TL;DR:
- Fidelity International’s Giselle Lai says tokenization’s strongest long-term value for pension funds and large institutions is balance-sheet management, not just 24/7 liquidity.
- Tokenized instruments can help global organizations move cash across accounts and jurisdictions, earn around-the-clock yield and manage fragmented liquidity more efficiently.
- Tokenized money market funds exceed $15 billion in assets, while broader onchain RWAs excluding stablecoins have surpassed $31 billion already in current institutional markets.
Fidelity International’s Giselle Lai is pushing the tokenization conversation away from its favorite headline: 24/7 liquidity. Speaking at the WebX conference in Tokyo, Lai said the more compelling long-term use case for tokenized funds may be balance-sheet management for large global institutions, including pension funds, insurers and companies. The point is deceptively simple. Global organizations hold cash across multiple bank accounts to meet regulation, currency exposure and demand, often without earning returns. Tokenization’s bigger promise is operational control, not just faster trading for allocators managing fragmented liquidity across jurisdictions.
That framing matters because many institutions are not asking for tokens for their own sake. Lai said they are asking what tokens can do better than existing wrappers. Tokenized instruments can move efficiently, earn yield around the clock and integrate with wider liquidity needs. For corporate treasuries and pension-style allocators, that can make cash deployment smoother and more capital-efficient without forcing a sudden overhaul of investment strategy. The real pitch is faster and cheaper asset management, using tokenized funds as balance-sheet tools rather than speculative wrappers.
Tokenized funds shift from trading novelty to treasury utility
The market already has working examples, though mostly in investment form. Tokenized money market funds, generally backed by U.S. Treasuries, have gained the fastest traction among stablecoin issuers, treasuries and platforms needing always-on yield and collateral mobility. BlackRock’s BUIDL fund, launched in March 2024, remains the largest in the category. Tokenized money market funds now hold more than $15 billion in assets under management, while the broader onchain real-world asset market excluding stablecoins has surpassed $31 billion. The strongest adoption is happening where utility is obvious, especially around cash-like instruments and collateral.
The larger estimates are more ambitious. The global asset tokenization market is valued around $2.1 trillion when alternative investments and tokenized financial infrastructure are included. Grand View Research projects the sector could reach $24.5 trillion by 2033, while some industry estimates go as high as $88 trillion by 2035. Lai cautioned that maturity will take time, comparing tokenization’s evolution to the ETF industry, which needed nearly 20 years to build a comprehensive ecosystem. The pension-fund opportunity is therefore long-cycle, built less on instant liquidity slogans and more on decades of plumbing, standards and institutional trust for large institutions that cannot rebuild balance sheets around untested market infrastructure overnight under global regulatory pressure alone.
