Key Takeaways
- • Tokenised fund assets under management reached $24bn in June 2025, representing an 85% increase over six months, with industry leaders BlackRock, Fidelity Investments, and Apollo demonstrating commercial viability of the model.
- • Calastone research forecasts tokenised fund AUM will grow from $4bn in 2024 to $235bn by 2029—a 58-fold increase—positioning tokenisation as a critical infrastructure bridge between traditional finance and decentralised finance ecosystems.
- • Asset managers are prioritising distribution as the immediate entry point for tokenisation, tokenising fund units while preserving existing fund structures, administration, and servicing to access new markets without major infrastructure overhaul.
- • 77% of asset managers surveyed identified tokenisation as a "key trend that justifies immediate action," signalling broad institutional adoption of blockchain-native fund distribution mechanisms.
- • Tokenised funds address a convergence opportunity: traditional asset managers seek faster market access to digital assets while maturing DeFi ecosystems require institutional-grade treasury management solutions.
Summary
The tokenisation of asset funds has transitioned from speculative prediction to measurable commercial reality, with measurable momentum accelerating through 2025 and into 2026. Three years after BlackRock's Larry Fink predicted that securities tokenisation would define the next generation of markets, the industry is approaching an inflection point. Tokenised assets under management reached over $24bn in June 2025—an 85% increase in just six months—demonstrating rapid institutional adoption. Early deployments by industry titans BlackRock, Fidelity Investments, and Apollo have validated the operational and commercial feasibility of tokenised fund structures.
The growth trajectory is steep. According to Calastone's research, tokenised fund AUM will expand from $4bn in 2024 to $235bn by 2029, representing a 58-fold increase over five years. This expansion reflects both supply-side innovation from asset managers and demand-side pressure from institutional investors seeking exposure to digital asset markets. Critically, 77% of asset managers surveyed on tokenised distribution identified tokenisation as a "key trend that justifies immediate action," indicating broad conviction within the institutional investment community that this represents a structural shift rather than a cyclical trend.
Asset managers are strategically sequencing tokenisation implementation by prioritising distribution over full value-chain transformation. Rather than overhauling fund infrastructure, administration, and servicing infrastructure, managers are tokenising fund units while maintaining existing operational structures. This approach provides immediate market access to new investor bases and digital asset ecosystems while deferring the cost and complexity of comprehensive infrastructure redesign. This pragmatic sequencing has proven effective in reducing friction to adoption.
The tokenisation trend reflects a powerful convergence: traditional finance asset managers require efficient distribution channels into digital asset markets and blockchain-native investor bases, while a maturing decentralised finance ecosystem requires institutional-grade treasury management solutions and exposure to professional asset management. Tokenised funds have emerged as the essential infrastructure linking these two previously separated markets, enabling capital flows and institutional participation at scale that were not previously practical.
The growth trajectory is steep. According to Calastone's research, tokenised fund AUM will expand from $4bn in 2024 to $235bn by 2029, representing a 58-fold increase over five years. This expansion reflects both supply-side innovation from asset managers and demand-side pressure from institutional investors seeking exposure to digital asset markets. Critically, 77% of asset managers surveyed on tokenised distribution identified tokenisation as a "key trend that justifies immediate action," indicating broad conviction within the institutional investment community that this represents a structural shift rather than a cyclical trend.
Asset managers are strategically sequencing tokenisation implementation by prioritising distribution over full value-chain transformation. Rather than overhauling fund infrastructure, administration, and servicing infrastructure, managers are tokenising fund units while maintaining existing operational structures. This approach provides immediate market access to new investor bases and digital asset ecosystems while deferring the cost and complexity of comprehensive infrastructure redesign. This pragmatic sequencing has proven effective in reducing friction to adoption.
The tokenisation trend reflects a powerful convergence: traditional finance asset managers require efficient distribution channels into digital asset markets and blockchain-native investor bases, while a maturing decentralised finance ecosystem requires institutional-grade treasury management solutions and exposure to professional asset management. Tokenised funds have emerged as the essential infrastructure linking these two previously separated markets, enabling capital flows and institutional participation at scale that were not previously practical.
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