Amundi, Europe’s largest asset manager, warned that asset managers failing to offer an onchain solution risk losing market share to more agile incumbents and new “Web 3.0” asset managers. A December report from Amundi Business Intelligence, Fund Tokenization Beyond the Horizon Line: The Cost of Missing Out, notes the tokenized fund market currently has about $10 billion of assets under management. Tokenization potentially offers faster settlement, lower operational costs and risks, and fractional ownership, expanding access to investment opportunities.
Amundi suggests that regulatory changes aimed at accommodating distributed ledger technology—such as sandboxes, pilot regimes, and digital currencies issued by private or public entities—could help turn these use cases into reality. Amundi BI projects tokenized fund assets could reach $30 billion by 2030 on a conservative 25% CAGR; with stronger uptake, assets could rise to $120 billion by the same year. Over the same period, the potential global annual net revenue from tokenised funds could reach about $4 billion, compared with the asset management industry’s current $310 billion net revenues.
The market remains concentrated in the U.S., which has a lead in decentralized finance and accounts for more than half of the fund industry worldwide. There are about 75 fully onchain funds active, with BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, Ondo Finance, and Superstate leading in the US, Spiko in Europe, and China AMC in Asia. BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL), the $2.8bn tokenized money market fund, accounts for 35% of the market, with seven funds controlling 80% of total value, according to Amundi. In addition, nearly all, 90%, of tokenized assets remain in money market funds, with demand driven by onchain investors seeking cash-like instruments.
In November last year Binance said in a statement that the BUIDL would be accepted as off-exchange collateral for trading on the crypto exchange. Catherine Chen, head of VIP & institutional at Binance, said in a statement that institutional clients had asked for more interest-bearing stable assets they can hold as collateral while actively trading on the exchange. Sarah Song, head of business development at BNB Chain, said in a statement: “BUIDL is turning real-world assets into programmable financial instruments, enabling entirely new types of investment strategies onchain.” BUIDL was launched in March 2024 as BlackRock’s first tokenized fund on a public blockchain.
The fund was tokenized by tokenisation platform Securitize to offer qualified investors access to U.S. dollar yields with flexible custody, daily dividend payouts, and 24/7/365 peer-to-peer transfers. The integration with Binance adds to BUIDL’s availability across other blockchain networks including Arbitrum, Aptos, Avalanche, Ethereum, Optimism, Polygon and Solana. Robert Mitchnick, BlackRock’s global head of digital assets, said in a statement: “By enabling BUIDL to operate as collateral across leading digital market infrastructure, we’re helping bring foundational elements of traditional finance into the onchain finance arena.” Consultancy Crisil Coalition Greenwich said in its report, Top market structure trends to watch in 2026, that tokenizing high-quality collateral is “shaping up to be a 2026 game changer.”
Tokenizing highly liquid U.S. Treasuries and similar cash equivalents onchain allows assets to move 24/7 and settle almost instantaneously while collateral cannot move overnight or during weekends under the traditional infrastructure. This increased speed may prove critical in times of market stress and will help the markets prepare for 24/7 trading. While the utility of the expanded trading hours is hotly debated among institutional market participants, preparing for around-the-clock trading is a must. Although some might be OK with pre-funding margin accounts on Friday for weekend trading, most won’t want to tie up funds unnecessarily.
In December last year Caroline Pham, then acting chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, announced the launch of a digital assets pilot program for certain digital assets, including bitcoin, ether and the USDC stablecoin, to be used as collateral in derivatives markets. The U.S. regulator also provided guidance on tokenized collateral for real world assets like U.S. Treasuries and money market funds. Heath Tarbert, Circle president, said in a statement: “Enabling near-real-time margin settlement will also mitigate settlement-failure and liquidity-squeeze risks across evenings, weekends, and holidays.”
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