The $37 Billion Tokenization Boom Has an Ownership Problem

How big is the tokenization market? Well, it's big enough that the grand machinery of capital markets is now flooding in. Some of the key stats from 2026 show the shocking scale of growth in tokenized assets.

• Tokenized RWAs reached $37.29 billion on public blockchains as of August 3, excluding stablecoins.
• Treasury and money-market products accounted for $16.16 billion, roughly 43% of the total.
• Commodities stood at $4.60 billion, while equities and ETFs reached $2.16 billion.

What's more, US regulators are beginning to draw firmer lines. In January, SEC staff divided tokenized securities into issuer-sponsored products and third-party-created versions.

An issuer can integrate distributed-ledger technology into its "master securityholder file," allowing an on-chain transfer to move the security on the official register, while third-party structures can leave legal ownership recorded elsewhere and give the token holder a separate entitlement.

BeInCrypto spoke to Eva Meng, Head of Matrixdock, Myles Harrison, Chief Product Officer at AMINA Bank, Billy Miller, COO of Securitize, and Roshan Robert, CEO of OKX US, about tokenization's real battleground.

Ownership Begins with Settlement {#h-ownership-begins-with-settlement}

Eva Meng, Head of Matrixdock, places settlement at the center of the ownership question.

"An on-chain ledger can accurately record token ownership without establishing whether the underlying asset is available for settlement. The real test comes when the claim is exercised: can recorded ownership actually be carried through to settlement?"

Matrixdock's tokenized gold (XAUm) asset shows how such rights pass from an onchain balance into physical delivery.

In April 2025, a holder burned 32.148 XAUm and received a one-kilogram LBMA gold bar within T+3 of the redemption request, linking the token burn to a corresponding release from custody.

The stakes rise as tokenization reaches securities, where ownership determines access to dividends, voting rights and corporate actions.

Myles Harrison, Chief Product Officer at AMINA Bank, argues institutional investors tend to begin from those legal and economic rights rather than from blockchain selection.

"The token isn't the asset. It's a representation of a claim, and that claim only means something if a regulated institution stands behind it and is legally obliged to honor it. When I speak to institutional clients, their questions are never about which chain an asset sits on. They want to know who owes them what, under which law, and what happens if something goes wrong. Those answers live in the record of ownership, not in the token itself."

Securitize COO Billy Miller draws a similar line between tokens created around securities held elsewhere and issuer-sponsored tokens incorporated into the ownership record itself.

"In an issuer-sponsored model, the issuer authorizes tokenization with the token representing the actual security and ownership, akin to how book-entry is a digital representation of shares held at the transfer agent."

Securitize put the model into use when its common stock began trading on the NYSE under SECZ on July 2. Eligible US investors are also able to access tokenized SECZ through Securitize.

The tokens launched on Avalanche and Solana while representing the same common stock trading on the NYSE, giving one security both conventional and on-chain forms of ownership.

Securitize is now officially a public company, listed on the @NYSE under the ticker SECZ.

Our focus is unchanged: building the regulated infrastructure for the next generation of capital markets.

To everyone who helped us get here, thank you.

Tokenize the World. pic.twitter.com/XVhjA5udA9 --- Securitize (@Securitize) July 2, 2026 💡 Did you know? Robinhood's 2025 "SpaceX stock tokens" gave investors derivative exposure rather than direct ownership of SpaceX shares. The controversy exposed a central risk in tokenization: owning a token does not necessarily put the holder on the company's share register or grant the rights attached to the underlying equity.

Transfer Agents {#h-transfer-agents}

Transfer agents have long maintained security-holder records, processed changes in ownership, and administered distributions. With tokenized securities, recordkeeping becomes more closely tied to the trade because an on-chain transfer can feed into the official register, making the quality and speed of recordkeeping part of the trading experience itself.

Traditional exchanges are already building around this role.

In March, the NYSE named Securitize as the first digital transfer agent eligible to mint blockchain-native securities for corporate and ETF issuers on its planned digital trading platform, while the two companies also agreed to work on standards covering digital transfer agents and tokenization agents.

Roshan Robert, CEO of OKX US, sees the transfer agent and blockchain as complementary components.

