Fidelity Investments says major financial institutions are moving decisively toward blockchain-based markets, as tokenization gives asset managers new ways to distribute investments and reach investors.
Matthew Horne, Fidelity’s head of digital asset strategists, said at a panel discussion at Longitude Singapore that the institutional push toward an onchain financial system had become irreversible. According to Cointelegraph, Horne said the past 18 months had seen a significant effort by established institutions to move assets and market processes onto blockchain networks.
Tokenization is the process of representing an asset or financial claim digitally on a blockchain. It can be used for instruments such as government bonds, equities and other real-world assets, allowing ownership or related rights to be recorded and transferred through onchain infrastructure. Stablecoins are excluded from the figures on tokenized real-world assets cited in the report.
Asset managers seek broader distribution
Horne said US asset managers have a particular incentive to tokenize investments because the approach can improve investor access and help firms reach markets that may be difficult to serve through conventional financial infrastructure.
The appeal is not limited to creating a digital version of an existing product. Supporters of tokenization argue that blockchain-based systems can provide structural differences in how assets are issued, held, distributed and traded. For financial institutions, that could mean building new channels for reaching investors while connecting traditional products with onchain markets.
RWA.xyz reported that demand for tokenized assets increased by 41% over the 30 days before the report, while the number of holders rose above 493,000. The holder figure counts addresses holding tokenized real-world assets and does not include stablecoins.
The discussion included representatives from Fidelity, UBS, Securitize and Maple, as well as The Wall Street Journal. The panel’s focus reflected the growing involvement of asset managers, banks and financial-market infrastructure providers in developing tokenized products and services.
UBS points to Treasuries and equities
Ka Yan Chan, UBS’s head of digital assets business development, said US Treasuries and equities could become important sources of growth for onchain markets because they are core components of many investment portfolios.
Chan argued that the market could move from billions of dollars to trillions if major infrastructure institutions, including the Federal Reserve or the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation, were to shift the custody layer to tokenized systems. Other industry participants could then build distribution services around that infrastructure, she said.
There have already been regulatory and market developments in that direction. In December 2025, the US Securities and Exchange Commission issued a no-action letter to a DTCC subsidiary, allowing it to offer a securities-market tokenization service. In September, the SEC approved a temporary exemption permitting limited trading of tokenized US stocks on selected onchain venues.
Securitize also announced on Thursday that it had launched trading in tokenized shares tied to 12 of the most widely held US-listed stocks. The offering is designed to include security entitlements, which represent rights connected to the underlying securities.
Onchain capital and the market picture
More than $1.2 billion moved onchain during the 30 days before the report, according to OnchainBenchmark. Including stablecoins and tokenized assets, the total value of capital onchain exceeded $323 billion. These figures combine two categories that are often discussed separately: stablecoins, which are digital tokens designed to track the value of a reference currency or asset, and tokenized real-world assets.
Standard Chartered’s global head of digital asset research, Geoff Kendrick, predicted in August that tokenized real-world assets could reach $4 trillion by the end of 2028. That is a forecast, rather than a current measurement, and reflects the scale of the opportunity some financial institutions see in the technology.
Moneyiar market data at 21:44 on October 8, 2026, showed mixed performance among the listed digital assets:
- Lighter (LIT) was priced at $3.6092517597, up 0.78% over 24 hours but down 4.54% over seven days.
- Decentraland (MANA) stood at $0.0933709234, down 9.55% in 24 hours and up 5% over seven days.
- Tagger (TAG) traded at $0.0006424162, falling 10.15% over 24 hours and 24.23% over seven days.
- ORDI was priced at $4.1419334615, down 7.27% over 24 hours and 8.55% over seven days, based on Moneyiar data recorded at 21:43.
The institutional tokenization debate concerns market infrastructure and ownership records rather than the short-term movements of these individual digital assets. Fidelity’s message, however, is that established financial firms are increasingly treating onchain systems as part of the future architecture of investment markets, not as a temporary experiment.
