Multinational banking services company Standard Chartered has predicted that tokenized assets in public networks could reach $4 trillion by the end of 2028, driven by the growth of stablecoins and real assets (RWA).
This estimate was presented in a private report published on May 18, 2026 by Jeffrey Kendrick, the bank’s global head of digital asset research, who said that DeFi platforms Could become major infrastructure To manage that amount of capital.
prognosis Divide the market into two segments of equal size. USD 2 trillion in stablecoins and USD 2 trillion in real world assets (RWA). This category includes products such as bonds, funds, and other financial assets that are digitally represented as tokens on public networks such as Ethereum, Solana, Stellar, and Polygon.
According to the report, advances in tokenization will benefit not only asset issuers, but also DeFi protocols that specialize in lending, liquidity, and collateral management. The bank claims that activity within these platforms will increase as more capital moves to public networks.
Standard Chartered cited the BUIDL tokenization fund, developed by BlackRock in collaboration with Securitize, as an example. CriptoNoticias reports that the product is backed by U.S. government bonds. Shows you how to integrate traditional assets with DeFi applications It plays the role of performance acquisition and collateral at the same time.
The bank also links expected growth to a clearer regulatory environment in the US. In particular, he said of the advances in clarity law: Catalysts that may encourage the entry of institutional capital Towards tokenized assets and stablecoins.
In addition to increased tokenization, the report expects increased activity to be reflected in greater volume within DeFi protocols, ultimately leading to improved valuations for tokens associated with these platforms.
but, This prediction is based on ambitious assumptions. According to DefiLlama data, stablecoins currently account for the majority of the tokenized asset market, with total capitalization of approximately $323 billion. In contrast, RWA represents a much smaller portion, with a value of approximately $27 billion to $29 billion. On-chain.
To achieve the target of USD 2 trillion in RWA by the end of 2028, Grows to more than 60 times its current sizeThis will require significantly accelerating institutional adoption, expanding the use of tokenized financial products, and maintaining a favorable regulatory framework.
At this time, this report reflects changes within the cryptocurrency market. This means that attention is starting to shift from simply issuing assets to the infrastructure that enables their use. If Standard Chartered’s predictions hold true, future growth may focus less on the creation of new tokens and more on services related to liquidity, lending, collateral, and management of tokenized assets.
