systems. The bottleneck, in her view, lies less in issuing new tokens and more in modernizing the regulated custody and settlement infrastructure that governs how assets are held, transferred, and reconciled.

Regulatory Steps Enable Limited Onchain Trading

Recent actions by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission have provided incremental support for tokenized securities activity. In December 2025 the SEC issued a no-action letter to a subsidiary of the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation, permitting it to offer a tokenization service for securities markets.

In September the SEC approved a temporary exemption that allows limited trading of tokenized U.S. stocks on certain onchain venues. On the same day as the Singapore panel, Securitize announced the launch of trading for tokenized shares of a dozen widely held U.S. stocks. The offering includes security entitlements that represent rights linked to the underlying securities.

These permissions remain constrained and conditional, yet they move tokenization beyond pure issuance into actual trading and settlement environments.

Rising Demand and Capital Flows

Data from RWA.xyz showed demand for tokenized real-world assets rose 41 percent over the past 30 days. The number of holders—measured as addresses holding tokenized assets excluding stablecoins—reached 493,000.

OnchainBenchmark reported that more than $1.2 billion in capital moved onchain during the same 30-day period. Total capital across stablecoins and tokenized assets now exceeds $323 billion.

Looking further ahead, Geoff Kendrick, global head of digital asset research at Standard Chartered, forecast in August that tokenized real-world assets could reach $4 trillion by the end of 2028. Realization of that figure would depend on continued regulatory clarity and upgrades to market infrastructure.

Panelists framed the current phase as one in which institutions are embedding tokenized processes into core operations rather than testing isolated pilots. Progress on custody platforms, combined with limited trading permissions, is expected to determine how quickly Treasuries, equities, and other mainstream assets scale onchain.