Building on the success of its inaugural event, TOK26: The London Tokenisation Summit returned to London in January, bringing together policymakers, regulators, institutional investors and digital-finance innovators shaping the next phase of real-world asset (RWA) tokenisation. With senior voices from across the UK, Europe, the US, the Middle East and Asia, the Summit focused on how tokenisation is evolving from a promising concept into scalable, mainstream market infrastructure.
Among those in attendance was Simon Keefe, Managing Director and Head of Digital Solutions at Calastone, who joined a senior panel examining one of the industry’s most pressing questions: how tokenisation can overcome liquidity, standardisation and interoperability hurdles to deliver real economic value.
The panel, “Global State of RWA Tokenisation – Breakthroughs, Challenges & Opportunities,” was moderated by Joe Castelluccio, Partner and Co-Leader of the Fintech and Digital Assets Groups at Mayer Brown, and featured perspectives from BlackRock, State Street, UBS, Moody’s and Calastone. Together, the speakers explored where tokenisation is already working, where progress is stalling, and what must change for it to become “boring” – but essential – financial infrastructure.
Where tokenisation creates economic value
Early in the discussion, panellists emphasised the need to move beyond theory and focus on where tokenisation is delivering tangible benefits today. Nikhil Sharma of BlackRock framed tokenisation as the programmable representation of asset ownership, rules and metadata on a blockchain – enabling more efficient issuance, settlement and record-keeping by collapsing activity onto a single ledger.
Simon expanded on this, arguing that the real opportunity extends far beyond liquidity and distribution alone. From an asset-management perspective, he pointed to the inefficiencies embedded in today’s back-office infrastructure, where multiple books of record increase cost, operational risk and the capital required to launch new products.
“Even before you get to distribution, there is enormous value in rethinking how products are administered,” Simon explained. “Tokenisation and distributed ledger technology allow you to collapse that complexity, significantly lowering the cost and barriers to entry for asset managers.”
However, he also stressed that these efficiencies cannot be fully realised in isolation. Even a fully tokenised fund ultimately interacts with traditional markets when acquiring underlying assets, limiting end-to-end benefits until broader market infrastructure evolves in parallel.
Distribution as the near-term unlock
While full transformation will take time, the panel agreed that distribution is where tokenisation is already creating immediate impact. Simon highlighted growing momentum around enabling existing funds to be distributed into blockchain-native environments with minimal disruption to current operating models.
Rather than rebuilding asset-management infrastructure from scratch, firms can extend existing products into new digital channels, allowing investors to access regulated funds directly via wallets and on-chain platforms. From Calastone’s central position within the global fund ecosystem, this shift is already well underway.
“In 12 months’ time, tokenising funds won’t be a strategic debate – it will be table stakes,” Simon noted. “The focus will move to what additional utility those tokenised assets can unlock.”
From pilots to “boring” infrastructure
A recurring theme was the industry’s transition from pilots to scale. Angus Fletcher of State Street observed that while a subset of asset managers are pushing aggressively into areas such as tokenised money-market funds and digital collateral, the majority of the market remains in an education phase.
Scaling adoption will require not only technology, but also changes to operating models, data architectures and integration with existing back-office systems. Simon, however, suggested progress is further advanced than many realise, particularly in the US, where regulatory clarity and native on-chain issuance are accelerating.
He cautioned that prolonged reliance on regulatory sandboxes could leave some jurisdictions behind. “If the UK wants to remain competitive in the future financial-services ecosystem, it has to move now,” he said. “We can’t afford to spend the next several years experimenting while other markets scale.”
Regulation, collateral and interoperability
Cristiano Ventricelli of Moody’s brought a regulatory lens to the discussion, outlining progress in digital cash frameworks and the growing acceptance of tokenised assets as collateral, while also highlighting unresolved issues around ownership, settlement finality and legal certainty.
Simon agreed that regulatory alignment remains critical, but emphasised that meaningful progress does not require every challenge to be solved at once. In distribution, many use cases are already approaching “boring infrastructure” status – expected, standard capabilities rather than innovation projects.
Looking ahead, he identified collateral as the next major frontier. Broader acceptance of tokenised funds and securities as eligible collateral could unlock significant liquidity and balance-sheet efficiencies, particularly as tokenised deposits, stablecoins and money-market funds mature in parallel.
Looking ahead to 2026
As the session drew to a close, Simon looked ahead to what could define the market over the next year. He suggested tokenised money-market funds will become a standard feature of institutional finance, supporting both stablecoin ecosystems and liquidity management. Beyond that, he pointed to tokenised ETFs as the next major wave, with momentum already building.
“By this time next year, tokenised ETFs could be the big story,” he said.
Across the panel, there was broad agreement that 2026 will be a “show-me” year for tokenisation – one in which client demand, regulatory readiness and market structure must converge to demonstrate scalable, real-world benefits. If successful, tokenisation may finally fade into the background, not because it failed, but because it became embedded as part of the industry’s everyday infrastructure.
