Key Takeaways
- • Barclays Research frames digital assets across three categories: new digital assets, tokenised real-world assets, and tokenised market infrastructure, arguing each has distinct economics, demand drivers and regulatory pathways.
- • A 2025 State Street survey of 324 institutional investors found digital assets averaged 7% of portfolios, with targets of 16% within three years.
- • Tokenised real-world assets exceed $30 billion, roughly tenfold growth in two years, with almost half providing exposure to US Treasuries; tokenised money market fund holdings reached almost $14 billion by April 2026.
- • Tokenised repo, mostly on Broadridge's Distributed Ledger Repo platform, averaged about $360 billion in daily volume in 2026 versus about $250 billion in 2025, per Barclays Research and Broadridge.
- • Barclays Research cites the US move from T+2 to T+1 settlement as reducing corporate bond transaction costs by up to 12%, pointing to further efficiency gains from tokenised settlement.
Summary
Barclays Investment Bank's Research team, led by Zornitsa Todorova, Head of Thematic FICC Research, has published a framework arguing that tokenisation extends well beyond cryptocurrencies into collateral, settlement and market infrastructure. Todorova notes that tokenisation is often discussed as a single trend but spans fundamentally different use cases: creating new digital assets, bringing traditional assets onto blockchain rails, or using blockchain to reshape the infrastructure through which markets operate. The Research team separates the field into three categories, each with its own economics, demand drivers and regulatory pathways. The article cites a market it places at roughly $3 trillion for digital assets.
Institutional access is expanding. According to a 2025 State Street study of 324 investors, digital assets represented an average 7% of portfolios, spanning cryptocurrencies, stablecoins and tokenised public and private assets, with allocations targeted to reach 16% within three years. Barclays Research, citing Bloomberg data, says crypto ETF assets under management approached $100 billion in July 2026 across the 25 largest products.
Tokenised real-world assets, currently about 1% of the ecosystem according to RWA.xyz and Barclays Research, have grown nearly tenfold in two years to exceed $30 billion, with almost half providing US Treasury exposure. Tokenised money market funds are a prominent example: aggregate holdings rose from under $100 million in early 2023 to almost $14 billion by April 2026, measured as total value locked. Blockchain records fund ownership while underlying assets remain off-chain.
The article identifies the largest near-term opportunity in market infrastructure. Repo accounts for more than 90% of a tokenised-infrastructure market approaching $400 billion, per RWA.xyz and Barclays Research. Most tokenised repo activity runs on Broadridge's Distributed Ledger Repo platform, with daily volumes averaging about $360 billion in 2026 versus roughly $250 billion in 2025, and monthly volumes near $8 trillion across 7,000 to 9,000 trades a day. The platform tokenises the transaction record while securities stay in conventional custody, which Barclays says can streamline reconciliation and speed collateral reallocation without changing the underlying intermediation model.
Barclays also sees a longer-term shift toward programmable collateral, in which stablecoins and tokenised money market funds, now used mainly for cash management, could support repo, derivatives margining and financing if accepted. Barclays Research estimates that the US move from T+2 to T+1 settlement reduced corporate bond transaction costs by up to 12%, and argues that simultaneous on-chain delivery and payment could further cut settlement risk and capital tied up in pending trades. The article notes that tokenisation could ease the lack of overlap between core Asian and US trading hours. The authors conclude that the full benefits depend on broader adoption, regulatory development and integration with existing infrastructure.
Institutional access is expanding. According to a 2025 State Street study of 324 investors, digital assets represented an average 7% of portfolios, spanning cryptocurrencies, stablecoins and tokenised public and private assets, with allocations targeted to reach 16% within three years. Barclays Research, citing Bloomberg data, says crypto ETF assets under management approached $100 billion in July 2026 across the 25 largest products.
Tokenised real-world assets, currently about 1% of the ecosystem according to RWA.xyz and Barclays Research, have grown nearly tenfold in two years to exceed $30 billion, with almost half providing US Treasury exposure. Tokenised money market funds are a prominent example: aggregate holdings rose from under $100 million in early 2023 to almost $14 billion by April 2026, measured as total value locked. Blockchain records fund ownership while underlying assets remain off-chain.
The article identifies the largest near-term opportunity in market infrastructure. Repo accounts for more than 90% of a tokenised-infrastructure market approaching $400 billion, per RWA.xyz and Barclays Research. Most tokenised repo activity runs on Broadridge's Distributed Ledger Repo platform, with daily volumes averaging about $360 billion in 2026 versus roughly $250 billion in 2025, and monthly volumes near $8 trillion across 7,000 to 9,000 trades a day. The platform tokenises the transaction record while securities stay in conventional custody, which Barclays says can streamline reconciliation and speed collateral reallocation without changing the underlying intermediation model.
Barclays also sees a longer-term shift toward programmable collateral, in which stablecoins and tokenised money market funds, now used mainly for cash management, could support repo, derivatives margining and financing if accepted. Barclays Research estimates that the US move from T+2 to T+1 settlement reduced corporate bond transaction costs by up to 12%, and argues that simultaneous on-chain delivery and payment could further cut settlement risk and capital tied up in pending trades. The article notes that tokenisation could ease the lack of overlap between core Asian and US trading hours. The authors conclude that the full benefits depend on broader adoption, regulatory development and integration with existing infrastructure.
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