The Rise of Blockchain-Based Securities in 2023

More pertinently to advisors, perhaps, is what’s happening on the money market & treasury fund side and the private equity & private credit side – two very different investment profiles, yet two symbiotic cohorts here. Tokenized money markets and treasuries have now surpassed $650 million in collective AUM, essentially acting as a low-risk yield-generating vehicle to park capital in a digital system. That’s all. As new opportunities open up, such as in the alternatives space, it’ll be more seamless to swap from on-chain money markets to on-chain private equity, for instance, than to swap from a traditional money market fund, wait for the fiat money transfer, and rotate into the PE product. That’s a very barebones sample, but it’s one that firms are actively developing end-to-end digital interfaces for. One prominent example specifically bringing this reality to financial advisors, RIAs, and the wealth management industry is Securitize, which originally partnered with Onramp Invest before acquiring it in August 2023 with the goal of enabling alternative investments alongside digital assets.