
In recent years, the world’s largest banks have moved beyond the initial skepticism around blockchain and digital assets, positioning themselves at the forefront of financial innovation. Our research into the blockchain adoption by the top 30 global banks highlights how these institutions are not just experimenting with blockchain but are integrating it into core financial services. From Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs to more complex digital asset structures, these banks are embracing a diverse array of use cases aimed at transforming traditional finance.
One of the most significant areas of adoption is the rise of ETPs (Exchange-Traded Products), particularly Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs, which have gained momentum as secure and regulated vehicles for institutional and retail investors to access digital assets. But the innovation doesn’t stop there. Banks are exploring many tokenization use cases such as tokenized equity, debt, and funds, allowing for more efficient capital markets by digitizing traditional financial instruments. They are also pioneering tokenized money market funds and commodities, offering new avenues for liquidity and diversification. And some of them even offer tokenization services by themselves
Beyond financial products, tokenization is revolutionizing other asset classes, with banks tapping into tokenized art and real-world assets. Additionally, derivatives and structured products are being enhanced with blockchain, creating new opportunities for risk management and investment strategies. As regulatory landscapes evolve and technological advancements continue, these banks are leading the charge in shaping a new era of finance.
Our research delves deep into these trends, uncovering how these global institutions are leveraging blockchain to redefine value in the modern financial system and actively build the future of tokenized asset management.
Stablecoins
Although not an investment class, stablecoins are a crucial component in the crypto world and for the adoption of tokenized asset management. Due to the high volatility of cryptocurrencies, they are not ideal for facilitating asset trades and settlements, as their value can fluctuate significantly with each new block, potentially leading to immediate value loss. Tether (USDT), launched in 2014 and pegged 1:1 to the US Dollar, was the first notable stablecoin and continues to dominate the market. Since then, numerous stablecoins have been issued, pegged to the US Dollar, Euro, and other fiat currencies. Additionally, other forms of stablecoins, such as commodities-backed, crypto collateralized stablecoins like DAI initially, or algorithmic stablecoins have been developed, though the infamous Terra Luna case highlighted their vulnerabilities.
Official forms of stablecoins, such as Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), are emerging, with several pilot projects conducted by global central banks and participation from many of the top 30 banks. Another type of stablecoin, driven by banks in the form of tokenized deposits, is gaining traction. This type of stablecoin offers significant benefits for payment and settlement within the banking system. Many banks worldwide have developed such solutions, including JP Morgan’s JPM Coin System and the MUFG consortium’s Progmat Coin Platform, enhancing the efficiency and security of financial transactions.
ETFs and ETPs
Bitcoin ETFs are the hot bed for banks with the permission of spot Bitcoin ETFs in the US. Since its approval beginning of this year by the SEC, StockAnalysis lists a total of 43 Bitcoin ETF, issued by major global asset managers such a Blackrock, Fidelity, VanEck or Invesco. But also crypto-native asset manager have gained top positions in AuM such as Greyscale, Bitwise, is ARK in partnership with 21Shares. However, we could find only clear evidence of 7 banks in our list, offering those assets to their clients, but that’s might only the officially announced numbers so far.
ETPs (Exchange-Traded Products) are exceptional investment vehicles that encapsulate crypto exposure into tradable investment products, available in a variety of compositions. These can range from single-asset ETPs to index-based ETPs. Swiss-based 21Shares was a pioneer in this space and has amassed an impressive $3 billion in Assets under Management (AuM). Following their lead, several other entities have entered the market, particularly in Switzerland. These include Crypto Bank Amina, structured product specialist Leonteq, and Ficas. Additionally, UK-based Coinshares and Germany’s Deutsche Digital Assets have also made significant contributions to the development of crypto ETPs, expanding the options available to investors looking to engage with digital assets through traditional investment frameworks.
Tokenized Equity
Tokenizing equity involves both public equity in the stock market and private equity. Tokenization, supported by blockchain technology, offers several benefits such as increased transparency, and more efficient trading and settlement processes. Particularly for private equity, tokenization can significantly enhance accessibility and liquidity. This can be transformative, potentially changing the game for private equity owners looking to access capital outside the traditional corporate bond market, and for private equity funds aiming to overcome the challenges associated with illiquid markets and closed-end terms.
