Tokenization: the plumbing upgrade I think gets very big.

Watch: Why tokenization is the biggest story of 2026

The companion video covers the same ground in about 9½ minutes, with short clips from Vlad Tenev, Larry Fink, Brian Armstrong and Tom Lee.

1. What tokenization is

Tokenization means recording ownership of an asset (a Treasury bill, a share of stock, a fund, a bond) as a token on a blockchain. The asset is still the asset. What changes is the record-keeping: one shared, programmable ledger instead of a chain of separate databases that have to be reconciled.

Most of it today is regulated products issued by regulated firms: tokenized Treasury funds like BlackRock’s BUIDL, stablecoins as the cash side, and, more recently, tokenized stocks.

2. Why now: DTCC and Canton bring the big players onboard

DTCC is the plumbing behind the U.S. securities market: its depository, DTC, holds about $114 trillion in securities. The Canton Network is a blockchain built by Digital Asset for regulated finance, with privacy by default. When the plumbing itself moves, the rest of the market follows. The timeline:

Canton Foundation members include DTCC, Goldman Sachs, BNY, BNP Paribas, HSBC, Euroclear, Broadridge and Tradeweb. (Canton Foundation)

3. Larry Fink, in writing

A year later, in his 2026 Chairman’s Letter, he went further, repeating a line he co-wrote with BlackRock’s Rob Goldstein: “we believe that tokenization today may be roughly where the internet was in 1996.” And BlackRock is building, not just talking: its tokenized Treasury fund BUIDL held about $2.20 billion on Oct 13, 2026. (rwa.xyz)

4. Scale today vs. the potential

Tokenized assets roughly doubled in about nine months, yet they are still about 0.03% of what DTC alone holds. That is what “early on the S-curve” looks like: small base, steep slope, big potential pool. Technologies like the internet and smartphones followed that S-shape in U.S. households. (Our World in Data)

Market figures change daily. Different trackers measure differently; numbers here use rwa.xyz “distributed asset value” unless noted.

5. My 5–10 year outlook

This is my opinion, written down on Oct 12, 2026 so I can be held to it. It is about adoption, not about the price of any token or stock.

• Next 1–3 years: the plumbing goes live. DTCC’s service, tokenized Treasuries and money market funds used as collateral, and bank deposit tokens become normal back-office tools for large institutions.
• 3–5 years: tokenized stocks and ETFs become a regular way to hold and move securities, with longer trading hours and near-instant settlement in more markets.
• 5–10 years and beyond: I think a meaningful share of the world’s financial assets is recorded on blockchain rails, and most people use it without calling it “crypto,” the way people use the internet without thinking about TCP/IP.

Not financial advice.