Digital Assets and Tokenization: What's Changing in 2026

The numbers tell the story clearly. Tokenized real-world assets on public blockchains reached approximately $29.7 billion globally as of early 2026, up from roughly $7.4 billion at the start of 2024, according to BCG and ADDX research. That's not a pilot program anymore. It's a market in motion, and the institutions that spent 2023 and 2024 running proofs-of-concept are now running live products.

Why Tokenization Is Moving From Pilot to Production

BlackRock's BUIDL fund, Franklin Templeton's BENJI, and JPMorgan's Onyx platform didn't just validate the concept of tokenized funds; they demonstrated that institutional-grade infrastructure could actually support them at scale. Tokenized money market funds alone doubled their market capitalization in 2025 to approximately €6.3 billion, according to the European Central Bank's April 2026 Macroprudential Bulletin. That growth didn't happen in a vacuum.

Regulatory clarity has been the accelerant. MiCA's full implementation across the EU created a workable compliance framework for digital asset issuers operating in Europe. In the US, SEC staff guidance on digital asset securities gave institutional legal teams enough certainty to greenlight fund launches they'd been holding back for years. The NYSE submitted a formal proposal to the SEC in April 2025 to list and trade tokenized securities tied to Russell 1000 stocks and major ETFs, following Nasdaq's earlier regulatory clearance, per CryptoRank reporting. When the exchanges start filing proposals, the direction of travel is clear.

Put simply: the question for asset managers in 2026 is no longer whether to tokenize. It's how, and on what infrastructure.

What Tokenization Actually Means for Asset Managers

Here's the thing: most discussions of tokenization stay abstract. Ownership rights become digital tokens. Fractionalization becomes possible. That's all true, but it understates the operational impact for portfolio managers who actually have to run these products.

Settlement is the most immediate change. Traditional equity and fund transactions settle on a T+2 cycle, meaning two business days pass between trade execution and final settlement. Tokenized assets settle at T+0, often within seconds. The DTCC has been pushing toward compressed settlement cycles for years precisely because the cost and counterparty risk embedded in T+2 are real, quantifiable problems. On-chain settlement eliminates that exposure by design.

Cap table management is another concrete win. Transfer agents, registrars, and reconciliation workflows that currently consume operational budget can be replaced by a smart contract that updates ownership records in real time. Compliance, rather than being a layer added on top of the transaction, is embedded directly in the token itself. Allowlists, KYC/AML checks, and transfer restrictions execute automatically at the token layer. That's not a minor efficiency gain; BCG estimates the tokenization of illiquid assets alone could unlock trillions in previously inaccessible capital by 2033, projecting the tokenized RWA market could reach $18.9 trillion by that date (Source: BCG via Avalanche research).

For a portfolio manager evaluating tokenization, the operational case is straightforward. The compliance architecture is more defensible, the settlement risk is lower, and the administrative overhead shrinks materially.

Why Solana Is Emerging as Institutional Tokenization Infrastructure

Not every blockchain is built for institutional workflows. Ethereum's throughput constraints and gas fee volatility create unpredictable operational costs. Solana's architecture is different in ways that matter for high-frequency institutional use.

Solana's theoretical throughput exceeds 65,000 transactions per second, with sustained production performance in the thousands of TPS range. Sub-second finality means transactions confirm faster than most TradFi clearing systems can even acknowledge receipt. Transaction costs remain fractions of a cent, making frequent NAV updates, dividend distributions, and compliance checks economically viable at scale. These aren't theoretical advantages; they're the reason institutional builders are choosing Solana for production tokenization infrastructure.

The network's decentralization metrics also matter to institutional risk teams. Solana's validator network has grown to over 1,700 active validators as of Q1 2026, with a Nakamoto coefficient above 30, meaning no small group of validators can unilaterally compromise the network. That's a meaningful benchmark for any institution running counterparty risk assessments on blockchain infrastructure.

