Think tokenized assets are still fringe? Institutional capital and forecasts say otherwise — here’s what you need to know and what to watch. In recent weeks Canton Network raised US$135M from firms including Goldman Sachs, BNP Paribas and DTCC to scale tokenization of bonds, gold, repo and digital cash; Standard Chartered projects tokenized RWAs to jump from about US$35B today to US$2T by 2028 (largely on Ethereum); and private credit added about US$24B in H1 2025. Regulators (U.S. GENIUS Act, Digital Asset Market Clarity Act; EU, Singapore, UAE) and standards (ERC-1400/3643), custody and identity tooling are maturing. Why it matters: institutional product, liquidity and revenue models could shift, but custody, liquidity and uneven regulation remain risks. Watch issuance volumes, compliance adoption, secondary trading and TradFi–blockchain partnerships; confidence in this trend is ~80–85% over 3–5 years.

Global watchdog scrutiny and new institutional products are pushing tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) from experimentation toward regulated finance: on 2025-11-11 IOSCO warned of investor confusion over ownership and issuer counterparty risk even as tokenized RWAs grew to US$24 billion by mid‐2025 (private credit ~US$14B), with Ethereum hosting about US$7.5B across 335 products (~60% market share). Product innovation includes Figure’s US‐approved yield-bearing stablecoin security YLDS and a HELOC lending pool, and the NUVA marketplace (Provenance claimed ~$15.7B in related assets). These developments matter for customers, revenue and operations because low secondary liquidity, legal ambiguity (security vs token), and dependency on traditional custodians create compliance and market‐risk tradeoffs. Near term, executives should monitor regulatory rule‐making (IOSCO, SEC, FSA, MAS), broader investor‐eligible launches, liquidity metrics, interoperability standards, and disclosure/audit transparency.

On 2025-11-12 Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller announced that “streamlined payment accounts” will be operational by Q4 2026, giving non-bank fintechs and digital-asset firms risk‐tailored direct access to Fed payment infrastructure without full master-account privileges; an RFI will precede rulemaking. This matters because it reduces reliance on bank intermediaries, accelerates payment innovation and product roadmaps, and changes competitive dynamics. Key benchmarks: ACH processed 8.8 billion payments worth $23.2 trillion in Q3 2025 (vol +5.2%, value +8.2% YoY); The Clearing House RTP handled 115 million transactions worth $405 billion in Q3 2025 (vol +7%), with a single‐day record of 1.8 million on 2025-10-03; FedNow did 2.51 million payments ($307.3 billion) in Q3 2025 and is raising its cap from $1M to $10M this month. Immediate next steps: respond to the RFI, prepare compliance/tech readiness, and watch RFI publication expected late 2025–early 2026.

On 2025-11-13 at the Singapore Fintech Festival DBS and Ant International signed an MoU to scale cross‐border payments, enabling DBS PayLah! users to make QR payments at more than 150 million merchants across 100+ countries and near‐instant remittances with Ant’s 1.8 billion Alipay+ accounts; joint work includes SME digitization and exploring blockchain tokenized deposits. Separately, WorldFirst reported a 300% rise in transaction volumes in emerging markets in H1 2025 via partnerships with 30+ banks, AI risk/compliance tools and new offices in Kuala Lumpur, Mexico, UAE and Saudi Arabia. QNB partnered with TransferMate to streamline multi‐currency B2B collections. These moves accelerate faster, cheaper cross‐border flows, pressure FX/pricing and compliance systems; immediate items to watch are DBS‐Ant pilot rollouts, regulatory approvals for tokenized rails, FX spreads, fraud metrics and SME adoption.

As of July 3, 2025, tokenized real‐world assets (RWAs) reached $12.83 billion total value locked (TVL), up from $7.75 billion at the start of the year—a 65% YTD rise driven by real estate, bonds and climate‐linked tokens and led by protocols such as BlackRock’s BUIDL (~$2.83 billion across six blockchains), Ethena USDt ($1.46 billion) and Ondo Finance ($1.39 billion). Institutional activity—illustrated by Mitsubishi UFJ’s tokenization of a 30‐story Osaka office under Japan’s security‐token framework—signals integration with traditional finance. Material risks include fragmented regulation, limited secondary‐market liquidity, custody and compliance gaps. Over the next 6–12 months stakeholders should monitor new legal regimes, institutional product launches, infrastructure interoperability and liquidity metrics; firms, investors and policymakers need to align with regulatory clarity, build interoperable custody/standards and prepare for wider mainstream adoption.

On 2025-07-01 the U.S. Senate voted 99–1 to remove a proposed 10-year moratorium on state AI regulation from a major tax and spending bill, preserving states’ ability to pass and enforce AI-specific laws after a revised funding-limitation version also failed; that decision sustains regulatory uncertainty and keeps states functioning as policy “laboratories” (e.g., California’s SB-243 and state deepfake/impersonation laws). The outcome matters for customers, revenue and operations because fragmented state rules will shape product requirements, compliance costs, liability and market access across AI, software engineering, fintech, biotech and quantum applications. Immediate priorities: monitor federal bills and state law developments, track standards and agency rulemaking (FTC, FCC, ISO/NIST/IEEE), build compliance and auditability capabilities, design flexible architectures, and engage regulators and public comment processes.