In today’s newsletter, Nick Ducoff, director of institutional development at the Solana Foundation, compared tokenization’s ability to democratize investment access to how the Internet facilitated banking fifteen years ago.
Then, in Ask the Expert, the CoinDesk research team answers questions about stablecoins and tokenization trends in the February 2026 Stablecoins and Tokenized Assets Report. Read the full report here.
– Sarah Morton
Internet capital markets: from “non-brokerage” to universal investment
Fifteen years ago, more than 60 million Americans were “unbanked,” excluded from basic financial services because traditional banks found these services unprofitable. Later, Chime, Revolut and other fintech pioneers brought banking to smartphones, removing legacy barriers such as minimum balances and fines. Today, we face an even greater problem of exclusion: billions of people are effectively “brokerless,” without access to capital markets and investment opportunities that build intergenerational wealth.
Enter Internet Capital Markets: a global, always-on infrastructure where assets are inherently digital, mobile-first transactions are available 24/7 to anyone with a smartphone. With the help of blockchain technology, Internet capital markets will play a role in the investment field just as fintech did for the banking industry. And the opportunities are huge.
The scale of financial exclusion
“Non-brokers” include two distinct but overlapping groups of people: those without brokerage accounts at all, and international investors who lack effective access to high-quality U.S. dollar-denominated assets. Taking Pakistan as an example, Bilal Bin Saqib, chairman of the Pakistan Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (PVARA) and CEO of the Pakistan Cryptocurrency Council, said that only 300,000 people in the country hold brokerage accounts, while 40 million people have cryptocurrency wallets. The infrastructure is there, but financial products remain difficult to access.
International investors often pay hefty premiums even to access U.S. markets through local brokers, not to mention the hefty minimums and investor accreditation required in private markets. These products are not available to the global middle class – they are designed to serve the already wealthy.
Tokenization widens the playing field
Blockchain tokenization changes these dynamics by enabling fractional ownership, eliminating intermediary costs, and enabling 24/7 operations with instant settlement. The result: significantly reduced minimum and global accessibility. Take Hamilton Lane, a leading alternative asset manager. Through Republic Crypto, investors can now access Hamilton Lane private markets for as little as $500. Compared with the minimum threshold of traditional private equity funds, this means that the entry barrier is reduced by a thousand times, which also shows that the Internet’s native market infrastructure can ultimately make some access easier.
The recent BitGo IPO also showed the democratizing potential of tokenization. When BitGo is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, tokenized representations of BitGo shares will be simultaneously tradeable on Solana, allowing anyone around the world with a Solana wallet to purchase BitGo shares immediately. This move toward real-time, global accessibility is now being validated by the world’s largest asset managers: BlackRock and Franklin Templeton have launched tokenized money market funds on public blockchains, enabling 24/7 liquidity and transparency.
Why this infrastructure is important
Tokenization expands access rather than competing with traditional markets. The blockchain operates continuously, allowing investors in Jakarta, Sao Paulo or Lagos to buy assets as soon as they become available, rather than when the local market is open. Settlement occurs immediately against stablecoins, eliminating the multi-day clearing process and currency conversion fees that have hindered retail investors outside the United States.
Speed and cost matter. High-performance blockchains like Solana, as well as layer 2 scaling solutions on Ethereum, can process thousands of transactions per second for less than a penny, making the economics of fractional ownership really come into play. This is the basis for “universal fundamental ownership,” where anyone with a mobile phone can now participate in the growth of the global economy, even in asset classes like pre-IPO equities and private credit that were once tightly guarded by institutions and the super-rich.
Advisor Advantages: Strategy and Accessibility
For financial advisors, this shift represents a strategic exposure. Accessibility is now streamlined through regulated vehicles such as spot Solana ETFs (e.g. SOEZ, QSOL, BSOL) and European ETPs, as well as user-friendly digital custody tools such as Phantom or Ledger wallets. Advisors can now offer complex, diversified portfolios to a broader client base with transaction costs below cents. This infrastructure lowers the “cost of service” and allows middle-class “mom and pop” investors to access institutional-grade diversified investments through their financial advisors.
From non-brokerage to universal investing
The fintech wave of the 2010s proved that financial exclusion is a design problem. Tokenization represents the next chapter in this story. South Korean software developers should not face barriers to investing in U.S. stocks or earning returns on private credit. Small business owners in Argentina shouldn’t have to pay a premium for the same stocks that U.S. investors are buying cheaply. Sophisticated investment strategies should not stop at wealth management channels that serve the top 1%.
The technical track has been built and the regulatory path is becoming increasingly clear. All that remains is to scale up this infrastructure and ensure it serves its highest purpose, which is to provide wealth-creation opportunities to the billions of people currently locked down. While the work of banking the unbanked is far from complete, it provides a blueprint for what we’re about to see: transforming the unbanked into universally invested people.
-Nick Ducoff, Director of Institutional Development, Solana Foundation
Ask the experts
Q: What is a stablecoin? Why are they important?
A stablecoin is a digital currency designed to maintain stability stable value. This is typically accomplished by “pegging” stablecoins to traditional assets such as the U.S. dollar. Unlike other cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin or Ethereum, which can experience large price fluctuations, stablecoins are designed to allow users to hold or trade digital assets without being affected by price fluctuations. Other use cases for stablecoins include serving as a primary trading pair, cross-border payments, decentralized finance (DeFi) lending, and inflation hedging. The GENIUS Act (The Guiding and Establishing National Innovation Act for U.S. Stablecoins), enacted in July 2025, creates a comprehensive federal regulatory framework for U.S. dollar-backed payment stablecoins.
Q: What is the current stablecoin landscape?
After 25 consecutive months of gains, the growth of total stablecoin market capitalization has slowed over the past four months, but is still hovering near an all-time high of $310 billion. CoinDesk’s latest research report shows that as digital asset prices generally fall, the market dominance of stablecoins has increased significantly. Stablecoin market dominance surged to 13.3% in February (from 11.2% in January), driven by declining digital asset price trends. Tether’s USDT continues to lead the industry with 59.1% market share, while Circle’s USDC ranks second with 24.6% market share.
Q: What is the current appeal of tokenized assets? How fast is the market for real-world tokenized assets growing?
Tokenized real-world assets continue to gain meaningful traction in global financial markets, with total tokenized market capitalization reaching an all-time high of $23.4 billion by the end of February. This is a 22.9% month-on-month increase from $19 billion in January, highlighting the accelerating pace of adoption across multiple asset classes. Much of this growth was driven by tokenized Treasuries, which grew 15.1% to $10.5 billion and now account for approximately 45% of the entire tokenized market. At the same time, tokenized commodities have become the main secondary growth engine, soaring 27% to US$6.6 billion, accounting for 28.4% of the market share. Other segments are also developing steadily. As of the end of February, the equity and ETF space reached $804.7 million, growing 3.1% monthly, and maintained a 3.4% share of the overall tokenization ecosystem.
-Jacob Joseph, Research Specialist, CoinDesk