Tokenisation Market to Hit ₱122.77 trillion ($2 trillion) by 2028

Standard Chartered Global Head of Digital Assets Research Geoffrey Kendrick projects the tokenisation market will reach $2 trillion by 2028, representing 5,600% growth from today's baseline.

The forecast comes months after one of the sector's biggest stress tests. KelpDAO, an Ethereum liquid restaking protocol, suffered an exploit in April that drained nearly $300 million and triggered a bank run on Aave. Deposits at the decentralised lending platform collapsed by $17 billion while active loans dropped $5.5 billion. A coalition of DeFi protocols and companies raised more than $300 million to stabilise the system.

Kendrick described the April incident as one of the most severe DeFi shocks in recent memory but said it proved the sector's resilience rather than fragility. He argues that lending protocols form the foundation of tokenisation's value proposition because they allow assets to serve multiple functions simultaneously. One asset can earn returns, back a loan, and remain available to trade.

The efficiency comes from blockchain architecture itself. All assets and infrastructure exist on the same ledger and can interact without barriers. That interconnectedness explains why lending protocols are the central focus of tokenisation activity — without them, there would be no connection across multi-use activities.

Institutional adoption accelerated through 2025 with over 18 digital bond issuances in public markets, all investment grade. Large U.S. banks and asset managers began tokenising money market funds while SEC Chair Paul Atkins identified stock tokenisation as a priority. Broadridge's 2025 survey found custodians most optimistic about rapid growth in investor demand for tokenised assets over the next five years, with Standard Chartered's projection sitting below competing forecasts that see tokenised assets reaching $10 trillion to $16 trillion by 2030.

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