A brand new This fall 2025 survey from tokenization platform Brickken suggests that almost all of actual world asset (RWA) issuers are utilizing tokenization to lift capital quite than to unlock secondary market liquidity, in accordance with a report shared with CoinDesk.
Amongst respondents, 53.8% mentioned capital formation and financing effectivity had been the primary causes for tokenization, whereas 15.4% mentioned the necessity for liquidity was the primary motivation. An extra 38.4% mentioned they didn’t want liquidity, and 46.2% mentioned they anticipated secondary market liquidity to be out there inside 6-12 months.
“What we’re seeing is a shift from tokenization as a buzzword to tokenization as a monetary infrastructure layer,” Brickken CMO Jordi Esturi informed CoinDesk. “Issuers are utilizing it to unravel real-world issues corresponding to entry to capital, investor attain, and operational complexity.”
Bricken’s report comes as main U.S. inventory exchanges announce plans to develop their buying and selling fashions for tokenized property to incorporate 24/7 markets. CME Group has introduced that it’ll provide 24-hour buying and selling of crypto derivatives by Might 29, whereas the New York Inventory Change (NYSE) and Nasdaq have shared plans to supply tokenized inventory buying and selling 24/7.
Esturi mentioned the change’s plans have extra to do with the evolution of enterprise fashions than issuers’ demand disruption. “Fairly than being forward of demand, it is necessary for exchanges to evolve their enterprise fashions,” he mentioned. “Exchanges improve their income by rising buying and selling volumes, and increasing buying and selling hours is a pure means to take action.”
On the identical time, many issuers are nonetheless in what he calls the “validation stage” of proving their regulatory constructions, testing investor urge for food and digitizing their issuance processes. “Liquidity isn’t the primary focus but as they’re constructing the inspiration,” he burdened, including that they see tokenization as “an upstream engine that feeds the buying and selling venue.”
CMO Bricken additionally mentioned that until compliant, structured, high-quality property are delivered to market, there is no such thing as a level in buying and selling on secondary buying and selling platforms. “The actual worth creation occurs on the issuing degree,” Esturi factors out.
Discretionary and necessary liquidity
Though 38.4% of issuers surveyed mentioned they didn’t want liquidity, Esturi identified the distinction between “voluntary liquidity and necessary liquidity” and famous that many non-public market issuers function with a long-term perspective. “Liquidity is inevitable, however it should develop alongside, not forward of, issuance and institutional adoption.”
Ondo began with tokenized U.S. Treasuries and presently has greater than $2 billion in property, however is especially centered on shares and ETFs due to their “robust value discovery, deep liquidity, and clear valuations,” Chief Technique Officer Ian de Bord mentioned in a current interview with CoinDesk.
“Once you tokenize one thing, you make it simpler to entry it or use it as collateral,” de Bode says. “Shares are each true, and in contrast to buildings in Manhattan, they’re priced like property that folks really perceive. If TradFi goes 24/7, that is a godsend,” de Bord added. “That is our largest bottleneck.”
Analysis exhibits that tokenization is already operational for a lot of individuals. 69.2% of respondents reported that their tokenization course of is full and operational, 23.1% are in progress, and seven.7% are nonetheless within the strategy planning stage.
Regulation stays a problem
Regulation was a serious concern for these surveyed, with 53.8% of respondents saying rules slowed down their operations and 30.8% reporting partial or situational regulatory friction. In whole, 84.6% skilled some extent of regulatory resistance. In distinction, 13% cited expertise or improvement challenges as essentially the most tough a part of tokenization.
“Compliance isn’t one thing that issuers cope with post-launch. It’s one thing that issuers take into account and set from day one,” mentioned Álvaro Garrido, founding companion at Legalnode. “We imagine there’s a rising demand for authorized constructions tailor-made to particular mission wants and underlying expertise.”
The report additionally means that tokenization is increasing past actual property. Actual property accounted for 10.7% of property tokenized or deliberate to be tokenized, in comparison with shares/equities 28.6% and IP and entertainment-related property 17.9%. Respondents’ industries included expertise platforms (31.6%), leisure (15.8%), non-public credit score (15.8%), renewable vitality (5.3%), banking (5.3%), carbon property (5.2%), aerospace (5.3%), and hospitality (5.2%).
“The actual bridge between TradFi and DeFi isn’t ideological,” says Patrick Hennes, Head of Digital Asset Providers at DZ PRIVATBANK. “It’s the issuance infrastructure that interprets regulatory necessities, investor safety, and asset servicing requirements right into a programmable system.”
