Digital Assets Roundtable Recap: The Race to Tokenise. Who Will Own the Future of Finance?

Co-hosts: Laura Clatworthy, Head of Digital Assets and Tech, Edwin Coe LLP and Helen Disney, CEO, Unblocked

Moderator:  Jonny Fry, CEO & Founder of Digital Bytes

Panel: Rita Martins, London Stock Exchange Group,  Madeleine Boys, Ownera; Katie Evans, Swarm,  Andrew O’Neill, S&P Global

Executive Summary 

Tokenisation has moved decisively beyond proof-of-concept and into commercial reality. At our recent roundtable, industry leaders came together to examine one of the most significant shifts currently underway in global markets. The discussion centred on a key inflection point for the industry: tokenisation is no longer an experimental innovation being tested in isolated pilots, it is increasingly becoming part of the core infrastructure of modern finance.

Some key themes from the discussion were:

• Tokenisation is gaining real traction in collateral mobility, treasury optimisation and tokenised money market funds.
• Infrastructure, interoperability and legal certainty remain the critical barriers to scale.
• Stablecoins, tokenised deposits and CBDCs are likely to coexist as competing “cash layers”.
• Institutional adoption is accelerating globally, including the UK.
• The competitive advantage may increasingly lie in distribution, user experience and programmable infrastructure, not just balance sheet strength.

Roundtable Takeaways

The scale of momentum is becoming difficult to ignore. Tokenised U.S. Treasuries and money market funds have surpassed $10 billion in market capitalisation, while crypto-native firms such as Circle Internet Group have overtaken traditional incumbents in certain areas of on-chain Treasury issuance. This shift reflects a broader evolution in financial markets, where the competitive advantage may increasingly depend not only on balance sheet strength and institutional trust, but also on distribution, interoperability, programmability and user experience. As a result, the central question has evolved from whether tokenisation will reshape markets to who will ultimately control the rails that underpin tokenised finance.

The discussion highlighted that real traction is already emerging in several important use cases. Tokenised money market funds, collateral mobility and intraday liquidity management are among the clearest examples where institutions are beginning to realise operational and capital efficiency gains. Corporate treasury management also emerged as a growing application, particularly where stablecoins and tokenised funds can facilitate more efficient cross-border cash management and liquidity optimisation. While the market remains at an early stage, these developments indicate that tokenisation is beginning to solve practical infrastructure problems rather than simply generating speculative interest.

At the same time, the panel acknowledged that the market remains uneven and fragmented. Although tokenisation is expanding across government bonds, private credit, commodities, equities, real estate and fine art, liquidity remains concentrated in a relatively narrow number of products and platforms. Questions remain around interoperability, settlement infrastructure, data standards and legal certainty. The debate between permissioned and permissionless market structures also remains unresolved, with different jurisdictions and institutions taking divergent approaches to how open tokenised financial systems should become.

One of the most compelling themes throughout the discussion was the emergence of competing “cash layers” within the digital financial system. Participants explored how Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), tokenised bank deposits and stablecoins are likely to coexist rather than compete in absolute terms. Each offers distinct advantages depending on the use case: CBDCs may provide institutional trust and wholesale settlement functionality; tokenised deposits may dominate within closed banking ecosystems; while stablecoins currently appear to be achieving the fastest adoption due to their programmability, interoperability and ability to move seamlessly across digital asset markets. Together, these instruments are shaping a new financial architecture where money itself becomes increasingly digital and programmable.

The roundtable also highlighted the intensifying global competition among financial centres seeking to position themselves as leaders in tokenised finance. Jurisdictions including the UAE, Singapore, Hong Kong and Switzerland have moved from experimentation to implementation, supported by clearer regulatory frameworks and government-backed innovation initiatives. The UK is also beginning to transition toward implementation mode, particularly with the Property (Digital Assets etc) Act 2025 becoming law on 2 December 2025, the anticipated cryptoasset regulatory framework and broader digitisation initiatives being implemented over the coming months and years.

Regulatory clarity is rapidly becoming one of the most important competitive differentiators in attracting capital, infrastructure providers and institutional adoption.

Despite the optimism surrounding tokenisation, participants were clear that challenges remain. Questions around identity verification, trust frameworks and operational resilience continue to sit at the centre of the market’s development. As financial markets move toward atomic settlement and real time asset transfers, robust digital identity infrastructure and secure verification mechanisms will become increasingly essential. Concerns around cybersecurity, phishing, governance vulnerabilities and financial crime risk were also raised, reinforcing the importance of ensuring that technological innovation is matched by mature legal, compliance and operational frameworks.

The roundtable concluded with a broader reflection on the future trajectory of financial markets. Tokenisation is increasingly being viewed not simply as a new product category, but as foundational infrastructure capable of transforming how assets are issued, traded, settled and managed globally. The transition may happen quietly, within the plumbing of financial systems rather than through headline consumer applications, but its implications are profound. Ultimately, the winners in tokenisation including tokenised finance are unlikely to be those who merely create digital versions of traditional products. They will be the institutions, platforms and ecosystems that successfully build and control the infrastructure, distribution and trust layers underpinning the future of finance.

The Edwin Coe Digital Assets and Tech Team advises clients across the ecosystem on the legal, regulatory and commercial issues shaping the future of digital finance.  As tokenisation continues to evolve, we provide clients with wrap around legal advice to help them structure scalable, compliant and future focused solutions, across an increasingly complex and fast evolving legal and regulatory landscape.

Please do reach out to Laura Clatworthy, if our team can assist.