"Tokenization works best when the asset is tied directly to the official ownership record. A digital transfer agent maintains that record and manages transfers, distributions and corporate actions. Blockchain infrastructure provides the speed, transparency and global reach that make these assets more useful. Strong tokenized markets need both trusted ownership records and high-performance blockchain infrastructure. Together, they can allow tokenized assets to move securely and, ultimately, trade around the clock."

The institutional footprint around regulated tokenization is growing alongside those market plans. Securitize reported $3.4 billion in assets under management at the end of March 2026 and $1.9 billion of aggregate transaction volume during the first quarter, figures published shortly before its July NYSE listing.

Around-the-Clock Trading Reaches the Old Market Clock {#h-around-the-clock-trading-reaches-the-old-market-clock}

The NYSE is developing a regulated digital venue designed for 24/7 tokenized securities trading, instant settlement and stablecoin-based funding, pairing its Pillar matching engine with blockchain-based post-trade systems.

Harrison sees the difficult work arriving beyond the trading venue, where counterparties, compliance teams and settlement systems still operate according to schedules refined over decades.

"At AMINA Bank, we settle 24/7, 365. We're always online. But try clearing something on a Saturday evening through a traditional institution; it just doesn't happen. And that's not a technology problem. The entire financial system -- from the processes and the staffing models to the compliance infrastructure -- was built around market opening hours and optimized over decades. Unwinding is like turning an oil tanker. It will happen, but anyone telling you it's 12 months away is underestimating the challenge."

Meng sees the same tension in gold, an asset whose price can respond to geopolitical events and macroeconomic releases while key elements of the conventional market remain bound to established operating hours.

"The challenge is that only part of the stack is always on. Secondary trading and transfers can continue on-chain, while underlying markets, banking, custody, hedging, and primary-market activity still follow traditional operating hours."

Tokenized gold can therefore continue forming a price while conventional routes are closed, giving onchain markets an early read on new information.

"The harder test comes when the tokenized price moves away from the underlying market while the mechanisms that normally bring them back into alignment, such as arbitrage, hedging, minting and redemption, are unavailable. Liquidity providers then have to carry more inventory, basis and gap risk until those markets reopen," Meng said.

Continuous trading becomes economically durable when liquidity providers can manage exposure across those uneven schedules, with enough cash settlement, custody and redemption capacity to support prices through weekends and overnight sessions.

The Registry Outranks the Chain {#h-the-registry-outranks-the-chain}

Blockchain selection still affects transaction costs, execution speed and access, although Harrison sees legal and operational design carrying greater importance for institutions deciding whether an asset can enter portfolios.

"The chain matters far less than people assume. I see institutions spending months evaluating which blockchain to use when the real question is whether the legal and operational infrastructure around their asset is in place. Can they settle? Can they comply across jurisdictions? Can their counterparties access it? The industry spent almost two years getting lost in the semantic between tokenized deposit, a CBDC and a stablecoin when technologically they're identical. The infrastructure around the token is what determines whether institutional clients can use it," said Harrison from AMINA Bank.

SECZ provides one illustration. The same issuer-sponsored common stock launched across Avalanche and Solana, leaving the economic rights attached to the share while blockchain choice governs where an eligible investor can hold and transfer the tokenized form.

The SEC's January guidance gives the registry similar prominence from a regulatory perspective, centring issuer-sponsored tokenization on the master securityholder file and the relationship between an onchain transfer and the legally recognized ownership record.

Where Tokenization Breaks Down {#h-where-tokenization-breaks-down}

Continuous trading becomes more complicated when a token keeps changing hands while its reference market has closed, leaving price discovery concentrated in the tokenized asset until conventional trading resumes.

Harrison points to tokenized equities.

"You can trade the token at any hour, but the underlying security doesn't reprice outside traditional market hours. You're buying a wrapper whose reference value is frozen until the market reopens."

Tokenized Treasuries raise a different issue. They are already the largest real-world asset category tracked by RWA.xyz, with $16.16 billion distributed across 85 products as of August 3, yet AMINA's clients can already buy conventional T-bills through the bank's securities dealer license.

In their case, wrapping the same exposure in a token offers limited extra utility unless it improves access, settlement or use elsewhere onchain.

"The tokenized version solves a distribution problem that doesn't exist for them."

Tokenization earns its economic value where a blockchain representation improves access, settlement, portability or use as collateral, while the ownership record preserves a holder's enforceable rights throughout the process.

The market is already large enough for this distinction to become commercially important, especially as tokenized securities begin entering regulated public-market venues.