Starke Finance operates within this network with ISO 27001 and SOC 2 certifications, providing the security posture and audit trail that compliance teams at asset managers and family offices require before signing off on any infrastructure dependency.

The Infrastructure Stack Behind a Tokenized Fund

A tokenized fund isn't just a smart contract. Production-ready tokenization requires five distinct layers working in coordination: legal structuring, custody, blockchain settlement infrastructure, token issuance and lifecycle management, and investor onboarding. Gaps in any single layer create regulatory or operational risk that can halt a fund launch entirely.

Legal structuring comes first. The fund needs a recognized legal wrapper, and the token needs to represent a legally enforceable ownership interest. Custody comes next: assets held by the fund must be held by a qualified custodian, and that custodian needs to support on-chain asset servicing, which many traditional custodians still don't. Blockchain infrastructure determines settlement speed, cost, and reliability. Token issuance and lifecycle management covers everything from initial minting to NAV updates, distributions, and redemptions. Investor onboarding handles KYC/AML, accreditation verification, and wallet provisioning for investors who may never have held a digital asset before.

Starke's Fund Tokenization-as-a-Service addresses all five layers under one coordinated infrastructure. The FTaaS program runs on Solana, with fund managers directing which assets to hold while the program executes and updates NAV every minute. Program authority is secured through multisig, meaning fund managers don't have direct access to underlying holdings. Investors receive an embedded self-custody wallet with MPC key management through Dynamic.xyz, or they can connect their own wallet. Legal structuring is supported by Goodwin Law, one of the few firms with deep experience in both fund formation and digital asset securities.

That coordination matters. Asset managers building tokenized funds from scratch typically spend months integrating disparate vendors across each layer. A unified infrastructure stack compresses that timeline and reduces the surface area for compliance gaps.

What Asset Managers Should Evaluate Before Tokenizing a Fund

Jurisdiction is the first decision, and it shapes everything downstream. Delaware LP and LLC structures remain the most legally tested wrappers for tokenized funds in the US, with the most developed case law and regulatory precedent. Cayman structures are gaining traction for international distribution, and Luxembourg's RAIF framework is increasingly used for European tokenized fund launches. The choice of jurisdiction affects which investors can participate, which custodians are available, and which regulatory filings are required.

Custodian selection is a gating factor that many managers underestimate. Not all qualified custodians support on-chain asset servicing. Some can hold digital assets but can't interact with smart contracts. Others support specific blockchains but not others. Managers should confirm digital asset custody capabilities, including the specific chains and token standards supported, before selecting a blockchain or infrastructure provider. Starke's custodian compatibility documentation outlines current and planned integrations for managers conducting this due diligence.

Operational due diligence on any infrastructure provider should mirror the counterparty risk assessments that TradFi managers already apply to prime brokers and fund administrators. Security certifications like ISO 27001 and SOC 2 are baseline requirements, not differentiators. Uptime SLAs, incident response procedures, and key-person risk all apply. The Eurosystem's work toward enabling DLT settlement using central bank money by end of Q3 2026 signals that institutional-grade infrastructure requirements will only become more stringent as the market matures, per the ECB's April 2026 bulletin.

The managers who move carefully through these evaluation criteria will be better positioned than those who rush to market on infrastructure that hasn't been stress-tested. Tokenization forecasts for 2030 range from $2 trillion to $30 trillion depending on adoption rates and regulatory trajectory, per FII Institute research. The spread in those estimates reflects genuine uncertainty, but the direction is not in doubt.

Explore how Starke's tokenization infrastructure is built for institutional fund managers, from legal structuring to on-chain issuance, at starke.finance/fund-tokenization-as-a-service.

Data as of April 24, 2026. Market conditions change rapidly. Tokenized asset figures sourced from BCG/ADDX research and ECB Macroprudential Bulletin (April 2026). Verify current figures at rwa.xyz and DefiLlama.

This content is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Past performance is not indicative of future results.