Guilhem Chaumont expects equities and ETFs to drive the next phase of onchain adoption, although institutional custody concerns and regulation remain major obstacles.
Tokenized stocks could follow the growth trajectory of stablecoins over the next four to five years as financial institutions bring equities and exchange traded funds onchain, according to Guilhem Chaumont, CEO of crypto market maker Flowdesk.
In comments shared with Crypto Briefing, Chaumont said the cryptocurrency industry’s focus is shifting from tokenizing fiat currencies to bringing liquid financial assets onto blockchain networks, with regulatory approval and institutional risk management determining how quickly the transition unfolds.
The tokenized stock market has reached approximately $4.63 billion in capitalization, according to Token Terminal data, comparable to the stablecoin market in March 2020.
Stablecoins have since expanded nearly 64 times to approximately $297 billion, illustrating the scale of adoption Chaumont believes tokenized equities could eventually pursue.
The market remains concentrated among a handful of providers, with Binance bStocks, Ondo Finance and xStocks accounting for more than 80% of tokenized stock capitalization.
Chaumont described the past four or five years as the stablecoin experiment and said the next phase would focus on assets with established liquid markets, including stocks and ETFs.
These assets could eventually trade across blockchain networks around the clock, extending access beyond traditional exchange hours.
Institutions face custody and regulatory hurdles
Despite growing interest in tokenization, Chaumont said major financial institutions remain cautious about moving substantial amounts of capital onto blockchain networks.
He noted that only a handful of institutions considered tokenization the future three years ago, whereas the technology has since gained broad acceptance across traditional finance.
However, institutional investors still face operational questions about whether they can tokenize assets at scale, how those assets would be held and whether the associated risks meet internal compliance requirements.
Chaumont pointed to the challenge of tokenizing $1 billion in assets while maintaining the security standards required by institutional investors, particularly when cryptocurrency platforms continue to experience major breaches.
Those concerns have intensified following the Binance security breach, which resulted in an estimated $6.3 billion in unauthorized withdrawals from the exchange’s hot wallets.
Binance has pledged to cover customer losses and said approximately $3 billion in affected assets have been frozen.
Chaumont said incidents of this scale reinforce why institutional risk teams remain reluctant to move large balances onchain, even when regulators permit tokenized products.
He expects institutional adoption to accelerate as custody arrangements, settlement infrastructure and regulatory standards mature, allowing tokenized securities to operate within established financial risk frameworks.
Tokenized equities remain concentrated among major issuers
Token Terminal’s market research shows that approximately 86% of tokenized stocks are backed by collateralized structures, in which third party issuers hold underlying securities and issue blockchain tokens representing exposure to those assets.
Issuer sponsored tokenization and synthetic products account for smaller portions of the market, reflecting differing approaches to ownership, custody and settlement.
The market has expanded rapidly during 2026, climbing from less than $1 billion at the beginning of the year to more than $4.6 billion by late October.
However, tokenized equities remain a small fraction of the traditional stock market, and their growth is not guaranteed to replicate stablecoins.
Flowdesk, which provides market making and institutional trading services across more than 150 venues, operates in the infrastructure segment that could benefit from expanding tokenized asset markets.
Chaumont expects regulation and institutional confidence to determine the pace of adoption over the next several years, rather than technological availability alone.
