Pantera: 11 Major Categories, 593 Assets, $320 Billion Tokenized Market Panorama Scan

Source: Pantera Capital Research Report "Q1 2026 State of Tokenization"; Translation: Golden Finance Claw

Core Overview: Tracking 593 assets, the total tokenization market size reaches $320.6 billion. Today, all major banks have formulated tokenization strategies, but how many are truly building infrastructure? How many are just surface-level efforts like “newspaper on the web”? We have created a Tokenization Status Portal and a Tokenization Maturity Index (TPI) to answer these questions.

The main contents of the report include: 1. Executive Summary: Current State of Tokenization — the Web 1.0 stage; 2. Introduction to the Tokenization Data Portal: Six key findings that define hype versus maturity gaps; 3. Background and Motivation: Research methodology; 4. Market Data; 5. Practical Guidelines for Tokenization; 6. Conclusions and Outlook.

1. Executive Summary

Current State of Tokenization: Web 1.0 Stage

• Tracking Market Value: $320.6 billion (about $200.6 billion in 2024)

• Average TPI Score: 2.04 out of 5 (covering 542 operational assets)

• Hierarchical Distribution: 77.6% still in the wrapping layer, 11.1% in the hybrid layer, only 2.7% native layer

Tokenization is the core narrative in institutional crypto by 2026. All major banks, custodians, and asset managers have deployed tokenization strategies, but market size alone cannot determine whether tokenized assets are unlocking blockchain’s full potential or merely digitally packaging traditional finance.

This report covers 11 major asset classes and 593 tokenized assets, totaling about $321.1 billion; based on Pantera’s Tokenization Maturity Index (TPI), 542 assets in operation are scored across three dimensions: issuance & redemption, transfer & settlement, complexity & composability. Each dimension is scored 1-5, and the average yields the comprehensive score.

Currently, the market’s overall TPI is only 2.04/5: 77.6% are packaging layer assets, 11.1% are hybrid, and just 2.7% are native. This framework does not negate current wrapping products — they align with current user, issuer, and regulatory acceptance: familiar structures, strict controls, and incremental efficiency improvements in distribution, settlement, and access. The significance of TPI is not to judge the starting point but to identify the critical point where on-chain systems truly replace off-chain processes and token assets unlock functions that traditional infrastructure cannot provide.

Early internet media simply copied newspaper content onto websites, transmitting faster and covering broader audiences, but the format remained identical — just a different channel for old products. This cannot predict the form of native internet media: podcasts, algorithmic recommendations, interactive visualizations, creator platforms, and other forms absent in the print era.

Tokenization is in the Web 1.0 stage: The $321 billion market proves assets can be distributed on-chain, but no native financial instruments defining the future of tokenization have yet emerged — programmable compliance, autonomous collateral management, real-time yield optimization, embedded governance, and splitting of asset risks and returns. These products cannot be simply packaged from off-chain assets; they must be created natively on-chain.

The internet’s evolution out of the Web 1.0 stage was product-driven, not just concept-driven: faster feedback loops, new user behaviors, novel monetization models, and formats only new media can carry. Tokenization will follow the same path: the next phase is not to put more assets on-chain, but to create financial products that are more valuable because they are on-chain — real-time settlement, collateral optimization, programmable yield routing, code-based compliance, and new financial building blocks for ownership, cash flows, and risk splitting.

2. Introduction to the Tokenization Data Portal =============

To track the progress of tokenization moving beyond the initial stage, we launched the Tokenization Status Data Portal — a quarterly industry dashboard. Integrating structured data from RWA.xyz, DeFiLlama, and others, combined with Pantera’s TPI methodology and asset-level scoring, it illustrates the evolution of issuance, platforms, asset classes, and jurisdictions.

Core Features

Market Map: Displays token asset distribution across sectors, platforms, and public chains by value and total locked value (TVL).

Ecosystem Overview: An interactive map for browsing assets, platforms, and market categories.

Tokenization Maturity Index (TPI): Scores assets across three dimensions, showing the distribution of maturity in assets, value, and TVL.

Six Key Findings that Define Hype vs. Maturity Gaps

1. 91.1% of issuances are highly restricted: The average score in issuance & redemption is only 1.82 (the lowest among the three dimensions); among 542 assets, 494 score 1-2, with control over minting and redemption mainly managed by administrators and custodians.