Banks have the opportunity to leverage their existing relationships with companies and private equity owners in multiple ways beyond their M&A and IPO advisory roles. Through their asset and wealth management divisions, banks can facilitate capital formation and establish a liquid market, offering direct private equity exposure to their clients and a secondary market for private equity and private equity funds.
Citi, in collaboration with Wellington Management, WisdomTree, and ABN Amro, has explored the potential of tokenized private equity. In a pilot built on Avalanche’s Spruce institutional test Subnet, the underlying fund distribution rules were encoded into a smart contract and embedded in the token transferred to hypothetical WisdomTree clients, with ABN AMRO simulating the role of a traditional investor. This proof of concept showcased the potential of smart contracts to greatly enhance automation and potentially create a more robust compliance and control environment for issuers, distributors, and investors.
Tokenized Bonds
The global bond market is massive with about $140 Trillion in government bonds and $33 Trillion corporate bonds. Tokenized bonds seem to be a major future digital asset use cases for banks for obvious reasons. The advent of tokenized bonds represents a new era for both issuers and investors. Issuers, particularly banks, can distribute bonds more efficiently and to a broader audience, while improving the overall process efficiency managing, trading and settling bonds. Investors benefit from better accessibility to bonds, ease of settlement and increased transparency.
Several top financial institutions have already made strides in this space. For example, UBS issued a CHF 375 million bond, the first fully digital bond listed on a regulated exchange. Similarly, Crédit Agricole and SEB developed the so|bond platform, which not only enables bond issuance but also incentivizes sustainability through a Proof-of-Climate-Awareness protocol. HSBC has worked on blockchain bond trials and used the Singapore Marketnode platform to issue a S$400 million bond. HSBC’s Orion platform facilitated a HKD6 billion digital green bond for the Hong Kong government. The European Investment Bank (EIB), with Goldman Sachs, issued a €100 million digital bond as part of Project Venus. JP Morgan facilitated the issuance of a $10 million blockchain-based municipal bond for the City of Quincy in 2024. The bond aimed to reduce costs, enhance liquidity, and expedite settlement times. Also, Nomura demonstrated administrative cost reduction and transparency improvement in bond trading when they issued Japan’s first blockchain-based digital bonds through the BOOSTRY platform. BNP Paribas hosted the issuance of Slovenia’s digital bond through its Neobonds platform with settlement through the Banque de France’s wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) as part of the Eurosystem’s wholesale DLT settlement trials settled in CBDC.
Tokenized Debt
Debt represents another massive market with the real estate debt market at $13 trillion, and the private debt market at $2 trillion. However, debt markets remain extremely opaque and are perhaps the most antiquated financial sector, having seen little major innovation even as technological advances have transformed so many other aspects of society.
Debt is an ideal use case for DLT and tokenization, as it can be natively originated and managed on-chain throughout its entire lifecycle. Banks, burdened by stringent regulatory requirements and increasing risk provisions, can issue loans without adding them to their balance sheets by instead issuing them on-chain and distributing them directly to investors as structured tranches, including the sale of first-loss capital. This approach allows for the creation of new forms of structured and securitized fixed-income products, such as Asset-Backed Securities (ABS), Mortgage-Backed Securities (MBS), Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDOs), and Collateralized Loan Obligations (CLOs). These products can be issued as single loan tranches, whole loans, or pooled assets, and even in more complex, diversified forms with built-in smart contract derivatives for risk hedging and automated interest swaps.
The banks in our list have already built, tested and issued many tokenized debt products, especially tokenized bonds of which 16 banks like JP Morgan, BNP Paribas, Crédit Agricole, Citi , BNY Mellon, UBS, Society General, Standard Charter and many more have been already active. Tokenized private and real estate debt is still very underrepresented as it clearly shows that the banks are first building the public debt market. The future is truly bright for tokenized debt capital markets, and at RIVA Markets, we provide the infrastructure and tools necessary to support this transformation.
Tokenized Funds
The blockchain technology and tokenization provides tremendous benefits to the fund management industry. Tokenized funds utilize blockchain technology for several benefits such as digitize ownership of fund shares, enhanced liquidity through a more efficient and accessible market, transparency of the fund and its underlying assets, and operational efficiency. This innovation allows investors to trade fund shares more seamlessly and securely. But not only that, alternative funds investing into more illiquid assets can even tokenize those assets to seek liquidity on tokenized marketplaces to exit full or partly. By brining those assets like private debt, private company shares, real estate or commodities on-chain, the underlying performance can be recorded on-chain for increased lifetime transparency for secondary market trades. We at RIVA Markets made it to our goal to provide the fund management platform of the future, with an in-built market for digital and tokenized securities.
