Citi projects the market for tokenized securities and real-world assets will swell from roughly $17 billion today to $5.5 trillion by 2030. The bank points to Treasury bills, digital stocks, and stablecoins as the primary engines driving Wall Street’s shift onto blockchain rails.
The $17 billion starting point
Today’s tokenized asset market – a mix of digital representations of traditional securities, commodities, and other real-world assets – totals about $17 billion. That’s a small slice of global finance, but Citi sees it growing more than 300‑fold over the next six years. The projection assumes broad adoption among institutional investors and a regulatory framework that allows for efficient token issuance and trading.
Three drivers pushing Wall Street onchain
Citi identifies three categories that will lead the charge: Treasury bills, digital stocks, and stablecoins. Treasury bills tokenized on blockchain networks offer near‑instant settlement and programmable features, making them attractive for both cash management and collateral. Digital stocks – tokenized equity shares – could reduce settlement times and lower costs for issuers and traders. Stablecoins, meanwhile, provide a fiat‑pegged medium for on‑chain transactions and are already the backbone of much DeFi activity.
These three aren’t isolated. Tokenized Treasuries can serve as collateral for stablecoin issuance, and digital stocks can trade against stablecoin pairs. Citi’s analysis suggests the combination will accelerate the migration of traditional capital markets to distributed ledgers.
What the $5.5 trillion figure means
If Citi’s forecast holds, tokenized assets would represent a significant share of global financial assets by decade’s end. The $5.5 trillion figure dwarfs the current crypto‑asset market, which sits at roughly $2 trillion. It would put tokenization on par with some of the largest bond or equity markets today. The bank didn’t specify which assets within Treasury bills, digital stocks, and stablecoins would capture the biggest piece, but the projection underscores a conviction that blockchain‑based finance is moving from experiments to infrastructure.
For now, the growth depends on regulatory clarity and institutional appetite. Several large asset managers and exchanges have already launched tokenized funds or announced pilot projects. Citi’s report adds a concrete growth target to that momentum – one that rivals many traditional asset‑class forecasts.
