Money market funds (MMFs), government bond products, private credit and, more recently, stocks have all become symbolic as financial institutions and crypto companies expand their onchain offerings.
The next step is to use these assets as collateral in the credit markets and in decentralized finance (DeFi), according to Marcin Kaźmierczak, co-founder of blockchain oracle provider RedStone.
RedStone provides pricing data for DeFi applications. According to DeFiLlama, it is the third largest blockchain oracle by Total Value Secure (TVS), securing approximately $4.1 billion across 95 protocols.
“Currently, only a very small portion of these tokenized assets are used as collateral or as a programmable layer on top of the DeFi protocols,” Kaźmierczak said. Sand marking in an exclusive interview at the TokenizeThis 2026 conference in New York City.
The real value of tokenization
The comments come as tokenization continues to grow in both traditional finance and crypto. According to RWA.xyz, tokenized assets on public blockchains are now worth more than $31.5 billion, distributed among approximately 944,000 holders.
But Kaźmierczak argues that simply putting assets on-chain is not enough. “For example, if you just tokenize a money market fund, okay, it’s 24/7, it’s accessible worldwide,” he said. “You get the immediate settlement, but beyond that you don’t have much value.”
He said the real benefit of tokenization is that assets on a shared blockchain can become programmable, allowing developers to build financial apps around them instead of just using blockchain as a record-keeping system.
“The beauty of crypto is actually that you have one ledger that has all those assets on it, and you can add logic to that,” he added.
In recent months, companies like Coinbase, Robinhood and Kraken have launched tokenized stock products, while asset managers continue to bring money funds, government bonds and private credit onchain.
“I think last year was about stablecoins,” Kaźmierczak said. “A lot of this year has been about tokenization. I believe the rest of this year and 2027 will be about the usability of those assets.”
According to him, one of the biggest opportunities is providing loans. Instead of selling a tokenized stock or money market fund to raise cash, investors could ultimately use these assets as collateral to borrow against them, while retaining ownership.
He also believes the market has passed a turning point. “We have over $31 billion in tokenized assets,” he said. “The moment we crossed the $20 billion to $25 billion mark, you could already see it accelerating.”
A new challenge for DeFi
But the use of tokenized assets in DeFi also poses new challenges. Crypto markets stabilize almost immediately, but many traditional assets do not. Some tokenized funds and private credit products may still take a long time to be redeemed.
That becomes a problem when these assets are used as collateral in DeFi protocols, where positions are often immediately liquidated if borrowers fall below required levels.
Kaźmierczak said the industry will have to bridge that timing gap if tokenized assets are going to work smoothly in DeFi.
“Like [the] BRIGHTNESS [Act] When this is over, people are going to want to use these assets in a programmatic way,” he said. “This disconnect between immediate settlement and how traditional finance works is going to be one of the big topics.”
The CLARITY Act is a bipartisan bill that would create a regulatory framework for digital assets in the US and clarify whether crypto assets are regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) or the Commodity Futures Trade Commission (CFTC). The legislation passed the House in 2025 and now awaits consideration by the full Senate after approval by the Senate Banking Committee in May 2026.
Institutions do not ask if, but how
The shift also changes conversations with financial institutions. According to Kaźmierczak, companies have spent a lot of time researching blockchain technology over the past year. Currently, they are more focused on getting products to market quickly.
“We have had meetings with the London Stock Exchange, Invesco, Fidelity and Citi,” he said. “One thing is certain: they already have budgets and teams to do this kind of expansion.”
RedStone has also seen growing demand from traditional companies looking for pricing data, risk monitoring and other infrastructure needed to support tokenized assets.
“What we have noticed this year is that institutions are asking many more questions about security after recent hacks,” he says. “They are looking for guidance on best practices before interacting with onchain infrastructure.”
Last year, RedStone acquired onchain credit rating platform Credora, which monitors how the risk profile of tokenized assets and DeFi strategies changes over time. Some risks may include vulnerabilities in smart contracts, liquidity shortages, and changes in the quality of the collateral supporting tokenized assets.
Looking ahead
Kaźmierczak believes that the next phase of tokenization will largely depend on regulations in the US. He said clearer rules would encourage more financial institutions to move beyond experimenting with blockchain and launch more products.
He also expects that tokenized assets will play a much bigger role in DeFi in a year. “I think [that June 2027 headlines will read] that the percentage of tokenized assets used in DeFi has exceeded 50%,” he said. “Right now it’s probably around 2%.”
When asked if he was bullish or bearish on the current crypto landscape, Kaźmierczak said he was “bearish on silly applications and entry-level models that were prevalent at times in 2022 and 2023.”
However, he noted that he is “extremely optimistic” about getting financing right up the chain and leveraging some of the technologies we’ve already built. He pointed to companies like BlackRock, Fidelity and JPMorgan, all of which have invested in digital asset teams.
“When I talk to those big players, not only are they excited, but they are taking steps to move forward,” he said, adding that as long as they are around, it would be quite difficult for anything to fail.