Standard Chartered Bank has forecasted that the market for tokenized real-world assets, excluding stablecoins, could rise dramatically from approximately $35 billion today to nearly $2 trillion by 2028. In a report released on Thursday, the bank’s head of digital assets research, Geoffrey Kendrick, highlighted the significant impact of the stablecoin boom on traditional financial systems.
Kendrick noted that the rapid evolution of decentralized finance (DeFi) presents a credible alternative to conventional financial systems that rely heavily on centralized intermediaries like banks. He stated, “Stablecoins have laid the groundwork for other asset classes, from tokenised money market funds to tokenised equities, to move on-chain at scale.”
The analysis anticipates that much of this growth will occur on the Ethereum network, which Kendrick emphasized for its stability. He pointed out that Ethereum has operated for more than a decade without a single mainnet outage, asserting that factors such as speed or lower costs in competing blockchains are “irrelevant” when compared to Ethereum’s proven reliability.
Market Breakdown and Future Prospects
Standard Chartered’s projections suggest that tokenized money market funds and listed equities could each account for around $750 billion of the anticipated $2 trillion market. The remaining share would comprise funds, private equity, commodities, corporate debt, and real estate.
Kendrick expressed optimism about the role that DeFi protocols will play in transforming traditional finance, particularly through lending and tokenization of real-world assets. He noted that the increase in stablecoin adoption by 2025 has shifted DeFi from a niche sector to a more mainstream financial ecosystem, allowing non-bank entities to manage payments and savings typically controlled by banks.
The report indicates that rising stablecoin usage in developed markets has enhanced on-chain liquidity, spurring innovation in DeFi services such as lending and borrowing. Kendrick remarked, “Stablecoins have created several necessary pre-conditions for a broader expansion of DeFi via the three pillars of increased public awareness, on-chain liquidity, and on-chain lending/borrowing activity in fiat-pegged products.”
Despite the optimistic outlook, Standard Chartered cautions of potential risks, particularly if the United States fails to establish clear regulatory frameworks prior to the 2026 midterm elections. Nevertheless, the bank does not consider this scenario to be its base case.
As the tokenization market continues to expand, the implications for both traditional finance and the broader economic landscape are significant. The interplay between established financial structures and emerging technologies like blockchain will likely shape the future of asset management and investment strategies.
