Tokenisation 2025 Recap

When and Where Will It Scale?

On 14 October 2025, Future of Finance hosted Tokenisation 2025 at the Reed Smith offices in London, bringing together senior figures from banks, asset managers, FMIs, regulators, and technology providers to explore the question, “Where and When Will It Scale?” The discussions tackled the industry’s most pressing challenges, from the value of current use-cases to the role of sandboxes, legacy constraints, jurisdictional competition, and whether market forces or the State will ultimately drive tokenisation forward.

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The Event in Numbers

5

Sessions

34

Speakers

110+

Registered
Delagates

90+

Represented
Companies

Key Takeaways

1. Tokenisation’s pace will differ by market, driven by capital demand, infrastructure, and regulatory readiness - not by hype. 2. Regulators stressed that experimentation shouldn’t undermine financial resilience or investor protection. The goal isn’t deregulation but “right-sized” rules that enable innovation and trust. 3. The FCA and BoE are exploring ways to foster innovation while maintaining core safeguards. 4. There were concerns from some that momentum is being lost at the policy level; strong direction from the government is needed to move tokenisation from vision to delivery. 5. Infrastructure & interoperability matter, and scalable growth depends on integrated systems and cross-border standards that links traditional and tokenised assets. 6. The UK must stay aligned with efforts and initiatives in the US, EU, and Asia (like MAS’s Project Guardian, BIS Global Layer 1) to remain globally credible. 7. Regulation should not just “get out of the way” but it can shape markets and challenge incumbents to adapt.

Opening Fireside Chat with the House of Lord, the Bank of England, and the FCA

Keynote

1. Most tokenisation projects fail to scale beyond pilots due to lack of liquidity, fragmented infrastructure, regulations and clear ROI for institutions. 2. Investors, especially younger generations, want real-time digital access to assets. The barrier isn’t demand but institutional inertia and slow adoption cycles. 3. Issuers and investors face a “chicken-and-egg” problem as tokenised issuance still creates manual work, fragmented custody flows and unclear cost savings. Without scale and liquidity, issuers see no clear benefits to tokenise, and without volume, investors see no value. 4. The tech shouldn’t be used to replicate legacy processes on blockchain rails, instead new personalised financial flows enabled tokenisation. 5. Cross-asset frameworks, as seen in Singapore’s MAS model, are the way forward. 6. Banks, asset managers and custodians will drive real-world adoption as seen in tokenised money market funds offering intraday liquidity. 7. Linking new platforms to existing or traditional infrastructure and an alignment in global standards will be the key to institutional participation. 8. Momentum requires coordinated issuance programs, such as digital gilts and tokenised sovereign bonds, regulatory alignment and leadership commitment from both public and private sectors.

Are use-cases useless?

1. Sandboxes haven’t yet delivered commercial wins. FCA data shows most participants failed to scale or turn profitable despite years of experimentation. 2. They’ve proven far more valuable for regulators than innovators. Sandboxes have helped authorities understand emerging models, identify friction points, and shape more adaptive regulation. 3. The name “sandbox” hurts perception. Many projects involve live infrastructure, not playtime but the name makes it sound experimental. 4. Institutional and regulatory fragmentation slows progress. Every jurisdiction, whether that’s Luxembourg, Singapore, or the US, runs its own sandbox. Each regulator insists on local oversight, forcing firms to meet multiple regulatory demands, making it costly and inefficient. 5. Education is underrated. Firms in sandboxes undergo intense scrutiny, producing joint learning between innovators and regulators, which is essential groundwork for future frameworks. 6. Banks have a selective but critical role. Big institutions support pilots that deliver clear efficiency or cost gains, often through innovation labs that operate outside core banking constraints. 7. Real progress demands collaboration and leadership. The ecosystem must move beyond pilots and parallel sandboxes toward coordinated common standards, regulatory alignment, shared commitment and real adoption.

Are Sandboxes for play or for real?

1. We are at a turning point. The tokenisation debate has shifted from why to how fast. 2. Standards should not create one platform but ensure that systems talk to each other effectively. ISINs evolving into digital token identifiers show how this can work. 3. Technology is just plumbing. Whether it is Ethereum, Solana or Avalanche, the end user simply cares about reliability and functionality, nothing else. 4. Scalability starts with integration. Every new chain brings compliance, risk and operational hurdles. The hidden internal effort within institutions is significant. 5. Growth comes when clients can easily buy, view and manage their assets without needing to understand the underlying technology or what chain it runs on. 6. Regulatory clarity and global alignment from bodies such as the FCA and SEC could create the same breakthrough moment that telecommunications experienced in the 1990s (Telecoms Act). 7. Stablecoins will lead the way. Once payment infrastructure moves on-chain, tokenised bonds, funds and private assets can follow naturally and at scale.

Must legacy mean inertia?

1. Early regulatory movers like Switzerland and Japan gained temporary advantages by creating clarity and trust, and lessons learnt from the crisis past to design safer systems. 2. Regulators worldwide are split between fitting digital assets into old frameworks and building entirely new ones. Both approaches often miss the opportunity to simplify and modernise using digital-first models. 3. Jurisdictions differ in philosophy. Singapore’s regulator focuses on enabling growth and innovation, while the UK prioritises risk mitigation and legacy structures, which has slowed change. 4. True transformation will not come from consensus among incumbents but from creating better digital markets that prove their value through efficiency and transparency. 5. The US benefits from strong securities laws and liquidity but faces challenges from shifting political priorities. Recent legislative efforts such as the Genius and Clarity Acts signal a more stable pro-digital direction. 6. Most experts agree that permissioned networks aligned with existing legal systems are more realistic in the near term than fully decentralised models. 7. Jurisdictional competition is not a race to the bottom but a test of who can balance innovation with investor protection, legal certainty, and long-term market trust.

Is jurisdictional competition just a race to the bottom?

1. Digital identity is evolving toward user control. Individuals will increasingly decide which data to share and for what purpose, rather than relying on centralised databases. 2. Zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) enhance privacy and compliance. They enable verification (for example, age or eligibility) without revealing personal details, which is a critical bridge between privacy and regulation. 3. Public trust and digital literacy remain barriers. Broader adoption depends on simplifying technology and building confidence among those that may not fully understand decentralised systems. 4. Lack of trust remains everywhere. While state-issued IDs carry legitimacy, some citizens distrust governments. However, the alternative of relying on private platforms like Amazon or Google poses equal or greater privacy risks. 5. Legal frameworks are catching up. Statutory recognition of digital assets as property (as seen in the UK’s Digital Assets Bill) is vital to legitimise tokenised securities and clarify ownership rights. 6. Tokenised bonds face cross-border and settlement hurdles. Inconsistent tax, legal, and custodial standards continue to impede issuance and interoperability. 7. DeFi offers a vision, not yet a blueprint. Its automation and transparency present valuable lessons, but traditional finance will adapt these principles gradually, with strong governance. 8. Institutional change must be top-down. Real innovation in financial organisations succeeds when leadership sponsors it and ensures risk, legal, and compliance functions align early.

Which can deliver: market forces or the State?