‘No going back’ for institutions moving toward tokenized onchain future, says Fidelity

Matthew Horne, Fidelity’s head of digital asset strategists, emphasized during a panel discussion in Singapore that financial institutions are rapidly transitioning to an onchain future, with no turning back. Tokenization offers several structural benefits to financial institutions and enables asset managers to tap into new markets, he explained.

In the past 18 months, Horne noted a significant push by major institutions to adopt tokenization, which provides superior investor access and opens up new markets. The demand for tokenized assets has surged by 41% in the last 30 days, with over 493,000 holders, according to RWA.xyz. This metric tracks the total number of addresses holding tokenized real-world assets, excluding stablecoins.

UBS’ Ka Yan Chan highlighted that Treasuries and equities could bring billions of dollars onto the blockchain, with the true catalyst being when market infrastructure players like the Federal Reserve or the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) begin implementing tokenized platforms for custody. In December 2025, the SEC issued a "no action" letter to DTCC, allowing the formation of a new securities market tokenization service.

Earlier in September, the SEC granted a temporary exemption for limited trading of tokenized US stocks on specific onchain venues. Securitize recently launched trading of tokenized shares for a dozen major US traded stocks, including security entitlements. Onchain capital investments have reached $1.2 billion in the past 30 days, bringing the total assets under management to over $323 billion, as reported by OnchainBenchmark.

Standard Chartered’s global head of digital asset research, Geoff Kendrick, anticipates tokenized real-world assets could reach $4 trillion by the end of 2028.