From BlackRock to Nasdaq: The Big Shift Toward Tokenized Markets

BlackRock is (reportedly) exploring how to make ETF shares available as tokens on public blockchains; a logical next step after BUIDL, its $2.3B tokenized U.S. dollar liquidity fund, became the category leader. It’s not a blanket “tokenize everything” mandate, but it’s a clear direction of travel from the world’s largest asset manager.

Meanwhile, Nasdaq just filed to trade tokenized securities on the same order book as their traditional twins, with the Depository Trust Company (DTC) handling the back-end conversion and settlement. Orders get “flagged” for tokenized settlement (opt-in, same priority, same CUSIP, same rights). That’s integration into the core, not a side experiment.

As someone who started their career at BlackRock, and always felt it operated like a fintech disguised as a traditional investment manager, this moment feels inevitable. The pipes are finally catching up with the promise.

Why this is different (and why it sticks)

• It’s getting built into workflows, not bolted on. Nasdaq’s filing literally amends matching/routing rules to support tokenized settlement, while leaving surveillance, execution priority and routing logic untouched. That means traders don’t have to change how they trade to get on-chain benefits.

• The cash leg is arriving. JP Morgan is piloting JPMD (USD deposit tokens) for institutional, 24/7 money movement on Base (the Ethereum Layer 2 blockchain built within Coinbase), bridging today’s banking rails with on-chain settlement. Meanwhile BNY Mellon + Goldman are tokenizing money market funds so institutions can subscribe, redeem and (over time) use them more fluidly as collateral. The funding stack is going on-chain, not just the asset leg.

• Real assets with real AUM are already here. Total tokenized Treasuries recently hit an all-time-high north of $7B, with total tokenized real world assets on public chains approaching $30B. It's still early, but these are not demo dollars.

• The investment menu is getting interesting. WisdomTree just launched a tokenized private credit fund with a ridiculously low minimum; UBS has a tokenized USD MMF (“uMINT” on Ethereum); and Hamilton Lane’s tokenized Senior Credit Opportunities Fund (SCOPE via Securitize) is going multichain and adding daily liquidity. For those who like collectibles, CurioInvest has been letting investors own slices of classic cars on-chain, and has since expanded into art, rare watches, and other high-value assets, alongside a growing set of similar platforms bringing tokenization to the collectibles market. This was one of the first tokenization projects I came across in the crypto space years ago... It’s fascinating to see how what felt niche and futuristic back then is now converging with mainstream market infrastructure!

What tokenization actually changes

• Post-trade costs and operations: Tokenization can streamline the entire back-office process. Instead of multiple systems reconciling trades, a single, tamper-proof record on a shared ledger cuts down on exceptions and errors. Exchanges and market infrastructure players can keep their current trading engines intact, while institutions like the DTC (or equivalents) simply record ownership on-chain.

• Collateral velocity: When both securities and cash-like instruments (e.g., money market funds, tokenized deposits) exist as tokens, checking eligibility, pledging collateral, or substituting assets can be automated. It isn’t about chasing “crypto yields”. It’s about improving the speed and flexibility of traditional collateral management.

• Access & product design: Fractionalization and 24/7 digital rails open the door to more investors, but with built-in compliance controls such as whitelists and transfer restrictions. Firms like WisdomTree and others are using this model to widen access while staying fully within regulatory frameworks.

• Interoperability with stablecoins: For retail and merchants, regulated stablecoins or bank deposit tokens become the cash leg that meets tokenized assets at settlement. This is where my payments bias kicks in: orchestration across fiat rails, stablecoins, and deposit tokens will be the differentiator for brokers, exchanges and prime brokers alike.

What still needs to be true

• Identity & compliance at scale. Even Larry Fink calls identity the gating factor. We need standardized KYC/AML proofs that can travel across venues without re-papering every hop. (🎩 Hat-tip to mission-driven founders like my old friend Gene Vayngrib, who’ve been working on decentralized identity infrastructure for years. That's the hard, unglamorous work that will make tokenization scalable.)

• Common legal wrappers & disclosures. Same CUSIP and same rights are the north star; disclosures for tokenized vs. traditional must remain identical if they’re truly fungible.

• Standards for cross-chain movement. Institutional reports keep stressing the need for globally harmonized rules and risk frameworks; fragmentation slows everything. This will take time and I expect a hybrid world for years.

How big could this get?

This doesn’t feel like a niche experiment anymore; it feels like the early innings of a structural shift. Industry estimates already point to $10 trillion in tokenized assets by 2030 (Chainlink/21.co, Roland Berger) with up to $16 trillion when you include illiquid assets like private credit and real estate (BCG & ADDX).

However, those numbers might actually understate the long term. If policy frameworks mature and the infrastructure keeps developing, everything will come on-chain over time; from ETFs and corporate bonds to real estate titles, carbon credits, and beyond. It won’t happen overnight, but the direction of travel feels one-way: toward an on-chain financial system where legacy rails fade into the background.

And the next domino might already be falling. Nasdaq’s proposal to integrate tokenized securities directly into its existing order books - same CUSIP, same rights, just tokenized settlement - is awaiting regulatory approval. If the SEC gives the green light, Reuters suggests we could see the first trades as early as 2026, once (DTC) infrastructure is ready.

If that happens, expect other U.S. and global venues to follow quickly with similar models, linking directly into DTC, Euroclear, etc for delivery-versus-payment settlement. Issuers will likely start with operationally simple products (cash-like wrappers, large-cap equities, ETFs) before moving into bonds, alternatives, etc.

And here’s the thing about market structure: liquidity attracts liquidity. The moment tokenized assets trade on the existing market stack, you don’t fight decades of habit, you amplify it. The flywheel starts spinning, and adoption accelerates!

My take (from payments & market structure)

From my vantage point in payments and market structure, stablecoins (as regulated cash rails) and deposit tokens (as bank-native cash) will quietly become the connective tissue between tokenized assets and real-world settlement. Broker-dealers, exchanges, and custodians that orchestrate these flows - abstracting chain selection, delivering compliance by design, and exposing clean APIs - will own the customer. That’s the same playbook we’ve run in payments: abstract complexity, standardize trust, and let participation scale.

The future of finance won’t be “crypto-native” or “TradFi-only”, it will run on on-chain market infrastructure; same assets, same rights, same order book, just with better rails.