Tokenization emerged as a dominant theme at this year’s Toronto-based Consensus conference, with panelists across the event emphasizing its growing role in reshaping global finance.
Speakers noted that as regulatory clarity improves worldwide and as institutional adoption accelerates, tokenized assets are increasingly being viewed as an accessible on-ramp for retail investors.
They pointed to tokenization’s potential to unlock efficiency, transparency and broader participation in traditional financial systems, and blockchain’s evolution into foundational infrastructure for next-generation capital markets.
From tangible to digital: The evolution of real-world assets
A discussion on real-world assets (RWAs) underscored just how fast tokenized finance is maturing.
Consensus panelists Nathan Allman, CEO of Ondo Finance; Carlos Domingo, co-founder and CEO of Securitize; and Jim Hiltner, co-founder and head of business development of Superstate, agreed that the current surge in tokenization is largely being driven by the utility and functionality it provides to assets.
Allman pointed to the growing liquidity and accessibility that tokenization enables, particularly for assets like US Treasuries and exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
“I think historically, a lot of the focus has been on driving efficiency gains, cost savings and bringing more liquidity to historically illiquid assets. I think there’s certainly some potential validity to a lot of those benefits,’ he said.
“But of all the potential benefits out there, the one that we’re focused on most at Ondo is accessibility. So primarily taking US-based, very liquid financial assets — like US Treasuries, stocks, bonds and ETFs — and making them very easy for investors all around the world to buy, sell, hold and use in DeFi,” Allman added.
Domingo emphasized that beyond efficiency, tokenization brings assets with intrinsic, real-world value onto the blockchain, allowing new financial applications and broader access to those holdings.
Ondo’s recent partnership with JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM) is a prime example: US Treasuries tokenized by Ondo are being settled with JPMorgan’s on-chain bank deposits via Ondo Chain.
Building on that perspective, Hiltner asserted that tokenization doesn’t just enhance accessibility, it fundamentally upgrades how traditional assets function and interact with the broader financial system.
“When you tokenize something that is available in the ‘real world,’ you upgrade its functionality,’ he explained to the audience. ‘You provide more access. It is faster, it’s more mobile, it’s self-controlled, and I think it just generally takes the legacy infrastructure that we have in financial markets and brings it into the new age.”
Hiltner said while DeFi proved incredibly resilient during the collapse of centralized lenders like Terra and Celsius, its addressable market was limited by the kinds of assets that could be used within these systems.
That realization was central to Superstate’s founding. “What Ondo, Securitize and Superstate are all doing is trying to take the infrastructure that exists in the traditional capital markets and bring that on chain so that they can interact with these amazing systems, and do it in a highly compliant fashion as well,” he said.
Hiltner added that four main factors are accelerating the adoption of RWA tokenization:
- The enhanced scalability of blockchains and DeFi platforms.
- Greater involvement from institutional players and regulatory bodies.
- Improved user-friendliness and applications within the cryptocurrency space.
- Investors seeking more control and direct ownership of assets.
The frontier case: Uranium on the Tezos blockchain
Offering an example of tokenization or RWAs extending accessibility, Arthur Breitman, co-founder of Tezos, discussed the launch of uranium.io, a platform that enables the trading of physical uranium using a token, xU3O8. The token represents a fractional claim on physical uranium, traditionally traded in multimillion-dollar blocks with minimal liquidity.
Uranium.io uses Isolink, a non-custodial layer-two solution on Tezos, to enable fast, fair and secure transactions of xU3O8 in as little as 16 seconds using stablecoins or crypto, removing traditional settlement bottlenecks.
It is accessible on any exchange that supports xU3O8, including centralized platforms and through direct interaction on Etherlink, a layer-two blockchain that is built on Tezos.
“(Uranium is) a hot asset, literally, but also figuratively, because there’s a huge boom in nuclear building. We know there’s a wall of demand coming from artificial intelligence, so the demand for ramping up energy capacity is huge, and a big fraction of that is going to be nuclear,” he said, adding that uranium currently trades over the counter at a substantial minimum trade of roughly US$4 million, necessitating large single transactions and resulting in low liquidity.
xU3O8 allows for fractional ownership of uranium at an accessible price.
“There is no minimum amount you could be buying. It’s quoted on an amount that’s about an ounce, whereas typically uranium will look at pounds, but you can buy a fraction of a token. So really, you can buy a few cents of xU3O8,” Breitman told the audience during his conference presentation.
Breitman said he sees potential behind tokenizing other commodities like cobalt and lithium, assets that are essential to modern industries, but difficult to access. He emphasized that the most successful tokenized assets are from large, easily understood markets with latent demand and limited liquidity caused by technical, not fundamental, barriers.
However, he emphasized that this potential comes with a caveat: “Tokenization is not a magic creation of liquidity. At the end of the day, liquidity has a cost, and the cost of liquidity is going to come down to how toxic the flow is and how expensive it is to get the inventory. But it’s also a function of how much trading interest there is.”
The key is making a valuable but underutilized asset easier to trade, hold or settle, instead of trying to manufacture demand. Unlocking that potential also requires changing how tokenized assets are perceived.
To broaden adoption, it’s important to help investors new to the DeFi space understand that not all blockchains are synonymous with speculative, often volatile crypto assets.
The bigger picture: Access to infrastructure
The tokenization panel ended with panelists discussing their visions for the future of tokenized assets, predicting increased global adoption and integration into daily financial life.
Superstate’s Hiltner said he envisions a future where tokenization is embedded in daily trading apps, abstracting the technology away from the user experience. For his part, Allman of Ondo predicts that more investors will hold traditional assets on public blockchain ledgers in the next five years.
Whether it’s tokenized treasuries managed by licensed firms or atomic commodities like uranium, the message from Consensus was clear: tokenization is a systems-level shift. As more assets move on chain, the role of blockchain will shift to power markets that are faster and more accessible than ever before.
Securities Disclosure: I, Meagen Seatter, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.