What Comes After ETFs? The Case for Tokenized Assets
Tokenization emerged as a dominant theme at this year’s Toronto-based Consensus conference, with panelists across the event emphasizing its growing role in reshaping global finance.
Speakers noted that as regulatory clarity improves worldwide and as institutional adoption accelerates, tokenized assets are increasingly being viewed as an accessible on-ramp for retail investors.
They pointed to tokenization’s potential to unlock efficiency, transparency and broader participation in traditional financial systems, and blockchain’s evolution into foundational infrastructure for next-generation capital markets.
From tangible to digital: The evolution of real-world assets
A discussion on real-world assets (RWAs) underscored just how fast tokenized finance is maturing.
Consensus panelists Nathan Allman, CEO of Ondo Finance; Carlos Domingo, co-founder and CEO of Securitize; and Jim Hiltner, co-founder and head of business development of Superstate, agreed that the current surge in tokenization is largely being driven by the utility and functionality it provides to assets.
Allman pointed to the growing liquidity and accessibility that tokenization enables, particularly for assets like US Treasuries and exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
“I think historically, a lot of the focus has been on driving efficiency gains, cost savings and bringing more liquidity to historically illiquid assets. I think there’s certainly some potential validity to a lot of those benefits,” he said.
“But of all the potential benefits out there, the one that we’re focused on most at Ondo is accessibility. So primarily taking US-based, very liquid financial assets — like US Treasuries, stocks, bonds and ETFs — and making them very easy for investors all around the world to buy, sell, hold and use in DeFi,” Allman added.
Domingo emphasized that beyond efficiency, tokenization brings assets with intrinsic, real-world value onto the blockchain, allowing new financial applications and broader access to those holdings.
Ondo’s recent partnership with JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM) is a prime example: US Treasuries tokenized by Ondo are being settled with JPMorgan’s on-chain bank deposits via Ondo Chain.
Building on that perspective, Hiltner asserted that tokenization doesn’t just enhance accessibility, it fundamentally upgrades how traditional assets function and interact with the broader financial system.
“When you tokenize something that is available in the ‘real world,’ you upgrade its functionality,” he explained to the audience. “You provide more access. It is faster, it’s more mobile, it’s self-controlled, and I think it just generally takes the legacy infrastructure that we have in financial markets and brings it into the new age.”
Hiltner said while DeFi proved incredibly resilient during the collapse of centralized lenders like Terra and Celsius, its addressable market was limited by the kinds of assets that…
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