"The real transformation is not in placing assets onchain, but in reconstructing the clearing systems, settlement layers, and liquidity networks underpinning every institutional transaction."
That is the central finding of Tiger Research's new report, released today, on the state of institutional RWA adoption in 2026. It is a significant reframing — and it matches what the most important developments in the sector over the past six months actually show.
The Numbers
Tiger Research anchors the report with the growth data: on-chain-issued assets reached approximately $34 billion as of May 2026, more than 20 times the $1.5 billion recorded in early 2020. Including represented assets — where ownership is recorded on-chain while physical assets remain with custodians — the total rises to approximately $360 billion. The $34 billion is the active, transferable, on-chain layer. The $360 billion is the full scope of assets that have blockchain as part of their ownership record.
The gap between those two figures — $326 billion — is not a failure. It is the market's honest representation of where institutional tokenization actually sits: blockchain has been adopted as an ownership record and audit layer by institutions that are not yet ready to make those assets fully on-chain tradeable. The $34 billion that is fully on-chain and transferable is the infrastructure that the larger $360 billion will eventually migrate onto.
Four Capital Market Verticals Already Operational
Tiger Research identifies four areas of capital market infrastructure where on-chain systems are already operational — not piloting, not planned, but running:
Settlement and clearing infrastructure: The DTCC's tokenized settlement launch this month puts $114 trillion in annual clearing volume on a blockchain-adjacent rail. This is not a product launch — it is a settlement infrastructure replacement at the core of US capital markets.
Institutional funds and money markets: BlackRock BUIDL at $2.5 billion across eight chains. Franklin Templeton BENJI on nine chains. Ondo's OUSG and USDY providing Treasury-backed yield. The tokenized money market category is operational at institutional scale with real assets, real yield, and real secondary market infrastructure.
Cross-border settlement and payment rails: JPMorgan/Ripple/Mastercard/Ondo completed a cross-border tokenized Treasury settlement on the XRP Ledger in approximately four seconds. What took days through correspondent banking takes seconds through on-chain settlement. This is not a test — it is a production transaction involving four major institutions.
Fixed income and government bonds: Tokenized US Treasuries at $12.88 billion represent the largest single RWA category. The European Investment Bank has issued digital bonds. Hong Kong has issued tokenized green bonds at scale. Japan's JSCC, Nomura, and Mizuho launched a government bond proof-of-concept. The government bond market — one of the largest asset classes in the world — is actively being moved on-chain in operational pilots.
The Asia Acceleration
One of the report's most significant findings is the pace of institutional adoption in Asia, which Tiger Research argues is ahead of common perception in the US-centric coverage of the sector.
In South Korea, following STO (Security Token Offering) legislation passed in January 2026, Hanwha Investment & Securities has partnered with Digital Asset, while Shinhan Asset Management, Shinhan Securities, and KB Securities signed agreements with the Canton Foundation in June 2026. Major Korean financial institutions are not exploring tokenization — they are signing operational agreements.
In Japan, JSCC, Nomura Holdings, and Mizuho Financial Group launched a proof-of-concept using Japanese government bonds — one of the world's largest bond markets.
In Hong Kong, the Canton network has been integrated into the Central Moneymarkets Unit at the monetary authority level. This is not a startup integration — it is blockchain infrastructure embedded in Hong Kong's central monetary system.
The Tiger Research framing on why this matters now: "Capital market infrastructure, once built, does not change easily. The gap between institutions that join while standards are still being set and those that try to catch up later only widens over time."
The Infrastructure Phase Thesis
Tiger Research's core argument tracks closely with the framework we have been using at RWAToday: the sector has moved from proof-of-concept to infrastructure build-out. The institutions making operational decisions right now — about custody providers, blockchain networks, token standards, compliance workflows — are setting defaults that will define the market for decades.
This is why the DTCC launch this month is more significant than any individual product launch. When the clearing infrastructure for US capital markets integrates blockchain settlement, the thousands of broker-dealers, custodians, and asset managers that plug into DTCC infrastructure are implicitly adopting blockchain rails without making any individual technology decision. The infrastructure adoption happens above them.
That is the "beyond tokenization" phase that Tiger Research describes: the decisions are no longer about whether to tokenize specific assets, but about which infrastructure standards will define the tokenized capital market for the next generation.
→ Why the US leads the global tokenized finance infrastructure build
→ GENIUS Act July 18 — the settlement layer arriving this month
→ H1 2026 in Review — every major milestone in one place