Tokenization is moving beyond pilots, but slowly. Close to half of tokenized real-world asset value, excluding stablecoins, sits in government debt, mostly US Treasury funds. Even these see little secondary trading after issue. Few pilots have become production systems with broad participation. In many markets, existing infrastructure already settles efficiently, so firms need a clear economic case to switch.
This report brings together three pieces of GFTN work for authorities considering tokenization. Section 1 explains why tokenization matters and why tokenized markets are not yet scaling. Section 2 presents the Tokenization Pathways Toolkit: a method an authority can use to assess one tokenization scheme at a time. Section 3 records eight frictions reported by private-sector firms, maps each onto GFTN’s view of the tokenized ecosystem, and shows where each would surface in an authority’s own assessment.