Securitize CEO Carlos Domingo put a $5 trillion figure on the tokenized equities market during a panel at ETHConf in New York on June 9. Not as a talking point, but as arithmetic: global equities and ETFs are worth roughly $150 trillion according to industry estimates, and a 2-3% migration on-chain would grow the current real-world asset sector more than a hundredfold from its present level of around $30 billion, per CoinGecko data. Behind the simple math sits the most ambitious industrial bet in digital finance.
Context matters here. Until now, the engine of tokenization has been U.S. Treasuries: on-chain Treasuries have reached roughly $15 billion, with BlackRock, JPMorgan, and Fidelity already operational, according to data tracked by Securitize. Domingo argues that chapter is only the prologue.
Equities, he says, are the asset that investors worldwide actually want to hold. His pointed critique: many existing tokenized stock offerings are synthetic products, replicas without voting rights or dividends, not true shares with direct ownership. That distinction separates marketing from infrastructure.
The Machine Moving Behind the Words
Domingo’s statement doesn’t land in a vacuum. Securitize, one of the leading institutional tokenization providers and a BlackRock partner, is preparing for a public listing and has announced deals with the New York Stock Exchange and transfer agent Computershare to bring securities settlement on-chain.
The DTCC, the clearinghouse holding over $114 trillion in assets, is moving in the same direction. After receiving a no-action letter from the SEC in December 2025, the DTCC will launch limited production operations on tokenized assets in July, with a broader rollout planned for October and integration with the public Stellar network expected in the first half of 2027. Think of the DTCC as Wall Street’s land registry: when that registry starts recording titles on a shared public ledger, the capital markets change in kind.
Why It Matters and for Whom
Functionally, the race is now broad-based. Nasdaq is developing blockchain-based equity infrastructure with Payward, Kraken’s parent company, while ICE, which owns the NYSE, is backing initiatives linked to OKX. The stakes are threefold: faster settlement, more portable collateral, and markets open beyond trading hours. For European investors, the issue connects directly to MiCA’s capital markets framework and the ongoing debate around the digital euro and payment sovereignty: whoever controls the rails of securities settlement controls a slice of the capital market.
One question remains open, and Domingo addresses it directly: which infrastructure will win? His answer is unambiguous. Public blockchains, with Ethereum at the front, are best positioned for institutional tokenization. Those wanting to track the infrastructure debate can follow SpazioCrypto’s coverage across the Ethereum, blockchain, and token verticals. Official documentation is available on the DTCC website, with institutional offering details published by Securitize.
The $5 trillion is not a forecast, it’s a psychological threshold. If the first Russell 1000 equities are genuinely circulating on a public ledger with full shareholder rights by end-2027, that threshold will stop looking optimistic. The next six months, between the DTCC’s July debut and the Securitize IPO, will show whether the timeline holds.
