Standard Chartered sees $2T tokenized assets

TLDR

Standard Chartered is projecting that tokenized real world assets on blockchains could grow to about $2 trillion by 2028, from tens of billions today.

1. The banks digital assets team reiterates a forecast that tokenized real world assets reach around $2 trillion in market cap by end?2028, up from roughly $35 billion in late 2025.
2. The view assumes DeFi and stablecoins keep maturing, with tokenized Treasuries and funds becoming core collateral, despite high?profile exploits that recently stress?tested lending protocols.
3. For crypto users, the main opportunities will be in RWA rails and infrastructure, but smart contract and regulatory risks stay central, so watching where institutional capital actually deploys matters.

Deep Dive

1. What Standard Chartered Is Forecasting

In a recent note, Standard Chartered strategist Geoffrey Kendrick wrote that tokenized real world assets (RWAs) could reach a market cap of about $2 trillion by the end of 2028, up from roughly $35 billion in October 2025. That forecast is explicitly about on?chain tokenizations of real world instruments such as funds, money?market products and Treasuries, not just generic crypto coins.

Other coverage puts current on?chain RWA value in the roughly $2730 billion range by early 2026, with tokenized US Treasuries leading the segment through products like BlackRocks BUIDL and competing on?chain money?market funds. This means the bank is effectively calling for a scale?up of around 6070 times from the 2025 base over three years if the thesis plays out.

2. Why They Think $2T Is Plausible

Standard Chartereds latest RWA note comes in the context of the KelpDAO rsETH exploit, where about $292 million was stolen and flowed into Aave, triggering bank?run style withdrawals and a 38 percent fall in deposits on the protocol, yet the bank described DeFi as bent, not broken and kept its $2 trillion RWA outlook. The reasoning is that, despite painful stress events, DeFi lending markets and stablecoin liquidity are becoming the core plumbing that tokenized assets can use.

At the same time, large traditional players are building tokenization rails. BlackRocks BUIDL tokenized Treasury fund can now be posted as yield?bearing collateral on OKX while remaining under regulated custody at Standard Chartered, showing how tokenized RWAs can plug directly into trading and margin workflows. Separately, institutions like State Street and partners like Securitize and Computershare are preparing tokenized fund and stock servicing, aligning traditional compliance with blockchain rails.

3. Implications And What To Watch

If a multi?trillion RWA market materializes, several crypto areas stand to benefit:

1. RWA protocols and chains that host tokenized Treasuries, funds and securities, including those used by large issuers.
2. DeFi money markets and collateral frameworks that integrate tokenized funds as borrowable collateral, potentially deepening on?chain liquidity and yield options.
3. Institutional custody and compliance layers that sit between banks, asset managers and exchanges, where players like Standard Chartered are positioning themselves.

The main risks are not just volatility but complexity and security. The rsETH episode shows how wrapped, staked and cross?chain assets can create opaque risks that ripple through lending markets, and any regulatory shift on tokenized securities or stablecoins could slow growth or force redesigns.

Conclusion

Standard Chartereds $2 trillion RWA forecast signals that large banks view tokenization as a structural trend, not a passing narrative. Whether that number is reached or not, the direction of travel is clear: more traditional assets are likely to move onto blockchain rails, and the winners in crypto will be the platforms and protocols that can safely host, connect and leverage those tokenized assets without repeating the sectors past security and governance failures.