Centrifuge CEO Bhaji Illuminati says the market is getting pickier about tokens

For years, launching a token was the default move for any crypto project with a pulse. Centrifuge CEO Bhaji Illuminati thinks that era is ending.

Speaking with Bloomberg, Illuminati said the market is becoming more critical about when tokens are actually appropriate. Her company is not just talking about it. Centrifuge is in the middle of replacing its CFG token with company shares.

From governance token to tokenized equity

The shift runs through a governance proposal called CP172. It was approved in September 2026 with 98% backing from the Centrifuge community.

Under the plan, CFG can be converted into shares of a re-registered Cayman Islands entity. Eligible token holders go through a subscription process to make the swap from token to equity.

Centrifuge describes this as a move to a single value-accrual mechanism. In plain terms, there will no longer be a split between what the token captures and what the company captures. Value flows to one place.

Why institutions kept walking away

The motivation is practical rather than philosophical. According to the research behind the Bloomberg coverage, institutional due diligence flagged Centrifuge’s token-governed structure as a risk.

That flag had real costs. Centrifuge lost deals because of those governance concerns.

For a company whose entire business is bringing traditional assets onchain, losing traditional finance clients over its own corporate plumbing is an awkward problem. CP172 aims to remove that barrier by giving institutions something they already know how to evaluate: equity.

Centrifuge has a track record worth protecting. By early 2025, the platform had facilitated over $663 million in financed assets and tokenized 1,585 assets across multiple blockchain networks.

A market that has soured on token launches

Bloomberg reported in mid-October 2026 that more than 90% of major-exchange tokens were trading below their listing prices one year after launch.

The Bloomberg reporting frames Centrifuge’s move as part of a broader pattern. A growing number of blockchain projects are dropping native tokens in favor of traditional equity structures to attract institutional capital more effectively.

Illuminati has led Centrifuge Labs as CEO since early 2025. She previously served as the company’s chief marketing officer and then as interim CEO before taking the permanent role.

What this means

For CFG holders, the immediate question is mechanical: eligibility, the subscription process, and what owning shares in a Cayman Islands entity looks like compared with holding a liquid token. Equity typically comes with clearer legal rights. It can also come with less of the instant tradability token holders are used to.

For institutions, Centrifuge’s restructuring is designed to make due diligence simpler. A company with a conventional cap table is easier to underwrite than one where governance sits with a distributed token base.

For the wider crypto industry, Centrifuge is not a meme project retreating from a failed launch. It is an established real-world asset platform concluding that its token was getting in the way of its core business.