HONG KONG — Tokenization is gaining traction, but its success depends more on real-world utility than market hype, executives at Ondo Finance and Securitize say.
“There is no shortage of companies, issuers, companies that are interested in tokenization,” Graham Ferguson, head of ecosystem at Securitize, said during a panel discussion at Consensus Hong Kong. “But it’s our responsibility to figure out how to distribute these assets on-chain through exchanges in a way that is compliant and conducive to global regulation.”
Ferguson stressed that despite strong institutional interest, distribution and compliance remain bottlenecks. “The biggest issue we have is communicating with exchanges and DeFi protocols about the requirements necessary to comply with our obligations as a regulated entity,” he said.
Securitize has partnered with companies like BlackRock to tokenize real-world assets, including U.S. Treasury funds. BlackRock’s BUIDL fund, which launched in 2024, currently holds more than $2.2 billion in assets, making it the largest tokenized Treasury fund on the market.
Ondo Finance also focuses on tokenized Treasury bonds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs), with a total value locked (TVL) of approximately $2 billion, according to rwa.xzy. Min Lin, Ondo’s managing director of global expansion, said today’s tokenized treasury bonds are only a small part of the potential market.
Both speakers emphasized that the next phase of tokenization will be driven by what users can actually do with the tokenized assets. Lin said Ondo recently enabled tokenized stocks and ETFs as margin collateral for DeFi perpetual contracts for the first time.
“This brings greater capital efficiency in terms of the utility of these tokenized assets,” he added.
Ferguson agrees, arguing that technology advantages such as programmable compliance and fast settlements are not enough on their own. “Practicality definitely comes first,” he said. “This will drive the next phase of development.”
