The institutional push to bring real-world assets onto blockchains is accelerating, shifting focus from U.S. Treasuries to the $110 trillion global equity market. Speaking at an ETHConf panel on Tuesday, Securitize CEO Carlos Domingo detailed these market projections, stating that tokenized public stocks and exchange-traded funds will ultimately drive the sector toward a $5 trillion valuation.
The global tokenization market, excluding stablecoins, recently surpassed $17 billion following a three-fold expansion over the past year. Domingo emphasized that public equities, rather than private credit or Treasury products, offer the volume needed to unlock the next phase of institutional crypto adoption.
Traditional financial institutions are actively building infrastructure for these digital assets. Firms including BlackRock, Hamilton Lane, and the New York Stock Exchange are backing tokenization initiatives. The broader industry consensus aligns with Domingo’s timeline, mirroring Citi Institute projections that the sector could hit $5.5 trillion by the end of the decade.
Securitize is simultaneously rolling out capabilities to support this expansion. The company recently collaborated with Jump Trading Group and Jupiter to launch regulated secondary market trading for tokenized equities on the Solana network. This setup allows 24-hour trading, immediate programmable settlement, and fractional ownership for traditional stocks.
How Tokenized Public Stocks Alter Institutional Trading
The transition from tokenized money market funds to public equities changes how financial institutions utilize blockchain infrastructure. Early real-world asset digitization focused heavily on safe-yield products like BlackRock’s BUIDL fund to test smart contract capabilities in a low-risk environment.
By targeting the broader equity market, these firms are now testing the capacity of public networks like Solana to handle high-frequency, complex trading volume. BlackRock CEO Larry Fink explicitly compared this current developmental stage of tokenization to the early days of the internet in 1996, indicating that traditional finance institutions anticipate a long-term adoption curve rather than a short-term liquidity event.