IMF: Tokenized Assets Reach $65 Billion, But Liquidity and Regulation Remain Barriers

ME News reports that on October 9 (UTC+8), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) stated that tokenized financial markets are growing rapidly, but legal uncertainty, insufficient interoperability, and the lack of widely accepted settlement assets may still constrain their further development. In its latest analysis, the IMF noted that as of July, the total value of tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) was approximately $65 billion, still a small fraction compared to the global capital markets’ $300 trillion in assets. Among these, tokenized credit products amounted to about $30.4 billion, money market funds to $17.5 billion, and tokenized equities to $2.3 billion. The IMF highlighted that tokenized equities are attracting investors through support for 24/7 trading and fractional ownership, but their liquidity remains significantly lower than in traditional markets, with actual volatility approximately 1.5 times higher than that of conventional stocks. As the tokenized market expands, increased market interconnectedness and leverage could amplify liquidity risks, concentrated sell-offs, and risk contagion. The IMF stated that tokenization has the potential to reshape financial markets, but its future trajectory will depend more on robust policy frameworks, market depth, trust mechanisms, and risk mitigation measures. Currently, due to the relatively small scale of the market, tokenized assets pose limited systemic risk. (Source: ODAILY)