Matt Hougan: Tokenisation – Wall Street’s Next Trillion-Dollar Revolution
- Tokenisation has moved from concept to reality, with real-world adoption accelerating across crypto and traditional finance.
- The potential market size – US$257 trillion (AU$392.39 trillion) in tokenisable stocks and bonds – positions it as a narrative that could reshape crypto valuation models.
- Hougan believes tokenisation could begin influencing Layer 1 token prices sooner than expected, possibly outpacing even Bitcoin’s market impact.
Tokenisation is no longer a hypothetical use case. According to Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan, the transformation of real-world assets like stocks and bonds into blockchain-based instruments is already underway – and the impact on crypto valuations may arrive much sooner than anticipated.
Over the past month, momentum has surged. Robinhood launched a tokenised equities platform on Arbitrum, and Kraken followed with xStocks on Solana. Both are currently available to non-US users, while Coinbase has submitted regulatory filings in a bid to expand tokenised stock trading to the US market.
At the institutional level, the new Canton Network – a blockchain purpose-built for asset tokenisation – has raised US$135 million (AU$205.12 million) from firms including DRW Capital, Tradeweb, Citadel, and Goldman Sachs.
Related: SEC’s Hester Peirce: “Tokenisation Isn’t Magic—Tokenised Shares Remain Securities”
Why Tokenisation Matters
Hougan argues that the scale of this shift is massive. Traditional stocks account for US$117 trillion (AU$178.5 trillion) in equities and US$140 trillion (AU$213.8 trillion) in bonds. Combined, that’s a US$257 trillion (AU$392.39 trillion) tokenisation opportunity – far beyond the stablecoin market, which some analysts believe may hit US$2 trillion (AU$3.05 trillion) by 2030.
Even if just 1–5% of these assets move on-chain in the near term, the value flow would be in the trillions. Hougan says that could easily surpass every other crypto use case – including Bitcoin.
To capitalise, he recommends a diversified portfolio of Layer 1 blockchains and infrastructure tokens like Ethereum, Solana, Chainlink and XRP, alongside fintech stocks such as Coinbase, Robinhood and Circle.
As BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said in his recent shareholder letter: “Every stock, every bond, every fund – every asset – can be tokenised.” For Hougan, that future is rapidly becoming reality.
