The tokenised real-world asset (RWA) market could grow more than 300-fold from current levels within the next 5 years and establish itself as core infrastructure for global capital markets, an outlook said. As traditional financial institutions speed up blockchain-based securities issuance and build settlement systems, tokenisation is spreading beyond the experimental stage into real financial markets, the analysis said.

On June 1 (local time), blockchain media outlet Cryptopolitan reported that Citi, in a recent report titled "Tokenisation 2030: Onchain Wall Street", projected the tokenised asset market could expand from about $17 billion now to $5.5 trillion by 2030.

Citi cited full-scale participation by traditional financial institutions as a driver of that growth. It focused in particular on moves by the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), a core piece of U.S. financial market infrastructure. DTCC announced it plans to support initial issuance and trading of tokenised securities from July 2026 and launch a full service in October that year. More than 50 financial and digital asset firms are participating in the project, including BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, Circle, Ondo Finance and Robinhood.

Major U.S. exchanges have also joined the race to tokenise. Nasdaq is pushing to build a blockchain-based stock issuance system. Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), which operates the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), is also working on a stock tokenisation project. The industry interprets these moves as a sign that tokenisation is no longer stuck at the proof-of-concept stage and is taking hold as real market infrastructure.

Nadine Chakar (나딘 차카르), DTCC's global head of digital assets, said at the Consensus 2026 event in May, "The industry has already moved beyond the stage of discussing the potential for tokenisation," adding, "Tokens are moving onchain in live operating environments."

Citi pointed in particular to stablecoins as a key driver of the expansion of tokenisation. Citi expects the stablecoin market to reach $1.9 trillion by 2030. Given the structure in which stablecoin issuers hold U.S. Treasuries as reserve assets, the expansion of that market alone could create as much as $1 trillion in new onchain demand for Treasuries, it calculated.

That structure is also directly linked to the crypto market. The more U.S. Treasury-backed stablecoins circulate, the greater the liquidity that can flow through onchain exchanges and payment networks. Citi said the combination of traditional finance and digital finance is likely to push up growth in the tokenisation market.

It said tokenisation is more likely to expand mainly in public assets than in unlisted private assets. Citi projected that by 2030, as much as 10 percent of U.S. short-term Treasuries and 3 percent of all listed stocks could be tokenised. It also estimated that even if only 10 percent of U.S. retail investors move to digital trading platforms, demand for tokenised stocks could reach $2.6 trillion.

That also ties into competition among blockchain networks seeking to attract institutional funds. An analysis by Cornell University's Emerging Markets Canizares Center said tokenised stocks could become a channel for investors in emerging markets to access U.S. markets by bypassing capital controls or the burden of high brokerage fees.

Citi said that for the time being, traditional financial systems and digital financial systems are likely to operate in parallel. In such an environment, large institutions that control both real-world assets and digital payment networks are likely to have a structural advantage. The key point to watch is that the expansion of the tokenisation market could go beyond simple product launches and lead to a reorganisation of capital market infrastructure and liquidity flows.