In today’s newsletter, Nick Ducoff, Head of Institutional Growth at the Solana Foundation, draws parallels between tokenization’s ability to democratize access to investments and the way the Internet facilitated access to banking services over fifteen years ago.
Next, in Ask an Expert, the CoinDesk research team answers questions about stablecoin and tokenization trends in its February 2026 Stablecoin and Tokenization Assets Report. Read the full report here.
– Sarah Morton
Internet Capital Markets: From “No Broker” to Universally Invested Markets
Fifteen years ago, more than 60 million Americans were “unbanked,” deprived of basic financial services because traditional banks deemed them unprofitable. Then Chime, Revolut and other fintech pioneers brought banking to smartphones, eliminating legacy barriers like minimum balances and penalty fees. Today, we face an even more serious exclusion problem: billions of people are effectively “unbroken,” without access to capital markets or the investment opportunities needed to create generational wealth.
Enter the Internet Capital Markets: a global, always-on infrastructure where assets are born digitally, traded mobile-first, and accessible to anyone with a smartphone 24/7. Thanks to blockchain technology, internet capital markets are poised to do for investing what fintech did for the banking industry. And the opportunity is immense.
The extent of financial exclusion
“No-broker” encompasses two distinct but overlapping populations: those who do not have a brokerage account at all and international investors who cannot efficiently access high-quality U.S. dollar-denominated assets. Take the example of Pakistan, where, according to Bilal Bin Saqib, Chairman of the Pakistan Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (PVARA) and CEO of the Pakistan Crypto Council, only 300,000 people hold brokerage accounts while 40 million own cryptocurrency wallets. The infrastructure exists, but financial products remain largely inaccessible.
Even when access to U.S. markets is possible through local brokers, international investors often pay significant premiums, not to mention the high minimums and investor accreditation that private markets require. These are not products accessible to the global middle class: they are designed to serve people who are already wealthy.
Tokenization broadens the rules of the game
Blockchain tokenization transforms this dynamic by enabling fractional ownership, eliminating intermediary costs, and operating 24/7 with instant settlement. The result: dramatically reduced minimums and global accessibility. Take the example of Hamilton Lane, a leading alternative asset manager. Through Republic Crypto, investors can now access exposure to the Hamilton Lane Private Market for as little as $500. This represents a thousand-fold reduction in the barrier to entry compared to traditional private fund minimums, and a sign of how Internet-native market infrastructure can finally make fractional access more readily available.
BitGo’s recent IPO also shows the democratizing potential of tokenization. When BitGo went public on the New York Stock Exchange, the token representation of BitGo shares was simultaneously tradable on Solana, allowing anyone in the world with a Solana wallet to purchase BitGo shares immediately. This move towards real-time global accessibility is now validated by the world’s largest asset managers: BlackRock and Franklin Templeton have launched tokenized money market funds on public blockchains, enabling 24/7 liquidity and transparency.
Why this infrastructure is important
Tokenization expands access rather than competing with traditional markets. Blockchain operates continuously, allowing investors in Jakarta, São Paulo or Lagos to purchase assets as they become available, rather than when their local markets open. Settlement occurs instantly against stablecoins, eliminating multi-day clearing processes and currency conversion fees that bother retail investors outside the United States.
Speed and cost matter. High-performance blockchains like Solana, along with Layer 2 scaling solutions on Ethereum, can process thousands of transactions per second for a fraction of a cent, making the fractional ownership economy really work. This is the foundation of “universal core ownership,” whereby anyone with a phone can now have a stake in the growth of the global economy, even in asset classes like pre-IPO stocks and private credit, once strictly reserved for institutions and the ultra-rich.
The Advisor Advantage: Strategy and Accessibility
For financial advisors, this transition represents a strategic exposure game. Accessibility is now streamlined through regulated vehicles such as Solana spot ETFs (e.g. SOEZ, QSOL, BSOL) and European ETPs, as well as user-friendly digital custody tools such as Phantom or Ledger wallets. Now, advisors can use sub-cent transaction costs to offer sophisticated, fractional portfolios to a much broader client base. This infrastructure reduces the “cost to serve,” making institutional-grade diversification accessible to middle-class “family” investors through their financial advisors.
From without a broker to universal investment
The fintech wave of the 2010s proved that financial exclusion is a problem by design. Tokenization represents the next chapter in this story. A software developer in South Korea should not face barriers to investing in U.S. stocks or accessing private credit returns. A small business owner in Argentina should not pay high prices for the same stocks available at low prices to American investors. Sophisticated investment strategies should not remain exclusively in wealth management channels serving the top 1%.
The technological rails have been built and the regulatory pathways are becoming clearer. All that remains is to scale this infrastructure and ensure that it meets its highest purpose: expanding wealth creation opportunities to the billions of people currently excluded. Although the work of banking the unbanked is far from done, it offers a model for what we are about to see: transforming the unbanked into the universally invested.
– Nick Ducoff, Head of Institutional Growth, Solana Foundation
Ask an expert
Q: What are stablecoins and why are they important?
Stablecoins are a type of digital currency designed to maintain a stable value. This is typically achieved by “pegging” the stablecoin to a traditional asset, such as the US dollar. Unlike other cryptocurrencies, such as bitcoin or ether, whose prices can fluctuate widely, stablecoins are designed to allow users to hold or trade digital assets without being exposed to price fluctuations. Other use cases for stablecoins include acting as primary trading pairs, cross-border payments, decentralized finance (DeFi) lending and borrowing, and inflation hedging. The Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins Act (GENIUS Act), signed into law in July 2025, creates a comprehensive federal regulatory framework for US dollar-backed payment stablecoins.
Q: What is the current stablecoin landscape?
After increasing for twenty-five consecutive months, total stablecoin market capitalization growth has slowed over the past four months, although it continues to approach its all-time high of $310 billion. The latest research report from CoinDesk indicates that as the prices of digital assets generally trend downward, the dominance of stablecoins in the market has increased. In February, stablecoin market dominance jumped to 13.3% (from 11.2% in January), driven by falling digital asset prices. Tether’s USDT continues to lead the industry with a 59.1% market share, while Circle’s USDC ranks second with 24.6%.
Q: How popular are tokenized assets currently and how fast is the market for real-world tokenized assets growing?
Real-world tokenized assets continue to gain traction in global financial markets, with the total tokenized market capitalization reaching a new all-time high of $23.4 billion at the end of February. This represents a 22.9% month-over-month increase from January’s $19 billion, highlighting the accelerating pace of adoption across multiple asset classes. Much of this growth was driven by tokenized Treasuries, which grew 15.1% to $10.5 billion and now account for approximately 45% of the entire tokenized market. At the same time, tokenized commodities have become a major secondary growth driver, growing 27% to $6.6 billion and accounting for 28.4% of the market. Other segments are also growing steadily. The stocks and ETFs sector reached $804.7 million at the end of February, a monthly increase of 3.1% and maintaining a 3.4% share in the overall tokenized ecosystem.
– Jacob Joseph, Research Specialist, CoinDesk
