What are the drivers, opportunities and challenges with asset management tokenization?

CNBC recently reported that OnePay Cash , majority owned by Walmart and fully integrated with Walmart’s digital and physical channels, is launching crypto trading and custody via partnership with Zerohash, a crypto infrastructure firm. And that users will be able to pay using crypto at Walmart. This move isn’t about speculation. It signals a broader transformation where consumer fintechs and large retailers are merging into a single ecosystem: one that blends commerce, bankin

How does tokenization gain institutional legitimacy?

Citi Institute published its annual stablecoin report. It has done such a great job at articulating the digital money revolution, I am going to dedicate this Weekly Research note to unpacking and contextualizing its top 3 takeaways. Instead of reading all 54 pages, here’s 3 key highlights distilled into 3 mins for you: Stablecoins may be especially useful for digital-native firms, retail users, and frontier markets. For developed markets where instant payments already exist,

Tokenized money market funds (MMFs) are reshaping global finance. With 7,000%+ growth since 2023, they are the fastest growing tokenized asset class. But here’s the catch: the majority of the money invested are from crypto-native investors instead of institutional investors. So what will unlock institutional capital at scale? 👇  Archax  is pointing the way with its tokenized Aberdeen Liquidity Fund (AAULF):   Fully regulated (product, issuer & distribution platform) AAA-rate

Welcome to Part 2 of the Why Tokenized Deposits Are a MUST for Every Bank  series. Stablecoins have proven to be  a powerful digital innovation for cross-border payments , especially in emerging market corridors where banking and payment infrastructure is underdeveloped. But they also pose a serious risk to traditional banking. The U.S. Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee has warned that as much as $6.6 trillion or around 40% of U.S. retail deposits could migrate into stabl

Stablecoin could pull $6.6T deposit out of the banking system. This is an extinction level threat. Time for banks to get competitive. Here is how.

While the headline out of Washington last week was the SEC’s SuperApp policy framework , the quiet story that flew under the radar was Circle President Heath Tarbert’s visit to Korea - meeting with the central bank governor, the country’s largest banks, and top exchanges. Why does this matter? I’ve been saying for some time: the future of stablecoins is multi-currency. With Korea’s Digital Assets Basic Acts (DABA), a regulatory framework equivalent to the U.S. GENIUS Act, nea

Circle, the largest regulated USD stablecoin issuer, posted blockbuster Q2 2025 results last week: USDC supply: +90% YoY Revenue: +53% YoY Adjusted EBITDA: +52% YoY Launching Arc, a payment-focused and privacy-enabled Layer-1 blockchain But buried beneath the headlines is the real strategic move of the quarter: the launch of the Circle Payments Network (CPN) . CPN is Circle’s global regulated stablecoin clearing solution . It combines: Cross-border orchestration with cross-ch

Last week we broke down 4 (Coinbase, Robinhood, Block and CME Group) of the top 8 US public companies with significant digital asset revenue in the exchange business and the powerful underlying business growth trend.  This week, we shift the spotlight to the other 4 leaders driving revenue through Stablecoins, Asset Management, and Bitcoin Treasury  strategies. Here’s what we’ll unpack: How big are they? What trends are driving growth? Who’s likely to join them next? Let’s d

With President Trump signing the GENIUS Act into law, many are celebrating a new era for crypto. But here's the real question: what kind of digital assets are truly mainstream today? Here is a powerful signal. Block (formerly Square) is added to the S&P 500, replacing Hess Corp, an oil & gas giant.   That is a metaphor for our time: the world used to run on physical oil. Now it runs on digital rails. And Block is in the business of digital asset exchange facilitation and Bitc

According to projections from Standard Chartered, BCG, and others, the stablecoin market is on track to reach $1T–$3T  in the next five years. That’s $750B–$2.75T  in fresh USD inflow waiting to be onboarded from fiat into stablecoins.  Now ask yourself: What’s a great business to be in when that much money wants to move onchain? One that takes a 2% fee  on every transaction across that flow. Welcome to the onramp game. It’s no surprise then that fiat onramps have already bir

Tokenized Stocks: Hype Train or Here to Stay?

“Faster and cheaper than SWIFT” - that’s the tagline often used to champion stablecoins in cross-border payments. But it's the wrong comparison. Nearly 55% of SWIFT’s volume  comes from high-value interbank settlements , not the kind of low-value, high-frequency transactions that power global commerce for SMEs and consumers. SWIFT was built in the post-WWII era to connect banks across major trade corridors, such as the US, UK, Europe, and Asia, facilitating booming cross-bord

Where you can or can't issue a regulatory compliant stablecoin from?

Stablecoin news is non-stop, from corporate experiments to regulatory debates. But if you're building a real business  around stablecoins, how do you cut through the noise and zero in on signals that drive customers and revenue ? In a previous piece, I wrote that stablecoin  payment use cases are concentrated in cross border money movement . But that’s still a broad category. So here’s the real question: How do you narrow it down to addressable customers  with urgent problems

Stablecoins are the hottest trend in fintech and for good reason. The headline numbers are staggering: Market size exploded from <$10B to $239B in just five years 30M+ monthly active wallets are now sending or receiving stablecoins Transaction volume ranges from $5T to $26T annually, depending on methodology But here’s the key question I’ve always asked: How much of that volume actually comes from real payments use cases (B2B, B2C, P2P, Card) instead of trading and exchange a

As more asset managers, financial institutions, and payment firms launch their digital asset products, speed to market is a vital competitive advantage. Being able to find and reach customers becomes the single most important factor in determining a product’s success or failure. I wrote about how to think about this challenge from a geographic perspective  before. But it is increasingly clear to me that many teams don’t actually know where their users or capital pools are; le

“The future is multichain” is now a well-worn axiom in digital assets. Yet it is also accepted that the bulk of the onchain activities will take place on a very few number of chains. These chains will form the economic hubs of the new financial system.   And whoever controls the operation of these chains? They’re positioned to capture massive revenue and strategic control. So if you're a financial institution or major corporate shaping your tokenization strategy, the question

It’s often said that stablecoins offer a cheaper, faster, and more accessible way to move value. But to truly grasp their disruptive potential, it’s critical to understand what stablecoins are designed to disrupt and equally importantly what they aren’t . Take the headlines: in 2024, stablecoins reportedly settled $27.6 trillion, eclipsing Visa and Mastercard combined. But that figure is misleading. Up to  70% of that volume  is inflated by bot activity. The organic number is