2. 37.8% of assets circulate faster than they are issued: Transfer & settlement dimension performs best (2.29); 37.8% of assets score 3, indicating on-chain transfer is feasible, but on-chain as the sole authoritative ledger remains rare (only 6.5% score 4-5).

3. 12% DeFi composability: Only 12% of assets have complexity & composability scores ≥3 (effective DeFi integration threshold); stablecoins dominate in scale (locked value of $26.4 billion), with private credit (21.4%) and active strategies (19.6%) having the highest on-chain penetration among non-stable assets.

4. $2.67 for true scalable stablecoins: The comprehensive TPI for stablecoins is about 2.67, significantly above the market average, making them the only asset class with large-scale economic value and effective on-chain utility.

5. 168 assets added in 2025, but infrastructure not deepened: 168 new assets in 2025 (vs. 78 in 2024), with total value rising from $200.6 billion in 2024 to $320.6 billion in 2026; asset count grows rapidly, but infrastructure depth remains insufficient.

6. Scale and maturity are beginning to correlate positively: At the asset class level, market size and average TPI show a clear positive relationship, but the correlation is still shallow; capital prefers more mature on-chain structures, but most assets remain in mid- to low-maturity zones.

7. Background and Motivation =========

All banks have tokenization strategies, but few have real infrastructure

BlackRock’s BUIDL Fund managed over $2 billion by April 2025; Franklin Templeton’s FOBXX launched on-chain in 2021; JPMorgan’s Kinexys processes billions daily. Headlines show rapid industry change, but these are superficial indicators.

Tokens on permissioned chains, requiring manual off-chain redemptions, not permitted to circulate without issuer approval, and not integrated with DeFi, are essentially no different from “traditional securities with blockchain receipts” — only data layers are added, not the underlying asset operation logic.

This report proposes a framework distinguishing early-stage tokenization from functional on-chain market infrastructure: building a database of 593 token assets, scored by a unified standard, to answer core questions — how much has the tokenization market progressed? What proportion remains in the “Web 1.0” stage?

The report targets digital asset leaders in banks and wealth management, helping them benchmark the market and build competitive barriers; it also offers insights for native crypto developers on asset categories and lifecycle opportunities.

4. Methodology ======

Asset Lifecycle

We model the lifecycle of tokenized assets as a linear process. It begins with “Originate & Structure” — the off-chain legal setup (entity formation, SPV/trust structures, registration, etc.). Currently, this stage is not included in scoring, not because it’s unimportant, but because it remains highly jurisdiction-dependent and market standards are immature, making consistent global quantification difficult.

In the long run, this will change. As regulation clarifies and market structures standardize, legal design will become a key differentiator among tokenized products. How ownership is defined, transfer restrictions enforced, assets handled in bankruptcy, and redemption rights embedded in legal structures will become as critical as on-chain technical mechanisms.

Figure 1: Lifecycle of Tokenized Assets and TPI Dimensions

The three scored stages unfold from left to right: Mint & Burn (creation & destruction); Trade & Transfer (how tokens circulate and which ledger holds final authority); Deploy & Earn (the level of automated infrastructure behind assets and their integration with DeFi).

Currently, we treat legal structures as background info, while TPI (Tokenization Progress Index) focuses on operational dimensions that can be compared across assets.

TPI’s Three Dimensions

Based on the three key stages, we evaluate assets’ autonomy and on-chain nativity across:

• Issuance & Redemption: Can assets be minted and redeemed via more autonomous, symmetric on-chain mechanisms?

• Transferability & Settlement: Is blockchain the authoritative layer for ownership management and settlement, or just a mirror of off-chain ledgers?

• Complexity & Composability: Can assets be further utilized via smart contract infrastructure and generate yields (composability)?

TPI scores each asset on these three orthogonal dimensions, each from 1-5. An asset may score high in transferability but low in composability, and vice versa. The final score is the average of the three.

Scoring Framework: Definitions of Levels

The goal of this scoring system is not to reward complexity for its own sake but to identify parts of the tokenization process that are truly replacing off-chain workflows with on-chain systems.

