Citrini Sees a Tokenization Boom, but Profits Remain Unclear
Citrini sees the biggest opportunities in RWA and tokenized Treasuries, but the split of revenue between infrastructure, platforms, and blockchains remains uncertain.
Key Takeaways
- Citrini Research sees tokenization as a possible breakthrough for finance, as more traditional assets move onchain.
- According to the market, the main question is not whether assets will be tokenized, but who will ultimately get the revenue from them.
- The market for tokenized RWA has grown to more than $31 billion, but secondary trading remains limited in many cases.
Citrini Research sees tokenization as a possible breakthrough for finance. According to the research firm, the bigger question is not whether more assets will move onchain, but who will actually profit from that shift. Citrini, best known for its technology, AI, and market analysis, laid out that view in a 79-page report on real-world assets, or RWA.
Blockchains Are Looking for Their Role
For years, a common criticism of crypto and blockchains was that the industry was mostly building infrastructure without a clear use case. There were decentralized exchanges, lending protocols, crypto wallets, and more and more financial building blocks, but many of the assets investors actually wanted to hold stayed outside the crypto market.
According to Citrini, that is changing now. U.S. Treasuries, credit, stocks, funds, and other investment products are increasingly moving onto the rails crypto has built over more than a decade. The company sums that up by saying blockchains have finally found a clear purpose.
Where Does the Revenue Go
The core of the debate is not just that assets are coming onchain, but what happens after that. Citrini points out that tokenized assets can behave more like software: they can move between apps, be used as collateral, be lent out, or be used in other products without every party having to build custody and settlement again.
That fits into a broader trend where stablecoins bring cash onchain and wallets, exchanges, and DeFi protocols have become more mature. Retail platforms like Robinhood and Coinbase also provide distribution, while regulators in the U.S. and elsewhere are gradually giving tokenized securities a clearer path. In China, the tone has become stricter: the ban on crypto there was recently expanded to include RWA tokenization, crypto ads, and internet services that support those activities.
Still, the split of revenue remains uncertain. Tokenized stocks can generate income through issuance, trading, stablecoin demand, lending, and collateral use, but those cash flows can end up in very different places. Analysts point to infrastructure providers, distribution channels, and networks like Ethereum, BNB Chain, and Solana as possible winners, while others think the real value only shows up once an asset is onchain and actively traded or lent out. That ties into the broader debate over where the economic value of tokenization will ultimately land, from infrastructure to distribution and settlement.
Why This Matters
For European crypto readers, this matters because tokenization is increasingly being discussed as a bridge between traditional finance and blockchain. The market for tokenized RWA has now grown to more than $31 billion (€27.5 billion), with tokenized U.S. Treasuries and money market products making up the biggest segment. At the same time, research shows that secondary trading in many tokenized assets is still limited, which means the promise of more liquidity is still far from evenly realized across all categories.
That leaves Citrini's main question standing: not just which assets move onchain, but which players will actually manage to capture the value of that shift.
