🌍 The $2 Trillion Tokenization Boom Is Coming — Standard Chartered’s Bold Forecast

Standard Chartered Bank has released a research report predicting that the next major financial migration is underway, with Traditional Assets preparing to move onto the blockchain at an unprecedented scale. The bank projects that the RWA (Real-World Assets) Tokenization market (excluding stablecoins) could skyrocket from its current value of approximately $35 billion to a staggering $2 trillion within the next three years.

If this forecast materializes, tokenization will become one of the fastest-growing sectors in modern finance, expanding at a rate comparable to the combined early-stage growth of ETFs and digital payments.

Stablecoins as the Foundation: The bank argues that this revolution is not starting with stocks or bonds, but with Stablecoins, which have quietly built the essential bridge between fiat currency and the traditional banking system. Stablecoins have created the necessary liquidity, trust, and user familiarity required for other asset classes, like money market funds and equities, to follow suit.

Ethereum's Dominance: Despite the proliferation of new blockchains promising faster or cheaper settlement, Standard Chartered believes the forthcoming wave of institutional tokenization will predominantly occur on Ethereum. Geoffrey Kendrick, the bank’s Head of Digital Assets Research, stated that Ethereum is "battle-tested and boring—which is exactly what capital markets need." Ethereum's decade-long track record of reliable, continuous operation establishes it as a secure foundation for global settlement systems. Kendrick emphasizes: "Speed is important, but trust is key."

The $2 Trillion Landscape: Standard Chartered’s projection allocates the future ecosystem into four main categories. Tokenized Money Market Funds and Listed Equities are each projected to capture roughly $750 billion. The remaining $500 billion will be distributed across traditionally less liquid assets, including tokenized Alternative Investment Funds, Real Estate, Commodities, and Private Credit. This shift is seen as the "DeFi Second Act," where Decentralized Finance truly merges with Traditional Finance, allowing tokenized corporate bonds to be traded on decentralized exchanges, elevating DeFi from an experiment to core financial infrastructure.