Source: Centrifuge
Original title: 2026 : What to Expect from Real-World Asset Tokenization
Compiled and edited by: BitpushNews
Over the past year, the tokenization of real-world assets has moved from the experimental stage to the infrastructure building stage. Treasury funds, private lending strategies, index products, and early-stage equity offerings have migrated to public blockchains, leveraging real capital, regulated structures, and global distribution channels.
What began as a pilot program is now reshaping capital markets—not by replacing traditional finance, but by modernizing how financial instruments are issued, settled, and held.
The following is a series of forward-looking predictions from the Centrifuge team regarding the future direction of the tokenization market, revealing their expectations for tokenization in 2026.
Tokenization has become the default strategy for asset managers.
By the end of 2026, tokenization will no longer be a peripheral part of asset management strategies. It will increasingly be seen as a core operational capability.
Asset managers are aligning their strategies around their clear strengths: faster settlement speeds, broader liquidity, programmable distribution, and direct access to global on-chain capital. The shift in how institutional investors discuss tokenization is clearly visible: it's no longer seen as an innovation project, but rather as an operational decision concerning product reach, efficiency, and investor access.
On the supply side, the market is ready. Tokenized government bonds, equity, and private lending are already operating on-chain in a regulated structure and in a manner that meets institutional expectations. Frameworks, fund design patterns, and technical standards have matured to the point that launching on-chain products no longer requires rebuilding the operating model from scratch.
Centrifuge has been working over the past year to transform tokenization into a repeatable operating model: providing audited components, compliance tools, and a white-label platform that enables teams to launch regulated products with fewer steps and shorter time to market.
"2026 will be a turning point for tokenized assets: liquidity venues will mature, compliance will become programmable, and tokenized assets will benefit from the full potential of decentralized finance. Coupled with regulatory clarity, the race to get on-chain will accelerate, and by the end of the year, more than 50% of the top 50 asset management companies will have developed tokenization strategies."
— Bhaji Illuminati, CEO of Centrifuge Labs
This strategic shift is translating into a commitment at the top of the market. In 2026, the discussion will decisively shift from "why tokenize" to "how quickly can we deploy?"
Utility-driven growth of tokenized assets
The next stage of tokenization development will be driven by stability and practical utility.
Stablecoins have been the first to validate this model. Originating as a fundamental module of crypto, they are being embedded in mainstream financial infrastructure. They power cross-border payments and programmable cash flows, which institutions can manage alongside traditional portfolios. Growth continues even during broader market volatility because their practicality is real.
"Stablecoins will be integrated into more and more applications, including banks, brokers, credit cards, and online retailers."
— Eli Cohen, Chief Legal Officer, Centrifuge Labs
Real-world assets followed the same trajectory. Throughout 2025, tokenized government bonds, fixed income, and on-chain credit steadily expanded, reinforcing market confidence that tokenized assets could scale with real demand. Products that historically required traditional packaging can now operate on-chain and achieve wider distribution.
"Driven by continued volatility in the crypto market, the RWA token is poised for a boom, pushing the total value locked in RWA to over $100 billion by the end of 2026."
— Jürgen Blumberg, Chief Operating Officer, Centrifuge Labs
As markets mature, attention naturally shifts to tokens with practical utility: assets that can be held, transferred, used as collateral, and integrated into decentralized finance and institutional operational workflows. Speculation hasn't disappeared, but it's no longer the center of gravity.
This is precisely the area Centrifuge is building: embedding RWA as a functional financial instrument into on-chain and institutional environments. It's not just about tokenized risk exposure, but about creating infrastructure that truly operates where capital is.
On-chain index products
Index products represent one of the largest and most conservative pools of capital globally. In 2026, they will migrate to the blockchain in a meaningful way.
The launch of the first permissioned index fund on a blockchain in 2025 marks an early inflection point: institutional benchmarks can operate natively on-chain. Centrifuge's "Proof of Index" framework, built on permissioned data in partnership with S&P Dow Jones Indices, demonstrates that index exposure can exist on public blockchains while maintaining permission integrity, methodological rigor, and regulatory compliance.
