Tokenization does not fix illegal assets: PBW 2026
Tokenization does not automatically liquidate hard-to-trade assets, industry executives said at Blockchain Week in Paris, pushing back against the idea that putting private credit, real estate or other illiquid products on the chain would create active secondary markets on its own.
Ondo Finance's sales director for Europe, Middle East and Africa, Oya Seliktemur, said during a panel moderated by Cointelegraph CEO Yana Prikhodchenko that there is still a misconception that counterfeiting illegal assets can make trading easier.
“I think there's still this idea that faking something illegal will magically make it a liquid asset. Assets like real estate and personal loans were “never that liquid” to begin with,” Celiktemur added.
Francesco Ranieri Fabracci, Head of Tokenization Expansion at Tether, made a similar point. “Just because you put an asset on a chain doesn't mean it's going to be liquid,” he argued, arguing that a narrow set of instruments, including bonds, money market funds and stablecoins, can achieve consistent liquidity in tokenized markets.
The discussion comes as the tokenized real-world asset (RWA) sector continues to expand, with a focus on growth to ensure that tokenized products can achieve meaningful movement and move beyond limited distribution channels.
The tokenized RWA market is growing, but remains concentrated
Data from RWA analytics platform RWA.xyz shows that the RWA market has expanded from $8.8 billion on April 16, 2025 to $29.9 billion on April 16, 2026, more than tripling in just one year.
Growth was driven by relatively stable and widely traded assets. Tokenized US Treasury debt and products accounted for a large share of the market throughout the year.
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In contrast, categories typically associated with low liquidity were comparatively smaller despite strong percentage growth. Tokenized real estate grew from $35 million to $296 million, while private equity grew from $60 million to $223 million.
Other segments, including asset-backed credit and corporate credit, also expanded significantly, reflecting a broader range of instruments.
But market price alone does not guarantee liquidity. Even if secondary market trading is thin, premium prices can increase as more properties are sold.
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