Leading financial institutions are actively exploring and implementing tokenized fund projects such. as JPMorgan’s Project Ubin, in collaboration with the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), explores tokenized securities and payments to streamline and secure transactions. Goldman Sachs is working on asset tokenization projects, including funds, to improve market access and liquidity. State Street’s digital asset division develops solutions for tokenized funds, offering more efficient and transparent investment opportunities. HSBC’s Digital Vault platform digitizes records of private placements, enhancing access and efficiency in managing fund investments. These initiatives illustrate how banks are adopting blockchain to innovate fund management, which is expected to transform the funds management market over the next decade.
Tokenized Money Market Funds
Money market funds (MMFs) are a type of mutual fund that invests in short-term, high-quality, and low-risk debt instruments. These instruments typically include treasury bills, commercial paper, certificates of deposit, and repurchase agreements. MMFs aim to provide investors with a safe place to invest easily accessible cash-equivalent assets, offering liquidity, stability, and a modest yield. They are commonly used by investors seeking to preserve capital while earning a return higher than that of traditional savings accounts. MMF have been early identified as a strong use case for tokenization and have gained high interest with Blackrock’s recently launched BUIDL fund, which has grown already to over $500 Mio within just few months. Blackrock has partnered with Barclays already earlier on for a MMF built on JP Morgan’s Tokenized Collateral Network (TCN) as well as Fidelity followed suite.
Tokenized Real Estate
Tokenization of real estate enables fractional ownership, allowing multiple investors to hold a stake in a property and generate yields from its rental income and potential later sales. The benefits of tokenized real estate include lowering the entry barriers and democratizes access to real estate markets, enhanced transparency, as all transactions are recorded on a secure and immutable blockchain ledger, reducing the potential for fraud and disputes. Additionally, smart contracts automate various aspects of property management and investment, from lease administration to dividend distributions, streamlining operations and reducing costs.
For the tokenization, the property needs to be legally structured to comply with local regulations. This often involves setting up a specific entity, like a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), to hold the property. This entity becomes the issuer of the tokens. In some jurisdictions, real estate can be tokenized using a trust structure, where the trust manages the real estate assets on behalf of the token holders, who are effectively beneficiaries of the trust. Limited partnerships can be used where investors are limited partners and the tokens represent their partnership interests. The general partner manages the property on behalf of the limited partners. In less common scenarios, tokens can directly represent ownership stakes in the property without intermediary structures. This setup requires robust legal frameworks to ensure that token holders’ rights are protected.
The tokenization or real estate can be transformative in many ways that are often overseen, especially for banks. Collateralization can be pledged through tokens and built into smart contacts for enforcement. But enforcement could also mean that banks could sell them on the market and owners can pay interests and repay to other investors while keeping their house. Banks or non-banks can create new forms of MBS or REITs as equity and debt resolving mortgage restrictions and shortage in many markets and creating new business models. The market of secondary mortgage and so-called HELOC’s (Home Equity Line of Credit) can be improved and expanded as the success of Figure in the US demonstrates. Tokenization of real estate can also transform the market for real estate developers, as they can directly sell tokens as equity/ junior tranche tokens to investor for new projects instead of loans, increase the equity for better LTV, pay out yields in form of interests, income proceeds and profit participation, which we at RIVA Markets already developing together with real estate developers.
Tokenized Commodities
The tokenization of commodities is another transformative opportunity since the commodities market is digitized only for a small proportion of the commodities market and the broader market is still stuck somewhere in the 90’s. But the commodities market offers so many more opportunities as formerly untradable commodities can be traded highly efficient in a synthetic tokenized form as ownership right without even bothering of physical movements. The rights of the unexplored but proofed and valuated commodities can be traded as well as the funding of its supply can be tokenized. Investors can also protect their wealth by investing in tokenized commodities with historical low volatility and low correlation to other asset classes for improved portfolio diversification.
