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In September, Nasdaq proposed rule changes that would allow trading in tokenized securities settled through DTC, the traditional U.S. clearing and settlement system. A few weeks later, Binance approved BlackRock’s tokenized Treasury funds as collateral for off-exchange institutional activities through a tripartite agreement (including Ceffu). There continues to be a push for assets that move faster and can be automatically posted as margin.
summary
Tokenization is moving from wrappers to infrastructure. Regulators and institutions are collaborating on tokenized assets as regulated collateral that will be settled through existing rails (DTC/DTCC) rather than parallel crypto markets. The real innovation is collateral mobility. Companies like JPMorgan, BlackRock, and Nasdaq are building systems that deposit tokenized government bonds, stocks, and funds as margin and automatically rebalance and move them in seconds. 2026 is an inflection point for multiple assets. Connecting tokenized stocks, bonds, stablecoins, and commodities to a unified collateral engine unlocks liquidity, compresses friction, and redefines how yield is generated.
Tokenized stocks will continue to be subject to the full securities framework, and the SEC is still clarifying the details of the market structure, particularly around trading locations, intermediaries, and how enforcement will be controlled. In December, we received a clearer signal about where this situation is heading when the agency granted DTCC’s clearing subsidiary three years of no-holds-barred relief to tokenize assets held by DTC, including Russell 1000 stocks, major index ETFs, and U.S. Treasuries, on an approved blockchain starting in 2026. The trajectory is clear: the world’s largest financial institutions are already building for a future where tokenized assets serve as regulated collateral. Not a speculative wrapper.
Recently, BlackRock’s Larry Fink wrote that tokenization is what the internet was in 1996, before Amazon was Amazon. A few days later, SEC Chairman Paul Atkins said that tokenization could completely change the financial system in the coming years. These statements would have been unthinkable three years ago, but they are now the consensus among those who run the largest pools of capital on the planet.
The tokenized real-world asset market currently has a circulating value of $18.6 billion and over 570,000 holders. Add in stablecoins (which already have well over $300 billion in circulating supply) and you begin to see a payment layer approaching the scale of a meaningful global financial rail. Major forecasts predict it to be more than $4 trillion by 2030. However, market size is only part of the more important change. What are these assets actually used for?
Tokenizing an asset creates a wrapper around itself. The rapper does nothing. Value appears once an asset enters a system that can use it. This means pricing, rebalancing, lending, hedging, and accounting for assets across multiple positions at the same time.
The fastest-moving institutions are not just minting tokenized assets. They are building Rails, a collateral system that allows tokenized assets to act as margin, settle instantly, and move between positions without friction.
JPMorgan’s tokenized collateral network converts money market fund shares into collateral that moves in seconds instead of days. BlackRock’s BUIDL is used not only as a yield product but also as institutional collateral in off-exchange workflows via tripartite agreements. And Nasdaq’s approach is important because it does not create a parallel market. The tokenized securities in that proposal would be settled through DTC, the same payment pipeline that handles traditional trillions of dollars in equities. For prime brokers, both versions look operationally familiar, except that the tokenized version can be programmed to automatically post, liquidate more seamlessly, and rebalance against other positions. In parallel, the SEC’s no-action relief for DTCs formalizes the same idea at the core of US market plumbing, with Coinbase preparing to list tokenized US stocks alongside cryptocurrencies and Tether (USDT) openly considering tokenizing its own stock to provide on-chain liquidity to investors.
On the debt side, JPMorgan’s $50 million commercial paper issuance in Galaxy Digital on Solana (SOL), fully settled in USDC, shows what happens when bank-run money markets themselves become tokenized flows of collateral.
Currently, each of these systems tends to map to one asset class or one workflow. JP Morgan moves stocks in the money market. BUIDL offers posts as institutional collateral in certain arrangements. Nasdaq’s application targets tokenized securities with DTC payments. DTC’s new service covers blue-chip stocks, ETFs, and U.S. Treasuries, while Coinbase’s plans focus on exchange-listed stocks. The next step, and indeed the inflection point in 2026, is to connect them.
Imagine a single collateral system where government bonds, stocks, and gold act as one pool. Financial managers hold exposure to tokenized T-bills, tokenized gold, and tokenized equities. Currently, these are placed in separate custody arrangements with separate accounting treatments and separate clearing logic. The Collateral Engine functions as a programmable balance sheet. The system automatically rebalances risk, adjusts collateral ratios in response to price changes, and frees up liquidity without forcing sales.
This changes the look of yield products. A liquidity position that combines a stablecoin and a tokenized stock index generates income within the same product. The yield and protection structures that were once the institutional minimum can now be aggregated from smaller positions and offered on a much broader scale.
The set of accepted collateral will continue to expand. Anything that can be securely stored, priced, and verified on-chain will be available, including tokenized short-term credit, structured bonds, regulated fund shares, and sovereign debt from multiple jurisdictions.
Fink is correct about the 1996 comparison, but the analogy requires one adjustment. The Internet in 1996 was about faster movement of information. Tokenization is about making collateral move faster. The point is not that the assets reside on the blockchain. It means to stop sitting still. Collateral that is self-balancing, automatically posts, and can be moved between positions without friction is the capital that will ultimately earn you what it is meant to be. Most capital sits idle because it is expensive and time-consuming to move. Multiple asset collateral changes that. Your portfolio will become more liquid and yields will follow.
From there, the next cycle of value will be created and the true infrastructure story of 2026 will emerge.
