At the WAIB Summit 2026 in Monaco, senior executives from Franklin Templeton and BNP Paribas emphasized that asset tokenization is rapidly moving from experimentation to mainstream financial infrastructure. Rafael Mastroberardino, head of digital asset partnership development at Franklin Templeton, stated that tokenization offers institutions greater flexibility, driving banks and large corporations to launch tokenized products. Julien Clausse, head of the tokenization platform at BNP Paribas CIB, added that hosting multiple asset types on a single distributed ledger could unlock new institutional use cases, provided there is direct interoperability between the issued assets.
The panel highlighted a broader shift, with regulatory clarity in Europe (MiCA) and infrastructure maturity accelerating adoption. In the US, the SEC approved a Nasdaq pilot on March 18, 2026, allowing tokenized versions of highly liquid stocks and ETFs to trade with standard settlement cycles. A week later, the NYSE partnered with Securitize to build an on-chain settlement ecosystem that aims to operate 24/7 using stablecoin-based funds for instant transactions without time‑zone friction.
Meanwhile, Digital Asset Holdings closed a $355 million funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz to expand the Canton Network, a privacy-focused blockchain used by Goldman Sachs, BNY Mellon, and others for institutional securities settlement. The Clearing House also plans to activate a shared tokenized deposit network for major North American banks in the first half of 2027.
These developments signal that tokenization—enabling faster settlement, fractional ownership, and programmatic asset management—is becoming a structural change in capital markets. While interoperability and custody standards remain challenges, the involvement of the world’s largest asset managers and exchanges underscores that tokenization is no longer a theoretical exercise.
