Could tokenization be crypto’s next catalyst?
There’s never a dull moment onchain. Here’s what you need to know this week:
Crypto markets continued to trade sideways. Also, Harvard reported buying ETH and two spot Sui ETFs with staking rewards launched.
Why tokenization could be crypto’s next catalyst. Tokenized assets are hitting record highs, and major Wall Street firms are investing heavily.
The percentage of crypto users who reported holding stablecoins. And more key stats from around the cryptoverse.
MARKET BYTES
As crypto markets continue to struggle, what are some bright spots?
For yet another week, without a clear catalyst emerging to boost prices, bitcoin has been mostly bouncing around a relatively narrow range above and below $67,000, while ETH has traded just below $2,000.
On Thursday, BTC briefly dipped below $66,000, as rising geopolitical tensions spooked markets.
The down market hasn’t stopped the biggest crypto treasury companies from continuing their acquisition sprees, however. Last week, Strategy added another 2,486 BTC (worth around $186 million) and BitMine bought 45,759 ETH (worth around $91 million).
Another bright spot? The huge recent trade volumes in crypto perpetual futures, which allow investors to trade on a vast range of outcomes, including prices rising, prices falling, and the movement of non-crypto markets including precious metals.
Here’s more news to know this week.
Harvard sold some BTC and bought some ETH
Harvard Management Company — which manages the university’s $50 billion-plus endowment — exited some of its BTC ETF holdings at the end of last year and bought around $86 million in ETH ETF shares, according to a new SEC filing.
The university, which at one time held BTC shares worth around $350 million, reported BTC ETF holdings with a market value of about $265.8 million at the end of the year.
The university is likely “making a relative value trade with the belief that ETH is undervalued relative to BTC,” as one analyst told Decrypt. The move also could represent a deeper commitment to crypto as an asset class, as opposed to focusing on BTC alone.
“[Harvard’s fund managers] might've just said 'the thesis works, now let's build a real portfolio around [crypto]’,” said Iva Wisher, founder of Bitcoin-native execution environment Midl. “When a $50 billion endowment starts treating digital assets as an asset class rather than a single bet, that's a maturity signal.”
Doubling down… Harvard isn’t alone among major funds in deepening its exposure to crypto. Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund reported increasing its exposure to BTC ETFs in Q4 by 46%, with holdings now totalling more than $1 billion.
Two spot Sui ETFs with staking rewards launched on major U.S. exchanges
Even though prices are currently down, new crypto products keep rolling out. This week, Canary Capital and Grayscale both launched spot Sui ETFs, which include staking rewards, on major exchanges.
Canary’s SUIS ETF is “designed to track the spot price of sui, the native token of the Sui layer-1 blockchain, while also participating in the network’s proof-of-stake validation process,” as CoinDesk explains. “Net staking rewards are reflected in the fund’s net asset value (NAV), giving investors exposure to both price performance and on-chain yield within a registered ETF structure.”
Sui was created to compete with smart-contract compatible blockchains like Solana’s with fast, cheap transactions.
ETH season… Many other major digital currencies, including Ether and Solana, also use a proof-of-stake system to secure the network and generate new tokens. This week, BlackRock took a major step towards launching an Ethereum ETF that would provide holders access to staking yield. The iShares Staked Ethereum Trust ETF “plans to ‘stake as much of the Trust’s ether as practicable,’ equating to 70%–95% under normal market circumstances,” reports The Block.
TOKEN FRENZY
Why tokenization could be crypto’s next big catalyst
Over the last five months — as the total crypto market cap has lost nearly half its value — traders have been looking for the next big catalyst that can help turn things around.
Many of the biggest players on Wall Street and beyond are pointing to a fast-growing crypto technology, which is already beginning to transform the global financial system, as one possible answer: tokenization.
Tokenization is the process of creating digital, blockchain-based tokens to represent pretty much any real-world asset: cash, stocks, bonds, real estate, royalties, art, and much more. Why? Because tokenized assets can be traded cheaply, instantly, and around the clock.
Here’s what you need to know.
Tokenized assets are hitting record highs
The market cap for tokenized assets hit a record high of $24.5 billion last month, according to CoinDesk, with much of the growth driven by demand for tokenized treasuries and tokenized commodities (including gold and silver).
Tokenized treasuries, which are digital tokens that represent ownership over U.S. debt, currently represent about 39% of all tokenized assets.