Each rubric measures a different aspect of progress:

• More symmetric and automated issuance & exit mechanisms;

• Blockchain becoming the authoritative layer for transfer & settlement;

• Assets deployable into programmable on-chain infrastructure and utilized accordingly.

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Three TPI Levels: Wrapper, Hybrid, and Native

To make TPI more intuitive at the market level, assets are categorized into three tiers based on their average TPI scores across the three dimensions. This taxonomy aims to translate detailed scores into a more straightforward view of where tokenized assets stand in their evolution from “simple digital wrappers” to truly native on-chain financial products.

The tiers are based on the combined average TPI score.

These thresholds do not imply that maturity will always increase in a perfectly linear or uniform manner. They are a practical way to summarize how much of an asset’s lifecycle has truly migrated on-chain.

• Wrapper: At this level, tokens are mainly “digital receipts” of underlying assets. The assets are still managed off-chain, with blockchain primarily improving distribution efficiency or transparency, not serving as the authoritative operational layer.

• Hybrid: Some parts of the asset lifecycle have migrated on-chain — issuance, transfer, settlement, limited composability — but key functions still depend on off-chain intermediaries, legal processes, and manual controls.

• Native: Assets are designed to operate primarily on-chain, with issuance, transfer, settlement, and some ongoing management governed by smart contracts, minimizing reliance on off-chain infrastructure.

This layered framework is an interpretive overlay on top of TPI, not a replacement for the underlying scores. Assets within the same tier may differ significantly: one may excel in transferability but lack redemption mechanisms; another may have high composability but operational limitations. The tier labels help us understand the market’s position, while the detailed scores explain why.

5. Market Data ======

593 assets across 11 categories, tracking a market size of $320.6 billion

The analysis covers 542 scored assets out of 593 total; the remaining 51 are in pilot or announcement stages, not yet officially launched, and thus not scored.

Asset data sources include RWA.xyz, DeFiLlama, protocol documentation, and public news/research. TVL and AUM data are based on Q1 2026 figures from RWA.xyz and DeFiLlama. On-chain deployment data is verified via Etherscan, Solscan, Polygonscan, and Basescan contract audits.

By aggregating these sources, the report bridges different market value metrics — market cap, AUM, on-chain valuation — into a unified “market-value layer,” combined with project launch dates, issuers, platforms, jurisdictions, and news metadata, creating a comprehensive asset database.

The report also uses DeFiLlama’s “Active DeFi TVL” metric to measure “productive TVL,” serving as a key basis for analyzing DeFi composability, inspired by Nexus Data Labs’ research.

Due to inconsistent classification across sources, standardizing asset categories was one of the most challenging parts of building this dataset. Ultimately, the market is divided into 11 categories:

Market still in “Wrapping” stage but transitioning toward Hybrid

Approximately 77.6% of tracked assets remain in the Wrapper category; only 11.1% reach Hybrid, and just 2.7% are native. This indicates that tokenization has achieved “representation” at scale but has not yet realized true on-chain native functionality. The current market focus remains on off-chain, with some assets moving toward deeper on-chain integration.

Stablecoins are the clearest exception and most mature category: 14% of stablecoin assets are native; they also have the largest hybrid group and highest native proportion. Next are active strategies and private credit.

U.S. Treasuries, commodities, and private equity are beginning to develop hybrid structures, but overall still rely heavily on wrapper architectures.

RWA infrastructure is a special category. While not a traditional asset class, it is scored by TPI. This category includes many pilot and announced projects still under development, indicating that much of the RWA ecosystem’s infrastructure and legal frameworks are still being built.

2025 Tokenized Asset Issuance Hits Record High

In 2025, 168 new tokenized assets were issued, a 115% increase over 78 in 2024. The rapid growth from 2023–2025 reflects institutional FOMO. Almost all large financial institutions are eager to launch their own tokenized products. However, the TPI scores have not significantly improved overall, meaning the market is “widening” but not “deepening.” Most new projects replicate Tier 1 wrapper models rather than pushing the boundaries of true on-chain financial infrastructure.

Data from Figure 3 clearly shows issuance is concentrated in a few categories. In the recent full years of 2024 and 2025, private credit led with 48 issues, followed by stablecoins (46), real estate (36), and U.S. Treasuries (32).

