From Bonds to Buildings: What Can Be Tokenized in 2025?
- Harsim Ranjit Singh
- Feb 5
- 9 min read
Feb 6th, 2025 | RWA | Crypto | By Harsim Ranjit Singh
The Expanding Frontier of Tokenization in 2025:
In 2025, virtually any asset class with economic value can be considered for tokenization. What began a few years ago with simple experiments (like a few luxury condos or fine art pieces minted as tokens) has exploded into a broad-based movement to put all kinds of financial and physical assets on-chain. If 2022–2023 proved the concept with bonds and invoices, 2024–2025 is demonstrating that tokenization isn’t limited to finance – it spans from bonds to buildings, stocks to supply chains, and art to agriculture. Let’s explore the landscape of what can be tokenized as of today:
Debt Instruments (Bonds & Loans): Bond tokenization is one of the most mature use cases. Government bonds, corporate bonds, and even emerging-market debt are being issued or re-issued as digital tokens. For example, the European Investment Bank issued digital bonds on Ethereum1, and multiple governments (UK, Singapore, Hong Kong) have run pilot bond issuances on ledger. Short-term U.S. Treasury bills are a hot item in DeFi, with products like Ondo’s OUSG tokens and Franklin Templeton’s tokenized money market fund enabling on-chain ownership of T-bills. This was a response to on-chain stablecoin yields lagging behind rising Fed rates – so DeFi moved to tokenize treasuries and close the gap2. Securitized loans and mortgages are also being tokenized. Imagine mortgage-backed securities, but on-chain in real time – banks like UBS and HSBC have trialed tokenizing mortgage portfolios to streamline securitization and potentially allow 24/7 trading of those exposures. Even small business loans and trade finance receivables are being tokenized through platforms like Centrifuge and TradeWaltz, transforming illiquid invoices into collateral that can be financed globally.
Equity and Funds: The tokenization of equity ranges from private company shares and venture capital stakes to public stocks. In private markets, where trading is infrequent, tokenization shines by providing liquidity channels. Startups have begun issuing equity as ERC-20 tokens under legal frameworks like Reg D or Reg S in the US, allowing accredited investors to trade those tokens peer-to-peer under Rule 144 after a lockup. In 2024, HSBC facilitated the tokenization of a fund’s shares on a distributed ledger in Hong Kong, enabling secondary trading among invited investors – a precursor to broader fund tokenization3. In the public markets, full regulatory-approved tokenization of stocks is still nascent, but we do see synthetic or mirror stocks (tokens that track stock prices) and depositary receipts being experimented with. For example, in Switzerland, the SDX exchange lists tokenized versions of blue-chip stocks (fully backed one-for-one by the underlying shares in custody). While these aren’t widespread yet due to regulatory complexity, the technology is ready – in theory, Apple or Tesla shares could be represented as tokens, and indeed firms like FTX (before its collapse) and Mirror Protocol attempted such synthetic stock tokens. Investment funds are a rapidly growing category – by 2025 we have multiple tokenized index funds, hedge funds, and even pension funds. Franklin Templeton’s tokenized U.S. Government Money Fund (FOBXX) proved the concept for mutual funds4, and now there are tokenized private equity feeder funds (e.g. Hamilton Lane’s tokenized fund series on Polygon) and tokenized real estate investment trusts (REITs) being offered in Asia and the Middle East.
Real Estate and Infrastructure: Often cited as the holy grail of tokenization, real estate is indeed coming on-chain in various forms. Commercial real estate (CRE) tokens have been launched representing fractional ownership in office buildings, hotels, and multi-family complexes. For instance, a portion of a luxury hotel in Jakarta might be sold as 100,000 tokens, each giving the holder a proportional share of rental income and eventual sale proceeds. Early examples like the St. Regis Aspen resort token (launched in 2018) paved the way, and now in 2025, we see regular offerings – from a tokenized Manhattan office building slice to logistics warehouses in Dubai. Residential real estate is also tokenizing, typically in fractional investment platforms: companies like RealT have tokenized dozens of rental homes in the US, issuing ERC-20 tokens that entitle holders to rental income (paid in stablecoin) and governance votes for property decisions. This trend has extended globally, with startups in Latin America and Southeast Asia tokenizing condos and allowing investors to own, say, 1/1000th of a rental unit. Beyond individual properties, developers are exploring tokenizing entire real estate funds or portfolios, giving investors diversified exposure via one token. Infrastructure assets – such as solar farms, cell towers, or toll roads – are being tokenized through project financing tokens that represent a share of the revenue generated (e.g. a solar farm’s electricity sales). This allows sustainable infrastructure projects to raise capital from a wide base of investors who can trade their exposure. In short, both buildings and infrastructure can and are being tokenized, converting hefty, illiquid assets into fluid digital securities.