As already elucidated in trade finance, banks have token early steps in projects with a strong focus on commodities. Banco Santander in Argentina has partnered with Agrotoken, the creators of crypto-soya (SOYA), crypto-corn (CORA) and crypto-wheat (WHEA), the first grain-backed cryptoassets and ING, ABN Amro and Society Generale joined forces with energy companies to create a blockchain-based digital platform for the energy commodities sector already in 2017. Also Austrian RBI collaborated with Bitbond and Metaco on a commodity tokenization project using the Polygon blockchain.
Tokenized Art
Art is not a traditional field of investment for banks, and we haven’t found any activities of those banks engaging in art investments in relation to tokenization, settlement or lending. However, we also take tokenized art into the list of investment products, as this can become an asset type relevant for banks, especially in the private banking space in which several banks manage huge clients assets and generate a significant portion of their revenues and profits, After the forced take-over of Credit Suisse by UBS, both giants in the wealth management space by their own, the Swiss bank manages a staggering AuM of $5 Trillion. More than double the volume major US banks like Goldman Sachs ($2.5 Trillion), Citi ($2.42 Trillion), JP Morgan ($2.4 Trillion) and still $2 Trillion more than 2nd ranked HSBC ($3 Trillion). As elaborated in collateral-based lending, art is an asset that can and is being used as collateral for lending, since lending to wealthy clients is a very active business to leverage those assets to generate additional yields on their assets.
Derivatives and Structured Products
Derivatives cover a broad spectrum of financial instruments with different underlying’s functions and possibilities. The most prominent derivative product in relation to crypto might be early Bitcoin ETFs based on Bitcoin futures, before spot Bitcoin ETFs have been approved by the SEC early this year. Other derivative products include enforcing transactions when certain conditions are met. By leveraging the blockchain as immutable record of data and using smart contracts to trigger dynamic conditions typical of derivative contracts, the technology offers tremendous potentials for the derivative space. But so far, the adoption of the global banks is still in its infancy. However, JP Morgan’s Onyx platform and its Tokenized Collateral Network, as well as Goldman Sachs’ Marquise platform are first examples for blockchain-related derivative solutions.
What’s ahead of us
As tokenization and institutional blockchain infrastructure continue to mature, it’s clear that we are still in the early stages of a transformative shift in asset management and banking. This development promises to unlock the full potential of blockchain, moving beyond isolated solutions to deliver fully integrated transparency and automation. At RIVA Markets, we’ve pioneered on-chain fund structuring that enables seamless, end-to-end asset and investor management. This allows for more efficient investor onboarding, while offering the flexibility to trade fund shares on a secondary market — eliminating the lengthy redemption periods typically associated with private funds.
With tokenized assets, both fund performance and risk can be tracked in real-time, allowing for proactive risk management through leading indicators rather than reactive, lagging ones. Tokenized assets can also be traded on liquid markets, replacing the cumbersome over-the-counter (OTC) trades that dominate secondary markets today. Additionally, idle liquidity can be put to work in short-term investments such as tokenized money market funds (MMFs), yield-bearing stablecoins, or institutional yield pools. Innovative hedging strategies, tailored to specific fund strategies, and highly efficient structured products can be created from a wide variety of assets.
The convergence of traditional finance (TradFi) and decentralized finance (DeFi) will unlock even greater opportunities for banks and their clients, reshaping how financial services are delivered and how value is created and exchanged across global markets.
Undoubtedly, we’re witnessing a wave of innovation, as not only the largest global banks are shaping the future of tokenized asset management, but small and mid-sized banks around the world are also launching and expanding their digital asset offerings. This year’s surge of interest in real-world asset (RWA) tokenization has sparked significant developments across the banking sector, blockchain networks, and startups alike. These players are increasingly collaborating, recognizing the mutual benefits of advancing this technology. As the ecosystem matures, this collective effort will continue driving the next phase of financial transformation.
One transformative event we’re waiting for is the launch of Swift’s blockchain settlement integration as this is a true game-changer for the banking world to settle on-chain transaction with its core banking settlement infrastructure.
Institutional Blockchain Adoption – The Top 30 Global Banks on the Forefront
To dive more into the detailed use cases of the Top 30 Global Banks Blockchain Adoption read our full research article: Institutional Blockchain Adoption – The Top 30 List of Global Banks on the Forefront