The International Monetary Fund warned in a 23-page report published Thursday that tokenization of real-world assets could undermine financial stability even as it removes friction from securities markets, noting that more than $27.6B worth of assets are already tokenized onchain.
IMF Tokenization Warning
The report acknowledged that tokenization changes how securities and other financial products are issued, traded, settled and managed. But the fund said the technology shifts risks away from the banking system and toward shared ledgers and smart contract code.
"Atomic settlement and enhanced transparency reduce some traditional risks, but speed and automation introduce new ones," the IMF stated.
The agency warned that stress events in tokenized markets would likely unfold faster than in traditional systems. That speed could leave less time for intervention.
The fund also flagged risks for emerging economies.
Tokenization offers faster cross-border payments and broader financial inclusion, but it "raises the risk of volatile capital flows, rapid currency substitution, and erosion of monetary sovereignty," the report said. Industry estimates for the tokenization market's potential size vary widely — Boston Consulting Group projected $16 trillion by 2030, while McKinsey & Co offered a more conservative $2 trillion forecast.
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BlackRock and Wall Street Push
Major financial institutions have been driving the tokenization trend. BlackRock CEO Larry Fink has pushed to tokenize everything from stocks and bonds to money market funds and real estate.
Securitize, the platform behind the BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund, leads tokenization platforms at $3.38B in total value locked, according to CryptoDep data from Apr. 1. Tether Gold and Ondo Finance trail closely at $3.35B and $3.21B.
The IMF pointed to legal uncertainty as another barrier. Without clear rules governing ownership records and settlement finality, tokenized markets risk remaining "fragmented and peripheral," the report said.
The crypto industry has been working on its own fixes. The Ethereum (ETH) ecosystem's ERC-3643 permissioned token standard restricts access to tokenized products to verified investors.
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