Commodities and Natural Assets: Commodities have long been traded via contracts, so tokenization is a natural extension. Precious metals lead the pack – gold tokens like Paxos Gold (PAXG) and Tether Gold (XAUT) are widely used, each representing one troy ounce of gold stored in a vault, and collectively these gold tokens have a market cap in the hundreds of millions (PAXG ~$649M, XAUT ~$746M)5. They allow investors to hold and transfer gold 24/7 without moving physical bars. Silver and platinum token offerings have also appeared, though gold remains king. Commodities like oil, natural gas, and agriculture are seeing early tokenization efforts too. For instance, in 2024 a consortium of traders launched a pilot token for a North Sea crude oil cargo, effectively creating a blockchain-based title transfer for a physical oil shipment. While not yet mainstream, these efforts hint at a future where commodity trading and settlement happen on-chain. Natural asset tokens is another emerging category – carbon credits, renewable energy credits, and even water rights have been tokenized. Companies such as AirCarbon and Toucan created tokenized carbon credit marketplaces, making it easier for firms and individuals to buy credits to offset emissions, with every credit (usually 1 ton of CO2) as a unique token. Other projects have tokenized timberland and forests (selling tokens that represent a share in the future timber sales or conservation efforts of a forest). By 2025, tokenization is extending into climate finance, allowing global investors to fund green projects through tokenized carbon forward contracts.
Alternatives and Exotic Assets: Some of the most interesting developments are in alternative assets that traditionally had very limited liquidity. Fine art is a prime example – the high-end art market has embraced tokenization after the landmark $69M Beeple NFT sale in 2021 signaled appetite for digital ownership. Platforms now routinely fractionalize famous paintings or sculptures: e.g. 10,000 tokens representing a share of a Picasso, where owners can trade their fractions or even collectively decide on lending the piece to exhibitions. This effectively turns art into a liquid asset class. Collectibles (rare wine, whiskey barrels, vintage cars, sports memorabilia) are also being tokenized. In one case, a rare Ferrari was split into token shares, allowing car enthusiasts to invest small amounts and trade exposure to the car’s appreciating value without needing to store or maintain the vehicle. Intellectual property (IP) and royalties: Music and entertainment industries are testing tokenization by issuing tokens tied to song catalogs or film revenues. For instance, a music artist can raise money by tokenizing a percentage of their song’s future streaming royalties – fans buy those tokens to earn a cut of the revenue. This not only raises funds for the artist but directly connects TradFi (royalty streams) with DeFi (perhaps the tokens trade on a marketplace). Patents have been slower to tokenize, but there are startups creating IP marketplaces where patent rights can be divided among token holders, who might collectively license the patent and share the income.
Even human assets have forayed into tokenization – consider athletes or talents who tokenize a share of their future income (sometimes called “personal token offerings”). While these are experimental and raise legal questions, a few athletes in 2022–2023 tokenized their future earnings to allow fans/investors to back them (essentially a form of tradable contract against their earnings).
What’s Actually Being Tokenized in 2025? It’s one thing to say everything can be tokenized; it’s another to see what is actively being tokenized today, as that reveals where the traction is:
Heavily Tokenized by 2025: Short-term debt (treasuries), real estate (especially fractional residential and commercial slices), private credit, investment funds, and commodities like gold. These categories have multiple live platforms and billions in tokenized value. For instance, tokenized treasuries and cash equivalents make up a large chunk of the ~$10 billion on-chain RWA market as of early 20255, because they fit well with DeFi stablecoin strategies. Real estate token platforms collectively have tokenized assets in the low billions (albeit across many properties).
