Crypto Vultures Circle as SEC Tokenization Chatter Fuels New Experiments
Wall Street’s favorite buzzword gets a blockchain makeover—again. After the SEC’s latest non-committal murmurs on tokenization, crypto firms are dusting off their R&D budgets for another round of ’proof-of-concept’ theater.
Because nothing says financial innovation like repackaging old assets with 10x the complexity and 0.1x the regulatory clarity. TradFi players watch with equal parts FOMO and existential dread as the usual suspects—from Goldman to that one crypto startup that still hasn’t shipped a product—jostle for first-mover advantage.
The real winner? Lawyers. Always lawyers.
Philipp Pieper, co-founder of RWA protocol Swarm, said in an email that while the SEC’s engagement with TradFi titans validates this segment’s potential, DeFi founders must advocate for permissionless protocols and programmable assets to ensure regulations don’t sideline startups.
“We must prove RWAs’ value with tangible use cases, such as fractional ownership and liquid supply chain assets, to win over regulators and users,” Pieper said. “The sector must build compelling RWA platforms which demonstrate clear cost savings and liquidity solutions.”
Anchorage, VanEck making moves
Anchorage Digital CEO Nathan McCauley (after the news his company would buy Mountain Protocol) said: “Stablecoins are becoming the backbone of the digital economy.”
If stablecoins (with a $230 billion market cap) are like checking accounts (as Tokenized Asset Coalition executive director Johnny Reinsch put it during the roundtable), yield-bearing tokenized money market funds are like savings accounts.
Speaking of which, VanEck is the latest to offer onchain access to US Treasury-backed assets via its new VBILL fund. Available across the Avalanche, BNB Chain, Ethereum, and solana blockchains, VBILL facilitates atomic liquidity via Agora’s USD stablecoin (AUSD).
BlackRock’s BUIDL is perhaps the best known tokenized yield fund now. Its assets under management (as you see above) make up roughly 40% of the nearly $7 billion tokenized Treasury space, rwa.xyz data shows.
Then there’s the opportunity to tokenize public stocks, as well as private equities and credit.
Though stablecoin bill progress has hit a snag in the US, these ongoing SEC talks — even if not Earth-shattering — signal the industry is getting closer to clarity.
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