In terms of market cap, despite diversification of issuance categories, the overall market continues to expand rapidly: total tracked assets grew from about $200.6 billion in 2024 to $313.7 billion in 2025, reaching approximately $320.6 billion in early 2026.

This means that since 2024, the market has added about $120.5 billion, nearly 60% growth, further confirming that asset tokenization is expanding both in variety and in scale with compound growth.

Stablecoins Dominate with $293 billion, 91.6% of Total Market Cap

Stablecoins overwhelmingly dominate the tokenized asset market: out of the $320.6 billion total, stablecoins account for over $293 billion, roughly 92%. Driven by institutional demand for yield assets on-chain, U.S. dollar tokenization has grown to about $120 billion.

Commodity tokens have also surged to about $7.1 billion, partly due to the 2025 gold spot rally: existing tokenized gold products have appreciated with the underlying asset, not solely from new assets being issued.

Long-tail assets like private equity, real estate, and corporate bonds remain small in scale. The market’s value is highly concentrated in the earliest mature asset classes, not in categories with the most announcements.

Institutional Push for U.S. Treasury Tokenization Reaches $162M

U.S. Treasuries (referred to as “U.S. debt” in this report) are the most successful institutional tokenization case: from nearly zero in 2021 to about $120 billion in 2026. This exponential growth has been driven by declining DeFi yields in recent months, making tokenized U.S. debt a more attractive on-chain safe haven. Despite rapid growth, TPI analysis shows most U.S. Treasury tokens are still early-stage, mostly first-layer wrappers with custodial redemption models and off-chain ledgers.

Growth is increasingly dominated by top-tier institutions rather than scattered smaller players. Leading tokenized U.S. debt products include:

• BlackRock: BUIDL product, ~$2.1 billion, issued via Securitize

• Franklin Templeton: FOBXX / BENJI, ~$1 billion, issued via Benji Investments

• J.P. Morgan’s Centrifuge-based products: ~$1 billion

• WisdomTree: WTGXX, ~$752 million, issued via proprietary digital fund channels

• Fidelity: FDIT, ~$185B, issued by Fidelity itself

This indicates that tokenized U.S. Treasuries have become the clearest on-ramp for institutional tokenization: even with immature on-chain native features, large financial institutions are willing to bring their short-term dollar products on-chain.

Their reach is extending beyond U.S. Treasuries. In private credit, Apollo Asset has launched a securitized multi-credit fund (~$131 million); Centrifuge’s structured credit tokens are also emerging. In stablecoins, large banks like Societe Generale’s FORGE issued EURCV, an early example of tokenized cash products. The overall trend is clear: big institutions prefer to leverage their existing traditional financial products, using platforms like Securitize, Centrifuge, and Libra, to bring compliant products on-chain.

Growth Divergence: Some categories saturate, others just emerging

Growth curves across categories show that tokenization adoption is cyclical, not linear. Real-world assets (RWA) have existed in various forms for years, but the 2022 market pullback revealed they are still vulnerable to the broader crypto downturn. The current recovery is rapid: most major asset classes have regained upward momentum, indicating tokenization is moving from scattered experiments to a more stable, sustainable market.

Stablecoins and active strategies were among the earliest and fastest-growing sectors in this cycle, but after a strong surge last year, their growth has slowed. In contrast, private credit and commodities have shown the strongest growth over the past two years and remain robust.

U.S. Treasuries and tokenized equities only gained momentum after 2022, but their growth has now plateaued, suggesting these categories are approaching saturation.

Real estate and non-U.S. government bonds are still early in their adoption cycle: short development histories, no clear long-term trend yet, but promising prospects as their asset bases continue to build.

Corporate bonds appeared only in 2025 as a single data point, still early but with high growth potential. Their scale is small, but the trend is positive, making them a promising emerging sector.

Market Size and TPI Scores Are Beginning to Correlate

A scatter plot of average TPI scores versus total locked value (log scale) shows a clear positive correlation: larger asset classes tend to have higher average TPI scores. Stablecoins lead in both metrics; U.S. Treasuries are also large and more mature than most non-stable categories.

