Standard Chartered projected that tokenization of real-world assets (RWAs) beyond stablecoins may speed up considerably over the subsequent 5 years, pushed by regulatory progress and a sharper concentrate on high-impact use instances, in accordance with a June 20 report shared with CryptoSlate.
The financial institution’s report, titled “RWA Tokenisation — A Development Alternative,” highlighted that whereas stablecoins stay the dominant driver of blockchain-based RWAs, efforts to tokenize non-stablecoin assets like non-public credit score, securitized debt, non-public fairness, and commodities have trailed behind at round $2 billion.
In line with the report, the hole stems largely from uneven regulations and early initiatives focusing on areas with restricted worth from blockchain adoption.
Focus shifting beyond stablecoins
Geoffrey Kendrick, head of digital assets analysis at Standard Chartered, defined that the business’s heavy reliance on stablecoins has overshadowed other tokenization prospects that would remodel illiquid and hard-to-access markets.
Kendrick wrote:
“Non-stablecoin RWA tokenization has lagged for a lot of causes — regulatory uncertainty and concentrate on improper areas being amongst them. Nonetheless, as regulatory readability emerges and if tokenizers concentrate on the appropriate areas, then development will come.”
The report singled out tokenized non-public credit score as a notable early success, citing it as proof that blockchain can unlock actual worth by bettering liquidity for assets historically thought of troublesome to commerce.
It argued that the identical logic can lengthen to personal fairness and area of interest commodities markets, the place institutional traders are actively in search of higher effectivity and transparency.
Regulatory patchwork persists
Regardless of the optimism, Standard Chartered cautioned that regulatory fragmentation stays an impediment. Jurisdictions akin to Singapore, Switzerland, the EU, and Jersey have developed clearer guidelines for RWAs, however others lag, whereas know-your-customer (KYC) checks proceed to complicate cross-border adoption.
The financial institution’s analysis referred to as for tokenization methods that emphasize “areas of differentiation from off-chain assets” moderately than replicating what already works properly in conventional markets. By doing so, platforms and issuers may acquire traction even in unsure regulatory environments.
The report highlighted that tokenized non-public credit score, structured debt, and company bonds have begun to broaden steadily, with projections displaying an accelerated climb ranging from 2025.
It additional instructed that if business gamers leverage classes from non-public credit score and construct sturdy compliance frameworks, non-stablecoin RWAs may emerge as the subsequent main wave within the digital asset sector.