Finance giants including BlackRock are investing heavily in expanding access to their tokenized products. This month, the company announced a partnership with Uniswap that will allow shares of BlackRock’s $2 billion-plus tokenized treasury fund to trade onchain using the DeFi platform’s technology.
Overall, the tokenized treasury market is worth more than $10 billion, led by firms including Circle, Franklin Templeton, and Ondo.
And amid gold’s surge to more than $5,000 an ounce, demand for tokenized gold trading has also skyrocketed, with the market cap of tokenized commodities growing 22% last month alone, to more than $5 billion.
Tokenized stocks have also been gaining momentum. While their market cap is still just around $1 billion, they’ve grown more than 2,800% since the start of 2025.
Why could tokenization be crypto’s next catalyst?
In a report from last month, analysts at Bernstein said they expect a tokenization “supercycle” to begin in 2026, driven by a continued rise in stablecoin adoption, more tokenized assets becoming accessible to trade, and the growth of prediction markets.
According to the firm’s analysts, demand for tokenization is driving crypto’s evolution from the simple buying and selling of tokens into onchain networks that can handle a huge range of financial activities at scale.
“The tokenization of everything – from treasury bills to real estate – creates a tangible use case that attracts traditional capital,” said Gautam Chhugani, senior analyst at Bernstein. “This provides the fundamental bedrock for the next cycle.”
Tokenization, the report notes, allows relatively illiquid assets like gold or treasuries to be bought or sold near-instantaneously by almost anyone, and the efficiencies such frictionless trading is unlocking could lead to entirely new financial products for both retail and institutional investors.
What are some of the key markets that have been tokenized so far?
Stablecoins, which are expected to become a more than approximately $420 billion market this year, are considered the “rails” of tokenization since they provide the bulk of the liquidity being used to trade tokenized assets.
Tokenized treasuries, meanwhile, are already offering onchain yield, which will likely continue to attract institutional capital and retail interest.
And prediction markets, which are expected to see more than $70 billion in trading volume this year, represent tokenized claims on outcomes of real-world events. Beyond that, tokenized stocks, real estate, and private credit are also burgeoning sectors, with platforms including Coinbase already offering access to tokenized assets.
Analysts at Ark Invest share a similar outlook to Bernstein, noting in a recent report that the current growth of tokenization points toward a future where public blockchains are the infrastructure that underpin money, contracts, and ownership globally.
Already in 2026, tokenization-related startups have garnered $432 million in venture capital funding, highlighting conviction in the sector.
Which cryptocurrency might benefit the most from the growth of tokenization?
Many blockchains can support tokenization. But Ethereum has emerged as by far the most popular.
Ethereum already holds nearly 60% of all tokenized assets across all blockchains and the $14.5 billion market cap of tokenized assets on Ethereum is up 12% in the last 30 days alone.
That’s in part because Ethereum has become the blockchain of choice for Wall Street’s tokenization ambitions. BlackRock’s tokenized treasury fund, Paxos’ tokenized gold treasury, JPMorgan’s tokenized money market fund, and a variety of tokenized private credit products and equities are all built on Ethereum.
“In our view, as tokenization continues to rise, so will the opportunity to access assets beyond cash and U.S. treasuries,” said analysts at BlackRock in a recent report. “As we look towards the next era of tokenization, Ethereum may be poised to be a beneficiary of growth.”
NUMBERS TO KNOW
$650 million
The amount of capital raised by the crypto venture firm Dragonfly Capital — which has invested in companies including Polymarket and Ethena — for its new VC fund, exceeding its $500 million target. Dragonfly plans to deploy the capital in areas like stablecoins, DeFi, and prediction markets.
161
Number of BTC, worth around $11 million, the fast food chain Steak ‘n Shake now holds in its corporate treasury, after beginning to accept BTC payments nine months ago. In that time, the chain also reports that same-store sales have risen “dramatically.”
54
The percent of crypto users that reported holding stablecoins in the past year, according to a new study from BVNK in partnership with Coinbase and Artemis. The Stablecoin Utility Report 2026 also found that 56% of respondents intend to acquire more stablecoins in the next year.
TOKEN TRIVIA
When did Ethereum originally launch?
A
2013
B
2015
C
2017
D
2019
查看下面的答案。
冷知識答案
B
2015
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