On the other hand, real estate and private equity rank low in both size and maturity, confirming their reliance on off-chain legal structures, custodial mechanisms, and post-issuance services. The correlation is trend-based, not strictly linear.

Commodity tokens and private credit have accumulated significant market size but do not yet score high on TPI, indicating capital prefers more mature on-chain structures, but overall ecosystem maturity still lags.

91% of tokenized assets still use quasi-restrictive issuance and redemption mechanisms

Distribution of scores shows that the market remains concentrated in the low-score range across all three TPI dimensions, with issuance & redemption being the most significant bottleneck. Among 542 assets scored, 494 (91.1%) score 1 or 2 in issuance, indicating most rely on admin-controlled minting and custodian-mediated redemption. Only 13 assets (2.4%) score 4 or 5, meaning fully automated, symmetric minting/burning models are still rare.

Transfer & settlement scores are more dispersed: 205 assets (37.8%) reach score 3, reflecting a transitional phase where tokens can circulate on-chain but blockchain is not yet the sole authoritative ledger.

Complexity & composability scores are more concentrated: 394 assets (72.7%) remain at 2, with only 21 (3.9%) reaching 4 or 5. This indicates most tokenized products are still simple wrappers, not deep programmable financial units. Appendix Figure 8.1 shows the full distribution across categories.

Private Credit DeFi Utilization Ranks Highest at 64.3%

Breaking down TPI scores by asset class, stablecoins lead across all three dimensions, with transfer & settlement scoring 3.2 — reflecting multi-chain deployment and a trend toward on-chain ledger dominance. Tokenized stocks and U.S. Treasuries follow with balanced scores. Real estate and private equity score below 1.5, indicating they are still largely in closed, off-chain structures.

Additional distribution charts are included in the appendix.

Among all asset classes, only 10.6% have complexity & composability scores ≥3 — the threshold for deep DeFi integration. This confirms that most on-chain tokenized assets remain simple wrappers rather than functional financial primitives.

Stablecoins still dominate in absolute scale, with about $26.4 billion locked in DeFi, far surpassing other categories. But internal penetration rates tell a different story: private credit has become the most DeFi-integrated category, with 64.3% of its market cap actively locked in DeFi; active strategies follow at 19.0%. In contrast, stablecoins’ DeFi utilization rate is only 9.0%, ranking much lower.

Private Credit DeFi Utilization at 64.3%

A key distinction: these two metrics measure different dimensions. TPI is an asset-level average score, while DeFi utilization is based on fund size. For private credit, even with a moderate TPI, the DeFi penetration can be very high.

This is partly due to industry concentration: private credit DeFi activity is focused on a few protocols and products. For example, Maple’s syrupUSDT and syrupUSDC account for about two-thirds of active locked value in this category. This shows that private credit’s on-chain composability is real, but the broader asset class has yet to fully integrate on-chain.

Another reason is asset nature: these high-performing private credit products are yield-oriented, accepting stablecoins as collateral, naturally fitting DeFi yield strategies. Users can leverage and compound within multi-layer DeFi vaults, increasing utility. From this perspective, high DeFi utilization indicates that larger, more native on-chain structures can enhance asset utility. These assets provide low-correlation yield streams, adding unique value to crypto portfolios.

Active strategies show similar features. Their DeFi composability ranks second, but capital is concentrated in a few products. For example, Superstate’s crypto arbitrage fund accounts for about 80% of the active locked value in this category, with the rest spread across a handful of products like Re Protocol’s reUSDe, Midas’s mBASIS, and Resolv liquidity tokens.

In contrast, large categories like U.S. Treasuries and commodities have only 3.2% and 2.5% of their market cap in DeFi, respectively; real estate and corporate bonds’ DeFi utilization is near zero.

In absolute terms, stablecoins remain the most critical DeFi backbone, with about $26.4 billion locked, but most stablecoin supply is used for payments, trading, corporate treasury, and settlement, not for value-adding DeFi applications. Their low DeFi utilization is not due to unsuitability as collateral but because of their functional role as cash equivalents in circulation.

Meanwhile, private credit and active yield strategies are widely accepted as investment tools, gradually becoming mainstream collateral assets on-chain.

