Coinbase CEO says tokenized collateral is going mainstream.
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Tanzil Akhtar
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Tokenised securities are moving from test pilots to mainstream financial market infrastructure as central banks and institutions accelerate real-world deployment, according to Keith Grose, UK CEO of Coinbase.
Groth said the growing involvement from central banks shows that tokenization is moving beyond the crypto-native ecosystem and into mainstream financial pipelines, particularly around liquidity and collateral management.
From pilots to production
“When central banks start talking about tokenised securities, this is a sign that this technology has moved beyond crypto and into mainstream market infrastructure,” Groth said.
He pointed to new data from Coinbase, in which 62% of institutions either held or increased their crypto exposure since October, despite the market's volatile periods.
According to Groth, this continued institutional presence reflects shifting priorities. Instead of speculative exposure, companies are focusing on operational tools that enable the widespread deployment of digital assets within existing risk frameworks.
The need for institutional-level infrastructure
Coinbase noted growing institutional demand for services such as escrow, derivatives and stablecoins to manage risk and support day-to-day financial activity. “This tells us that the market is being built for real-world use,” he said.
He added that tokenized assets and stablecoins are expected to move from conceptual possibilities to everyday tools for liquidity and collateral management. This transition will define the next phase of market development until 2026 as infrastructure matures and regulatory transparency improves.
The role of UK regulation
Groth highlighted the importance of the UK's regulatory environment in unlocking further capital allocation to tokenized markets. He said that while the UK has made progress in developing a framework for digital assets, policy choices around stablecoins will be critical to sustaining the momentum.
“In the UK, for tokenization to grow we need no limit or stable coin rewards,” Grose said. Allowing investors to keep moving funds in the digital economy would help open up a truly liquid 24/7 marketplace, he argued.
As institutions move from testing to deployment in live market environments, Grosse expects adoption to accelerate in captive, product and stable coin-based deployments.
As central banks become more sophisticated and take on more institutional exposure, tokenization is positioning itself not as a cryptographic application, but as an overlay of modern financial infrastructure.
What is Tokenization and why is it important?
Tokenization is the process of representing a real-world asset on the blockchain. Tokens can represent a variety of monetary and non-monetary assets, including money, gold, stocks and bonds, royalties, art, real estate and other forms of value.
In practice, anything can be securely tracked and recorded, with the blockchain acting as a shared ledger that records and transfers ownership in a transparent and verifiable manner.
As tokenization continues to grow, the implications for markets, infrastructure and risk management are becoming clearer, prompting more research and research into how on-chain assets can reshape financial systems.
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