Moderately Tokenized: Corporate bonds and equities are emerging. There have been high-profile corporate bond tokenizations (e.g. Siemens issued a €60m digital bond in 2023), but they are not yet routine. Equity tokenization is mostly in private markets or via synthetic representations due to regulatory hurdles for public stocks. Supply chain assets like invoices have pilots but are not yet at scale (often one-off transactions done by innovators like HSBC’s Contour or similar).
Experimental/Upcoming: Large-scale infrastructure, public equities through official channels, and truly exotic assets like personal tokens remain experimental. However, industry surveys show strong interest – in an EY survey, 63% of institutional and 59% of high-net-worth investors ranked private equity as their top tokenization interest, with real estate a close second5. This indicates that even if public stocks aren’t widely tokenized yet, demand to tokenize private equity (company ownership stakes) is very high. In fact, smaller institutions (<$1B AUM) plan to allocate 4.1% of their portfolios to tokenized assets in 2024, more than larger institutions6, focusing on these alternative classes. So we can expect growth in those areas soon.
Why Tokenize? – The Value Proposition Recap:
It’s worth quickly summarizing why there is such a push to tokenize everything under the sun. The common advantages across these assets include: Fractional ownership (allowing smaller investors and improving liquidity by increasing the investor base)7, 24/7 trading and faster settlement, global market access (anyone with an internet connection and required credentials can invest, no need for local broker access to specific markets), and greater transparency (e.g. an art token can let you see provenance on-chain, a supply chain token can track a commodity’s journey). For asset owners, tokenization can unlock value – a building owner can liquidate a portion of equity without full sale, a musician can monetize future income now. For investors, it can unlock opportunity – get exposure to assets like real estate or PE that might have been out-of-reach, or improve portfolio liquidity (you can sell your tokenized asset stake more easily than a traditionally held asset). In essence, tokenization is turning the entire world into a potential financial market. As one industry saying goes, “anything that can be tokenized, will be.” That seems to be holding true as we survey bonds to buildings in 2025.
Reality Check – Not All That Glitters Is Gold (Yet):
Despite the breadth of tokenization, it’s important to acknowledge that some tokenized markets are still in their infancy. Liquidity varies – your ability to sell a tokenized office building stake depends on if buyers are on the platform. Regulatory frameworks still restrict public trading of many security tokens (often, they trade on alternative trading systems or within certain networks only). There’s also market education needed – many investors still prefer traditional ownership until they see a track record of tokenized assets performing well. And fragmentation means we haven’t fully achieved the dream of a single, unified marketplace for all tokens; instead we have pockets (some on Ethereum, some on private enterprise chains, etc.). But the trajectory is clear: tokenized AUM is compounding rapidly, and as infrastructure improves (custody, exchanges, interoperability), more asset types will mature from pilot to mainstream.
Looking Ahead: We expect continuous expansion of what’s being tokenized. Public equity tokenization could take off if, for example, a major exchange or custodian launches a regulatory-compliant token trading board for stocks (several are exploring it). Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) might catalyze bond and money market tokenization by providing digital cash for settlement (one institutional investor noted, “If you want me to buy RWAs, I need a CBDC first” – highlighting the need for digital cash to settle trades easily). Infrastructure and ESG assets will likely grow as governments encourage innovative financing for projects via token markets. And as traditional financial firms co-opt tokenization tech (which many are via private blockchain networks), the distinction between a “tokenized asset” and a plain digital record may blur – we might just call them assets. By 2030, it’s plausible that a significant share of new financial instruments will launch in tokenized form by default. In 2025, we’re well on our way, tokenizing everything from bonds to buildings and beyond, proving that the only real limit to what can be tokenized is our collective imagination and the evolving regulatory landscape.
Sources
1 BCG, ADDX estimate asset tokenization to reach $16 trillion by 2030
2 Real World Assets (RWAs) and Their Impact on DeFi
3 Hong Kong’s tokenised green bonds
4Franklin Templeton Expands $594M Market Money Fund to Solana
6 Driving meaningful opportunity: tokenization in asset management
7Real World Asset tokenization and the future of financial markets: Part 2
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