Tokenized Market Concentration Is Higher Than It Looks

As shown earlier, the actual concentration in tokenized markets is much higher than it appears. Even excluding stablecoins, the top five platforms account for about 50% of all assets evaluated. Securitize, focused on institutional issuance, leads with a cross-category asset size of $2.7 billion, followed by Maple (lending and U.S. debt), Tether (commodities), and Ondo (multi-asset). TPI scores vary significantly: Ondo averages 2.3, Securitize 1.6, with others like Robinhood and MetaWealth at 1.0, indicating these platforms are still mainly in the simple wrapper stage.

Regionally, the British Virgin Islands (BVI) dominate with $191.5 billion, mostly from USDT (which moved to El Salvador in 2025); Bermuda follows with $76.1 billion (24%), and the U.S. with $23.6 billion (7%). Notably, assets registered in the U.S. have an average TPI of 2.0, while assets issued in BVI and Liechtenstein (mostly compliant with S regulations) tend to score lower. Regulatory environment strongly influences tokenization structures: products regulated by the U.S. SEC tend to be simpler wrappers, while DeFi-native protocols in crypto-friendly jurisdictions tend to achieve higher TPI scores.

TPI Scores by Public Chain: Permissioned Chains Are Less Mature

Data shows that the underlying network architecture significantly impacts tokenization maturity. Public chains with better composability and more developed secondary markets tend to have higher TPI scores: Optimism and Base score around 2.6–2.5; Ethereum and Solana hover around 2.3. Conversely, more constrained networks like XRP Ledger have average TPI around 2.0.

Canton Network exemplifies this: backed by Digital Asset, adopted by Goldman Sachs and BNY Mellon, it’s a permissioned chain with an average TPI of about 1.75, below the market average of 2.04. This isn’t due to poor execution but reflects design and market needs: permissioned chains prioritize compliance and permission controls over on-chain autonomy. This confirms that permissioned blockchains, constrained by their architecture, tend to produce lower-maturity tokenization products, even with top-tier institutional backing.

6. Practical Guidelines for Tokenization =========

Four-Stage Path: Wrap → Connect → Combine → Native

Most tokenization strategies are initially cost-cutting or efficiency-boosting: streamlining back-office operations, shortening settlement cycles, automating reconciliation, and directly improving P&L. This is a feasible path to unlock tokenization value but relatively narrow.

A broader path involves building new distribution channels and revenue streams, launching products that reach global pools of capital and diverse investors, serving needs that traditional infrastructure struggles to cover.

The TPI framework maps onto four stages of development. But it doesn’t reveal the strategic inflection points: the first stage is passive, driven by compliance costs; from the second to the fourth, institutions actively decide what kind of business to build.

Stage 1: Wrap (TPI 1-2)

Version 0.1 of tokenization, a necessary but not final product. It requires rebuilding compliance: securities registration, transfer agents, custody frameworks, KYC/AML, tax, disclosure rules, etc. 88% of assets remain here: tokens are digital receipts, lifecycle depends on off-chain infrastructure, and on-chain only optimizes distribution. Long-term risk: stagnation at the wrapping layer, missing market evolution.

Stage 2: Connect (TPI 2-3)

Strategic fork: cost reduction vs. growth.

• Cost reduction: replacing pure off-chain with dual ledgers, whitelist circulation for controlled secondary trading, improving back-office efficiency, but with a ceiling.

• Growth: building new platform layers, integrating oracles, smart contract governance, loosening on-chain circulation, paving the way for composability, and accessing new pools.

Stage 3: Combine (TPI 3-4)

Token assets become a critical building block: usable as on-chain collateral, integrated into risk management vaults, or combined into yield products not available in traditional markets. Only 12% of assets reach this stage, led by private credit and active strategies; composability opens on-chain capital channels (DeFi investors, DAO treasuries, crypto funds), but risk management (transparency, isolation, real-time monitoring) must be strengthened.

Stage 4: Native (TPI 4-5)

Assets are created natively on-chain, with issuance, redemption, custody, settlement, and governance governed by on-chain primitives; permissionless minting/burning, sovereign ledgers, autonomous risk engines, and governance without manual intermediaries. Currently, only protocols like MakerDAO’s USDS and Aave’s GHO reach this stage; representing the long-term goal for institutional tokenization.

