Larry Fink chose his words carefully in his 2026 annual chairman’s letter. The BlackRock CEO compared tokenization to the internet in 1996, not 2001, not 2010. He picked the year when the infrastructure was being laid, before most people understood what was being built.
Fink wrote that tokenization sits at that same early stage today. Traditional institutions and digital innovators are constructing a bridge between legacy systems and onchain markets. Policy, he argued, needs to move alongside the technology to set counterparty standards, protect buyers, and manage risk.
BlackRock is not making this argument from the sidelines. The firm manages nearly $150 billion in AUM connected to digital assets. That figure includes $65 billion in stablecoin reserves, nearly $80 billion in digital asset ETPs, and the world’s largest tokenized treasury fund. Fink also called for tokenization to run on a single common blockchain. He framed this as a matter of market infrastructure, not speculation.
At the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2026, Fink went further. He said tokenization was “necessary, not optional” and ranked it ahead of interest rates and inflation as a structural priority. That framing signals a shift in how one of the world’s most influential investors is reading the moment.
The interesting part is that the rest of the financial system appears to agree.
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink talks tokenization in annual letter to investors – says crypto is like the internet in 1996. pic.twitter.com/F97KmlO7qN
— Altcoin Daily (@AltcoinDaily) March 23, 2026
The Exchange Layer Is Already Moving
Two of the world’s most important stock exchanges are building tokenized trading venues right now. Their timelines are not theoretical. They have regulatory approval or are actively seeking it.
On March 18, 2026, the SEC approved Nasdaq’s proposal to allow tokenized securities trading. Nasdaq submitted that application in September 2025. The exchange plans to launch tokenized trading with settlement and clearing on a permissioned blockchain run by DTC. Publicly listed companies could issue blockchain-based shares directly through the framework. Notably, Nasdaq partnered with crypto exchange Kraken to distribute tokenized stocks globally.
The New York Stock Exchange is not waiting to see how Nasdaq’s rollout goes. NYSE, operated by Intercontinental Exchange, announced in January 2026 that it is building a platform for trading and on-chain settlement of tokenized securities with 24/7 operations and instant settlement. The platform combines NYSE’s Pillar matching engine with blockchain-based post-trade systems. ICE is partnering with BNY and Citi to support tokenized deposits, allowing clearing members to move money outside traditional banking hours. A tokenized equity Alternative Trading System is targeting launch as early as Q2 2026.
Kraken’s xStocks platform has been running since June 2025. The exchange now offers 100 tokenized U.S. stocks and ETFs, each backed 1:1 via SPL token on-chain. The platform has surpassed $25 billion in total transaction volume and is targeting 500 listings by end of 2026. In March 2026, Kraken introduced the world’s first tokenized equity perpetual futures contracts, giving traders 24/7 leveraged exposure to major U.S. equities, indices, and gold.
Together, these three moves represent something significant. Stock exchanges, not just crypto startups, are rebuilding equity markets on blockchain rails.
The Financial Plumbing Is Being Rewired
The less visible but more consequential shift is happening at the infrastructure level. The institutions that clear, settle, and move money through the global financial system are integrating tokenization into their core operations.
The DTCC, which clears the overwhelming majority of U.S. securities transactions, received a no-action letter from the SEC on December 11, 2025. That letter authorized DTCC to offer a pilot tokenization service covering Russell 1000 constituents, U.S. Treasuries, and S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 ETFs. A minimum viable product is targeted for H1 2026 with a full pilot launch in H2 2026. DTCC also partnered with Digital Asset to tokenize DTC-custodied U.S. Treasury securities on the Canton Network, a privacy-focused blockchain it co-chairs alongside Euroclear.
SWIFT updated its production infrastructure in November 2025 to enable on-chain event triggering via SWIFT messages. Banks can now orchestrate tokenized asset redemptions through the same system they use for traditional payments. In December 2025, SWIFT, Ant International, and HSBC tested cross-border transfers using tokenized deposits. In January 2026, BNP Paribas Securities, Intesa Sanpaolo, and Societe Generale completed a digital asset interoperability trial for seamless tokenized bond exchange and settlement.
