Innovation Signal 45 (2026) | 3 August 2026
Tokenised assets are becoming easier to use
Short note, about 5 minutes to read.
What happened
Financial assets have been digital for decades, but they often remain tied to separate systems for trading, custody, settlement and financing.
BlackRock, Standard Chartered and OKX have introduced a framework that allows eligible institutional clients to use BlackRock’s tokenised BUIDL Treasury fund as collateral for trading while the assets remain in regulated custody. Separately, Canton Network has reported institutional trials involving tokenised government bonds, deposits and other assets across collateral and financing transactions.
At the retail level, Robinhood is offering European investors fractional exposure to tokenised stocks, although these products are derivatives rather than direct ownership of the underlying shares and cannot currently be transferred outside its platform.
The IMF has also identified tokenisation as a potentially important change in financial architecture as assets, payments and transaction rules become increasingly capable of operating through shared programmable infrastructure.
Together, these developments suggest tokenisation is moving beyond simply creating digital versions of financial assets towards giving those assets new practical uses.
Why this matters
A financial asset can be valuable without being easy to put to work.
Using the same asset for another purpose can involve different institutions, records and processes. This can make it slower or more difficult to use assets as collateral, transfer them between financial activities or make them accessible in smaller units.
Tokenisation could reduce some of these frictions by allowing ownership and transaction rules to be handled digitally and, in some cases, automatically.
This does not mean tokenisation automatically creates liquidity. An asset still needs buyers and sellers. But reducing the operational barriers around an asset could make existing capital more flexible.
Who should care
- Banks and financial institutions
- Asset managers
- Market infrastructure and custody providers
- Regulators and central banks
- Investment platforms
- Investors tracking financial technology
What could change over the next 2 to 3 years
Early adoption is likely to concentrate on areas where the practical benefit is easiest to demonstrate.
Banks and asset managers could use tokenised bonds or funds as collateral more quickly across financial transactions. High-value investments could increasingly be offered in smaller units, lowering the amount required to gain exposure. Financial institutions may also develop new products that combine investment, financing and settlement functions more closely.
The key test will be whether tokenisation moves beyond individual platforms and begins delivering these benefits across established financial markets.
What might block this
Legal ownership and investor protection must remain clear when financial assets move across different platforms and jurisdictions.
Different tokenisation systems may also struggle to work with one another, while privacy, cybersecurity and operational reliability will remain critical for institutional adoption.
Regulation could develop differently across markets, slowing cross-border use. And even if an asset becomes easier to access or transfer, technology cannot create demand where none exists.
Why I am sharing this
Tokenisation has attracted attention for years, but the more interesting development may now be what happens after an asset has been tokenised.
An investment that today may simply sit inside one account or platform could increasingly be divided into smaller pieces, moved elsewhere or used as collateral for another transaction without first passing through several separate processes.
Financial assets may therefore not simply become more digital. They may become easier to put to work.
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Archive Tags
Tokenisation · Financial Markets · Digital Assets · Financial Infrastructure