At Paris Blockchain Week 2026, industry executives delivered a crucial reality check, pushing back against the widespread notion that tokenizing illiquid assets automatically creates liquid secondary markets. During a panel moderated by Cointelegraph CEO Yana Prikhodchenko, Oya Celiktemur, Ondo Finance's sales director for EMEA, highlighted a persistent misconception. "I think there’s still this idea that tokenizing something illiquid will somehow magically make it a liquid asset, which is just not true," said Celiktemur, noting that assets like real estate and private credit "were never that liquid" to begin with.
Francesco Ranieri Fabracci, head of tokenization expansion at Tether, echoed this sentiment, stating, "It’s not that if you put an asset onchain, it will be liquid." He argued that only a narrower set of standardized instruments, including bonds, money market funds, and stablecoins, are likely to achieve consistent liquidity in tokenized markets. The discussion reflects a sector-wide shift in focus from mere issuance growth to whether tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) can achieve meaningful trading activity beyond limited distribution channels.
Data from analytics platform RWA.xyz underscores the market's growth but also its concentration. The total tokenized RWA market expanded from $8.8 billion on April 16, 2025, to roughly $29.9 billion a year later—more than tripling in size. This growth was led by relatively liquid assets like Tokenized US Treasury Debt and commodities. In contrast, traditionally illiquid categories, while showing strong percentage growth, remained comparatively small. Tokenized real estate grew from about $35 million to $296 million, and private equity rose from nearly $60 million to $223 million.
The executives emphasized that rising market value, driven by increased issuance, does not equate to proven liquidity if secondary market trading remains thin. The analysis concluded that tokenization primarily changes an asset's representation and can enhance efficiency for already-liquid assets, but it cannot overcome the fundamental economic and structural constraints that make assets like real estate and private credit illiquid in the first place.