JPMorgan’s Kinexys platform, formerly known as Onyx, has processed over $1.5 trillion in notional value since inception and now handles more than $2 billion daily. Payments transactions grew 10x year-over-year. In 2025, JPMorgan linked its payments engine to Base, an Ethereum Layer 2 blockchain, and arranged a commercial paper issuance on Solana. The bank is also preparing to launch its first tokenized money market fund.
These are not experiments. They are operating systems for money, being rebuilt piece by piece.
Asset Managers Are Already Live
While exchanges and infrastructure providers build the rails, asset managers are already running trains on them. Several of the largest fund companies in the world have launched tokenized products and are growing them.
BlackRock’s tokenized treasury fund is the largest of its kind globally. Franklin Templeton’s OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund, FOBXX, launched in 2021 and now holds roughly $594 million in assets across Ethereum, Base, Aptos, Avalanche, Stellar, and Solana. Franklin Templeton also launched a blockchain-based money market fund in Hong Kong in partnership with HSBC and OSL, targeting professional investors.
Fidelity launched its Digital Interest Token, FDIT, on Ethereum in September 2025. The fund holds 100% U.S. Treasury securities and cash, with custody handled by Bank of New York Mellon. AUM exceeded $300 million by mid-2025. Goldman Sachs and BNY Mellon partnered in July 2025 to enable blockchain-powered money market fund subscriptions, the first such arrangement in U.S. history. BlackRock, Fidelity, Federated Hermes, and Goldman’s own asset management arm all signed on.
Goldman is also preparing to spin out its Digital Asset Platform as a standalone company by mid-2026. The platform would create a distributed ecosystem designed for interoperability across tokenized financial products.
The pattern across these firms is consistent. Tokenization starts with money market funds and treasuries, the most liquid and least complex assets, then expands outward. Each launch makes the next one easier to justify.
The Market Is Already $29 Billion and Accelerating
The RWA tokenization market, meaning real-world assets recorded on blockchain, has grown from roughly $5 billion in 2022 to more than $29 billion by late 2025. That is a 480% increase in three years, driven by 274 active issuers and more than 385,000 asset holders. Tokenized U.S. Treasuries alone tripled in the past year to $7.5 billion.
The projections ahead of this baseline are substantial. Standard Chartered estimates the tokenized asset market could reach $30 trillion by 2034. Conservative estimates for 2026 alone range from $100 billion to $150 billion. More aggressive scenarios, assuming accelerating wealth management adoption, push that figure toward $300 billion.
For context, the global equity market is worth approximately $126 trillion. Nasdaq’s SEC approval and NYSE’s 24/7 platform are aimed at that pool of assets, not just a narrow slice of government bonds. More than 50% of surveyed financial firms expect to actively manage live tokenized collateral by end of 2026.
These numbers do not prove that finance is about to be transformed. They do show that the foundation is being built, with real capital, real regulatory approvals, and real infrastructure.
What 1996 Actually Looked Like
In 1996, most businesses did not have websites. E-commerce was not yet a mainstream concept. The companies that recognized what the internet would eventually enable did not need to see the finished product. They just needed to see the direction.
Fink’s comparison works because the current moment shares that same structural feature. The technology exists. The regulatory framework is forming. Major institutions are committing capital and engineering resources. Settlement times are moving from days to minutes. Fractional ownership is becoming practical at scale. Assets that previously required intermediaries, minimum investments, and business-hours-only access are starting to move differently.
The open question is not whether tokenization will change finance. The infrastructure makes that outcome increasingly likely. The question is which institutions build leadership positions in the next few years and which ones replicate the pattern of companies that underestimated the internet and had to catch up later.
Fink made his bet clear in his letter. So did Nasdaq, NYSE, DTCC, JPMorgan, Goldman, Fidelity, Franklin Templeton, and SWIFT. The coordinated nature of that movement is arguably the strongest signal that 1996 is the right frame.
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