Opinion by Sebastián Serrano, founder and CEO of Ripio.
Over the past decade the crypto industry experimented by tokenizing niche, illiquid assets. That creativity was useful, but it often overlooked a simple economic truth: tokenization creates the most value when it targets the center of the economy—highly liquid, widely demanded assets.
The clearest proof so far is USD-backed stablecoins. They map directly to the world’s most liquid asset and solved a concrete, massive problem: moving dollars quickly and cheaply across borders and systems. Firms are now piloting tokenized versions of other liquid instruments—Treasury bills, major currencies and large-cap equities—because these assets already have broad demand, standardized market practices and clear legal frameworks. Liquidity is the precondition for tokenization to become infrastructure rather than novelty.
Tokenize what people already use
Tokenization should begin with assets that are already essential to governments, institutions and individuals. Money, sovereign debt and major financial instruments move trillions daily; tokenizing them upgrades the rails those flows use instead of trying to generate demand from thin markets. Like electricity first powering factories, blockchains reach scale when they support core financial primitives.
Stablecoins succeeded because they served an existing, huge use case. Tokenized treasuries and other liquid instruments gain traction for the same reason: institutions already hold and trade them at scale. Tokenization delivers value where frictions are largest—compressing settlement from days to minutes, enabling real-time movement of assets and cash together, and reducing intermediaries. Those changes alter cost structures and risk profiles in tangible ways.
Why illiquid, bespoke assets fall short
NFTs and custom “real-world asset” tokens can be culturally meaningful or useful for experimentation, but their design is inherently fragmented. Unique assets are hard to standardize, legally ambiguous and trade infrequently, so they cannot form the shared economic layer that underpins widespread financial network effects. Tokenization can enable fractional ownership and automated workflows for illiquid assets, but it won’t by itself create continuous markets or deep liquidity.
How liquidity changes market function
When a tokenized asset is liquid, new behaviors become possible: continuous settlement, streaming payments, automated collateral management and programmatic allocation of capital in real time. Liquid instruments support transparent, near-real-time valuations that automated systems need for safe collateralization. Illiquid assets, with sporadic trades and wide spreads, don’t provide the price certainty required for those use cases. Capital efficiency improves with liquid tokens: assets can be rehypothecated, fractionally deployed and moved across the system faster.
Reducing risk through clarity
Highly liquid assets—dollars, government bonds, major corporate debt—come with established legal status, issuer accountability and regulatory frameworks. Tokenizing them fits within existing financial law and lowers barriers to institutional adoption. By contrast, NFTs raise questions about ownership, custody and enforceability that can overshadow technical benefits and increase legal risk.
What comes next
The future of tokenization will be defined by assets that are economically central. Early NFT experiments were valuable for learning, but they focused on the wrong end of the market. Stablecoins proved the model by upgrading the most liquid asset; tokenized government bonds, major currencies and equities are the logical next steps. That path is how distributed ledger technology moves from experimental use cases to foundational financial infrastructure.
This article presents the author’s opinion. Readers should conduct their own research before making financial decisions.