7. Conclusions and Outlook =======

Tokenization should be measured by real outcomes, not just superficial packaging

The industry has demonstrated that assets can be mapped onto the chain, but it has not yet proven that such mapping fundamentally changes asset operation. Many tokenization projects are announced but not truly mature.

The next phase of market maturity depends not on the size of tokenized assets but on actual utility and real market demand:

• How fast can settlement be achieved, ideally in milliseconds?

• How low can transfer costs be relative to transfer amounts?

• How many on-chain wallets hold the asset?

• What is the daily transfer and trading volume?

• How much of the asset’s value is actively used in DeFi?

Institutions investing in deep infrastructure — building autonomous issuance, on-chain ledgers, protocol-level composability — will create their own moat and lead the next wave of industry with real application value and genuine demand.

Tokenization is just the first step into a deeper track — because what we truly explore are lending markets, asset management, product distribution, and capital formation, which are core to Apollo Group’s overall business.

In fact, I believe the real driver of real-world asset tokenization lies in feasible commercial use cases. If you can deliver value that traditional assets cannot — whether in revenue, product distribution, or other capabilities — it’s far more attractive than operational efficiency alone. Interestingly, operational gains are just an added bonus.

Christine Moy, Head of Digital Assets, Apollo Global Management

One of the core insights of this report is that the standard for measuring tokenization should not be whether an asset is simply on the blockchain, but whether it truly delivers the value promised by blockchain infrastructure. The original vision was clear: enable 24/7 transfer and settlement, cross-border operations, lower operational friction and intermediaries, and expand retail and institutional participation.

While progress has been made in asset representation and distribution, data shows many so-called tokenized products still do not meet these goals. Many are just superficial on-chain representations, still heavily reliant on off-chain workflows. The real question now is not “has the asset been tokenized,” but “which parts of its lifecycle are truly continuous, programmable, and native on-chain?”

The Most Valuable Use Cases Require Rebuilding, Not Copying

Many current tokenized products are still too close to traditional finance structures, limiting their real value. In some cases, tokenization should aim to eliminate unnecessary processes rather than just move existing workflows on-chain. Escrow is a typical example: if funds can be held and released automatically via trusted smart contracts, the goal should not be just creating a “digital escrow account,” but reducing reliance on multi-layered custodial intermediaries.

More broadly, markets need to shift from “wrapping traditional processes” to building new structures that leverage blockchain’s true advantages: programmability, atomic settlement, continuous markets, and shared state.

We must resist the urge to simply replicate traditional financial infrastructure on-chain. We should recognize that on-chain finance and blockchain technology are fundamentally about disintermediation.

Traditional rules, designed for centralized systems with intermediaries, need to evolve as markets shift toward peer-to-peer, user-controlled custody, and decentralized networks.

Maxwell Stein, Director of Digital Assets, BlackRock Cross-Asset Markets

Wrapping Market Is Not a Flaw, But a Regulatory Balance

This phenomenon is largely “designed.” Many products still in the wrapper stage reflect what clients, issuers, and regulators actually want: familiar financial structures, stricter controls, and incremental efficiency gains in distribution and settlement. Over 91% of assets still have permissioned issuance and redemption, not because the market is “lagging,” but because current compliance frameworks assume financial workflows require intermediaries. When securities issuance, custody, and redemption rules are built around licensed gatekeepers, administrators controlling minting and custodians mediating redemptions are the natural choices to stay within regulatory boundaries.

Regional data reinforces this: U.S.-registered assets have an average TPI of only 2.0, and SEC-regulated products tend to be simpler wrappers. In contrast, crypto-friendly jurisdictions like BVI and Liechtenstein often produce assets with lower scores, reflecting regulatory influence. Regulatory environments actively shape the final tokenization structures: products under U.S. SEC oversight tend to be simpler, while DeFi-native protocols in crypto-friendly jurisdictions tend to achieve higher TPI scores.

Permissioned Chains Have Lower TPI Scores: Architecture Matters

Data shows that the underlying network architecture greatly impacts tokenization maturity. Public chains with better composability and more developed secondary markets tend to have higher TPI scores: Optimism and Base score around 2.6–2.5; Ethereum and Solana around 2.3. More constrained networks like XRP Ledger average about 2.0.

