As many as 54 of the world's largest financial corporations, including BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, and UBS, have joined a new working group supported by the UK government. Their shared goal is to jointly develop standards and infrastructure for asset digitization. This is not just another initiative, but, in my opinion, a signal that the institutional shift toward tokenization has moved from the experimental stage into a phase of real coordination.
From Pilots to the Market: Repo Transactions as a Launchpad
In its first phase, the group will focus on tokenized repurchase agreements (repos). The work is planned for the coming year. The choice is no coincidence: the repo market, with a daily volume in the UK amounting to trillions of pounds, is the ideal testing ground for the technology. The full chain of such a transaction—from initial issuance to settlement—will become the first practical case study. Success here will pave the way for scaling to secondary markets.
Researchers emphasize that in tokenization, the advantage goes to those who act faster. Countries that adopt standards first will gain control over liquidity and the rules of the game. The UK, it seems, intends not to miss this opportunity.
Numbers and Forecasts: From 0.01% to $88 Trillion
Currently, tokenized assets account for only 0.01% of all investment assets worldwide. However, over the past year, their value has surged by 300%. According to estimates from the UK Treasury, by 2035, tokenized markets could contribute up to £33 billion annually in additional GDP to the country's economy and up to £14 billion in tax revenue.
The global forecast is even more ambitious: the market for real-world assets (RWA) could reach $88 trillion by 2035, tens of times larger than the current $3 trillion attributed to cryptocurrencies and stablecoins. This is not just growth—it is a fundamental shift in the structure of global finance.
The Role of the State and Settlement Infrastructure
The group is creating nine specialized areas, four of which will form the core: primary issuance, secondary markets, collateral, and settlement infrastructure. A separate group will coordinate the work, responsible for system interoperability and conducting cross-border tests.
Concrete steps are expected from the government and regulators. Key among them are a pilot issuance of government debt securities on the blockchain (the DIGIT project) no later than the first quarter of 2027, and the readiness of the Bank of England to accept these securities as collateral. The first full-scale test of a repo transaction is planned for spring 2027.
The report's authors emphasize that without a reliable payment infrastructure, including tokenized deposits and stablecoins, large-scale tokenization simply will not work. This is a key point that is often overlooked.
My conclusion: The creation of this group is not just a formality. It is the first time global giants and the state have joined forces to create a unified standard. If the repo and DIGIT pilots succeed, we will witness the beginning of a new era in capital markets, where tokenization becomes the norm, not the exception.