Securitize CEO Predicts Tokenized Equities Could Expand RWA Market to $5 Trillion

Carlos Domingo, CEO of Securitize, told a panel at ETHConf in New York on Tuesday that tokenized equities and exchange-traded funds could expand the real-world asset market from its current size of roughly $30 billion to as much as $5 trillion. "The entire equities and ETF market worldwide is probably like $150 trillion," Domingo said.

" Domingo argued that tokenized stocks, rather than private credit or Treasury products, will drive the next phase of growth for tokenized assets.

He said many existing blockchain-based stock offerings are synthetic products that do not confer direct ownership, voting rights or dividends. "A lot of people that today say that they tokenize equities, they're not tokenizing equity," he said. Securitize is preparing to go public and has announced partnerships with the New York Stock Exchange and transfer agent Computershare to enable on-chain trading and settlement of equities.

The firm already works with institutions including BlackRock on tokenization projects. Domingo said public blockchains, particularly Ethereum, remain the preferred infrastructure for institutional tokenization. He noted that Securitize uses smart contracts to restrict ownership to approved investors while allowing assets to move on permissionless networks.

He added that traditional markets will continue to operate while a parallel blockchain-based market develops alongside them. "The traditional markets are going to stay," he said.