Canton Network exemplifies this: backed by Digital Asset, used by Goldman Sachs and BNY Mellon, it’s a permissioned chain with an average TPI of about 1.75, below the market average of 2.04. This isn’t due to poor execution but reflects design choices: permissioned chains prioritize compliance and permission controls over on-chain autonomy. This confirms that permissioned blockchains, constrained by architecture, tend to produce lower-maturity tokenization products, even with top institutional backing.

7. Practical Guidelines for Tokenization =========

Four-Stage Path: Wrap → Connect → Combine → Native

Most tokenization strategies start with cost reduction and efficiency: streamlining operations, shortening settlement, automating reconciliation, and directly improving P&L. This is a feasible way to unlock value but offers a narrow scope.

A broader path involves building new distribution channels and revenue streams, launching products that reach global pools of capital and diverse investors, serving needs that traditional infrastructure cannot efficiently cover.

The TPI framework maps onto four development stages. But it doesn’t reveal strategic inflection points: the first stage is passive, driven by compliance costs; from the second to the fourth, institutions actively decide what business models to pursue.

Stage 1: Wrap (TPI 1-2)

Version 0.1 of tokenization, a necessary but not final product. It requires rebuilding compliance: securities registration, transfer agents, custody frameworks, KYC/AML, tax, disclosure rules, etc. 88% of assets remain here: tokens are digital receipts, lifecycle depends on off-chain infrastructure, and on-chain only improves distribution. Long-term risk: stagnation at the wrapping layer, missing market evolution.

Stage 2: Connect (TPI 2-3)

Strategic fork: cost reduction vs. growth.

• Cost reduction: replacing pure off-chain with dual ledgers, whitelist circulation for controlled secondary trading, improving back-office efficiency, but with a ceiling.

• Growth: building new platform layers, integrating oracles, smart contract governance, loosening on-chain circulation, paving the way for composability, and accessing new pools.

Stage 3: Combine (TPI 3-4)

Token assets become a critical building block: usable as on-chain collateral, integrated into risk management vaults, or combined into yield products not available in traditional markets. Only 12% of assets reach this stage, led by private credit and active strategies; composability opens on-chain capital channels (DeFi investors, DAO treasuries, crypto funds), but risk management (transparency, isolation, real-time monitoring) must be improved.

Stage 4: Native (TPI 4-5)

Assets are created natively on-chain, with issuance, redemption, custody, settlement, and governance governed by on-chain primitives; permissionless minting/burning, sovereign ledgers, autonomous risk engines, and governance without manual intermediaries. Currently, only protocols like MakerDAO’s USDS and Aave’s GHO reach this stage; representing the long-term goal for institutional tokenization.

8. Conclusions and Outlook =======

Tokenization should be judged by actual outcomes, not superficial packaging

The industry has shown that assets can be mapped onto the chain, but it has not yet proven that such mapping fundamentally changes asset operation. Many projects are announced but not truly mature.

Market maturity depends not on the size of tokenized assets but on real utility and demand:

• How fast can settlement be achieved, ideally in milliseconds?

• How low can transfer costs be relative to transfer amounts?

• How many wallets hold the asset?

• What is the daily transfer and trading volume?

• How much of the asset’s value is actively used in DeFi?

Institutions investing in deep infrastructure — building autonomous issuance, on-chain ledgers, protocol-level composability — will create their own moat and lead the next wave of industry with real application value and genuine demand.

Tokenization is just the first step into a deeper track — because what we truly explore are lending markets, asset management, product distribution, and capital formation, which are core to Apollo Group’s overall business.

In fact, I believe the real driver of real-world asset tokenization lies in feasible commercial use cases. If you can deliver value that traditional assets cannot — whether in revenue, product distribution, or other capabilities — it’s far more attractive than operational efficiency alone. Interestingly, operational gains are just an added bonus.

Christine Moy, Head of Digital Assets, Apollo Global Management

One key insight of this report is that the standard for measuring tokenization should not be whether an asset is simply on the blockchain, but whether it truly delivers the value blockchain infrastructure promises. The original vision was clear: enable 24/