Every day, the index provider releases the encrypted fingerprint of its official components. Funds tracking the index generate their own fingerprints and can prove their consistency without disclosing the underlying holdings. This is a technological unlock that creates verifiable proof: institutions can trust the replication of the index, while fund managers can maintain their confidentiality and competitive positioning.
"Index providers will go on-chain, and 80% of the world's top 10 providers will commit to adopting the on-chain index proof concept."
— Jürgen Blumberg, Chief Operating Officer, Centrifuge Labs
At the scale of an index market, even incremental adoption is significant. This will bring tokenization closer to the core of portfolio construction, rather than just digital asset exposure.
Tokenized equity accelerates beyond price exposure
Equity is a natural extension, but it requires the highest standards: clear enforceability, shareholder rights, compliant transfer control, and a credible market structure.
Progress will accelerate in 2025 with native tokenized equity models: equity will be issued directly on-chain, rather than represented by synthetic assets or wrappers. The key to unlocking this lies in a regulated ownership model with a single authoritative record of shareholders, keeping on-chain records synchronized with the bookkeeping system's holdings. Tokenized equity must behave like real equity, not just as a price exposure.
This structure relies on executable controls: authentication, allowable lists, transfer restrictions, escrow options, and a token standard that a regulated participant can build around. This also means accepting the operational reality: private key management remains part of the security model for choosing self-custodial holders.
Centrifuge's registration as a transfer agent with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission demonstrates a concrete example of this practice: equity remains within the scope of securities regulation while gaining the advantages of blockchain settlement and programmable compliance, and gradually supporting broader participation from global investors.
“More crypto project founders will achieve scale like traditional institutions by tokenizing equity (rather than just issuing tokens). This shift marks a move in the crypto industry from experimental governance to sustainable corporate structures. Caesar AI’s partnership with Centrifuge in 2025 set a precedent, and we expect more crypto-native founders to follow suit.”
— Anil Sood, Chief Strategy Officer and Chief Growth Officer, Centrifuge Labs
Distribution channels are becoming increasingly important
As tokenization matures, success will no longer depend solely on the issuance of assets, but more importantly on where those assets can circulate.
On-chain issuance is no longer the primary challenge. The issue lies in whether assets can integrate with existing liquidity pools, operate within environments where investors already hold positions, and maintain liquidity as scale increases. Cross-chain availability, composability, and reliable secondary markets are becoming fundamental requirements, rather than differentiating advantages.
The path is clear: bringing traditional assets into the programmable market, and expanding reach and improving capital formation if the infrastructure can support the compliance requirements, transfer rules, and reliable workflows tied to the underlying assets.
This is also an area of integration for tokenization technology stacks. Institutions don't want to build ten competing systems for identity verification, compliance, smart contracts, and settlement. They want to operate around a standardized framework. And they are increasingly inclined to buy rather than build their own.
“Institutions now view tokenization as a multi-trillion-dollar market, not a pilot project. In 2026, partnerships will shift to acquisitions, with banks, asset management firms, and exchanges moving to have critical, DeFi-native tokenization infrastructure rather than building it in-house.”
— Anil Sood, Chief Strategy Officer and Chief Growth Officer, Centrifuge Labs
Centrifuge's focus has remained consistent: a regulated distribution framework, audited components, and distribution models that allow RWAs to exist where there is existing demand.
Tokenization reaches critical scale
Over the past year, Centrifuge has bridged the gap between institutional requirements and on-chain capabilities. From 2026 onwards, asset managers will no longer be asking about tokenization. They will decide which products to launch first, on which chains to deploy, and which distribution channels to prioritize. The infrastructure is ready. Regulatory clarity is improving.
Their embrace of tokenization isn't driven by innovation. The real driving force lies in the existing market demand, the actions of competitors, the anticipation of investors, and the completion of the technological trajectory—continuing to avoid it would only hinder progress. The next wave of tokenization will require no further persuasion.
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