Tokenization will transform the financial industry faster than legacy media that have been disrupted by digital technology, such as printed newspapers, physical copies of music and other analog formats, according to Keith Grossman, president of crypto payment company MoonPay.
“While many feared that digitization would destroy the media, what it has actually done is force its evolution,” Grossman he saidadding that real-world asset tokenization (RWA), the process of representing traditional assets on-chain, will force traditional institutions to adapt. He added:
“This is no longer hypothetical. BlackRock offers tokenized assets. Franklin Templeton manages tokenized money market funds on public blockchains. Major global banks are piloting onchain settlement, tokenized deposits and real-time asset movements.”
Financial companies like Citi, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and others will continue to exist in a different form, Grossman said, much as media companies continued to exist after the shift to digital distribution in the late 1990s and early 2000s, which disrupted business models that had worked for decades.
Ultimately, the survivors and winners of the ongoing transition to tokenized finance will be those companies that get ahead of the change, not those that try to stop the inevitable transition to a blockchain-powered global financial system, he said.
Related: Wall Street’s $4 Quadrillion Backbone to Introduce Tokenized US Treasuries
Why tokenized assets can change the game
Real-world asset tokenization has several benefits, including enabling 24/7 access to markets, creating asset classes of global scale, lower transaction costs through disintermediation, and reducing settlement times to minutes instead of days.
In September, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) issued a joint statement on the creation of a regulatory framework for enabling the capital market 24/7.
A financial system moving to 24/7 trading represents a major departure from the way traditional markets, which close at night, on weekends and on holidays, currently operate.
In December, the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC), a settlement and clearing company that handled approximately $3.7 quadrillion in settlement volume in 2024, received SEC approval to begin offering tokenized financial instruments.
DTCC plans to introduce tokenized assets in the second half of 2026, starting with US government bonds and equity indices.
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