Bank of America: Tokenization of Real-World Assets Is Gathering Pace

Bank of America has noted a rise in market attention toward the tokenization of real-world assets (RWAs), with clients and investors increasingly exploring how blockchain technology could be used to represent and transfer ownership of traditional financial instruments.

According to the bank's recent commentary, tokenization is emerging as a multi-year adoption trend that could eventually encompass a wide range of asset classes, from publicly traded equities and corporate bonds to real estate holdings and insured deposits. By recording these assets on distributed ledgers, proponents believe markets could achieve greater efficiency, transparency, and accessibility.

Recent developments have underscored this momentum. BlackRock's tokenized U.S. Treasury fund, BUIDL, surpassed $1 billion in assets earlier this year; Franklin Templeton's BENJI fund was integrated into DeFi platform BounceBit; and Goldman Sachs, in partnership with BNY Mellon, launched a pilot to tokenize money-market fund shares. These initiatives highlight the growing institutional participation in bringing traditional financial products onchain.

The scale of tokenization's growth is becoming increasingly visible. Industry trackers estimate that the market for tokenized U.S. Treasuries alone exceeded $7 billion in mid-2025—an increase of more than 80% since the start of the year.

Separately, policymakers have advanced frameworks that support tokenisation: Hong Kong's stablecoin licensing regime took effect on 1 August 2025 (HKMA); Singapore's MAS published the Global Layer One (GL1) work under Project Guardian; and in the U.S., the SEC held a public roundtable on tokenisation in May 2025.

While widespread adoption will take time, the bank suggests that tokenization has the potential to change how global markets operate—offering the possibility of faster settlement, fractional ownership, and broader access to traditionally illiquid assets.