Tokenisation, the process of digitally representing real-world assets on blockchain infrastructure, is rapidly reshaping how traditional securities are issued, traded, and managed.
For managers looking at diversifying their portfolios and streamlining fund operations, tokenisation provides a compelling opportunity to access new markets, improve liquidity, and enhance transparency.
Why Tokenisation Matters Now
Industry developments continue to accelerate the momentum behind tokenisation. BlackRock’s tokenised money market fund, launched on the Ethereum blockchain, signalled institutional confidence in blockchain’s role in the future of asset management. Franklin Templeton and UBS have also expanded their tokenised offerings, validating the model across asset classes.
Platforms such as Anemoy and Centrifuge are building robust tokenised real-world asset (RWA) infrastructure in the United States and Cayman Islands, enabling on-chain issuance of treasury bills, private credit, and structured products.
Tokenisation Is Finance’s Next Structural Shift
Tokenisation has been described as “finance’s next ETF moment”, a structural shift in how financial products are created, distributed, and accessed. The analogy is powerful: just as ETFs democratised access to diversified portfolios, tokenisation promises fractional ownership, 24/7 markets, and lower barriers to entry.
However, there is also a critical gap in its adoption: while the technology is ready, many traditional institutions are not. Operational readiness, regulatory clarity, and infrastructure integration remain key hurdles. For emerging managers, this presents a strategic advantage, and early adoption can unlock efficiencies and investor appeal.
Applications Across Traditional Securities
Tokenisation is being applied across a wide spectrum of traditional securities, with real-world examples demonstrating its potential to enhance access, efficiency, and transparency:
- Equities and Bonds: Tokenised shares and fixed-income instruments can be fractionalised, improving accessibility for smaller investors and enhancing secondary market liquidity. UBS has issued tokenised bonds on public blockchains, showcasing how traditional instruments can be restructured for digital settlement and cross-border distribution.
- Private Credit: Platforms like Centrifuge are enabling tokenised private credit pools, allowing managers to onboard institutional-grade borrowers and investors via smart contracts. This model supports real-time reporting, automated servicing, and greater transparency across the credit lifecycle.
- Real Estate: Tokenisation simplifies ownership structures and enables programmable cash flows, making real estate more investable and transparent. It also facilitates fractional ownership and secondary market access, particularly for global investors.
- Money Market Instruments: Anemoy’s work in tokenising short-duration instruments such as US Treasury bills in the Cayman Islands demonstrates how traditional cash management tools are being reimagined for blockchain-native environments. Franklin Templeton has also expanded its tokenised US Government Money Fund, integrating blockchain-native investor servicing and settlement.
- Index Funds: The launch of the first tokenised S&P 500 Index Fund by Anemoy and Janus Henderson, built on Centrifuge’s onchain infrastructure, showcases how tokenisation can bring institutional-grade index exposure to blockchain environments. This project was recognised as a winner in the Spark $1B Tokenisation Grand Prix, alongside BlackRock and Superstate.
These examples reflect a growing institutional appetite for tokenised structures and highlight how tokenisation is being used to modernise fund operations, improve investor access, and unlock new efficiencies across asset classes.
Infrastructure and Intermediaries: A New Role
While blockchain enables disintermediation, the real opportunity lies in reconfiguring and redefining the roles of custodians, administrators, and transfer agents. Fund administrators and other service providers are evolving into infrastructure partners, responsible not only for setting up the framework but for ensuring its continuity, compliance, and scalability. This includes integrating blockchain compliance tools, investor onboarding platforms, and smart contract-based reporting.
The service provider’s ongoing involvement ensures the fund operates reliably, transparently, and in full compliance with evolving regulations. Crucially, service providers like administrators remain actively involved in the day-to-day operations of tokenised funds. Administrators configure and maintain the underlying mechanisms, validate outputs, monitor exceptions, and ensure regulatory alignment across jurisdictions. Important functions like reconciling blockchain data with financial records, managing investor communications, and maintaining audit readiness are also a key component in the fund’s maintenance. Without this oversight, automation alone cannot meet the standards required for institutional-grade fund management. This model sets a new benchmark for scalable, resilient tokenised fund solutions, highlighting the critical role service providers play not only in launching these funds, but in sustaining them.
Jurisdictional Momentum
Tokenised fund structures are gaining momentum across key global jurisdictions as regulators adapt existing frameworks to support digital issuance and administration models.
In the United States, tokenisation activity is progressing within established securities laws, with regulators such as the SEC and CFTC engaging through guidance and supervised market activity. Institutional initiatives, including BlackRock’s tokenised money market fund, illustrate growing adoption of tokenisation within conventional regulatory parameters rather than through bespoke regimes.
The Cayman Islands remains a leading jurisdiction for tokenised funds, supported by recent legislative amendments that formally integrate tokenised fund interests into the existing mutual and private funds framework. This approach provides regulatory certainty while avoiding overlap with the Virtual Asset Service Provider regime, unless virtual asset services are provided at the operational level. The result is a flexible, well understood environment for fund sponsors seeking to deploy tokenised structures.
In Europe, regulatory clarity is advancing through a combination of EU level and national measures. The Markets in Crypto Assets regulation establishes a harmonised framework for crypto assets and service providers, while tokenised securities and fund units continue to fall under existing securities legislation, supported by the DLT Pilot Regime. Jurisdictions such as Luxembourg, Malta, Germany and France have aligned their legal and supervisory practices to accommodate compliant tokenised fund models, with Luxembourg in particular offering mature legal recognition of DLT based fund registers.
The United Kingdom is also progressing in this direction. The Financial Conduct Authority has issued consultation proposals aimed at enabling tokenised fund registers and more efficient dealing models for authorised funds. While final rules are pending, these proposals signal a clear policy intent to support tokenisation within the UK asset management framework.
Beyond Europe and the Americas, several EMEA and Asia Pacific jurisdictions are positioning themselves as digital asset hubs. Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Mauritius, Singapore and Hong Kong offer progressive licensing regimes, regulatory sandboxes and institutional grade infrastructure tailored to tokenised offerings. Together, these developments reflect a broad international convergence around the viability of tokenised fund structures, with jurisdictional choice increasingly shaped by fund strategy, investor profile and operational requirements.
How We Can Help
At Trident Trust, we support fund managers at every stage of the tokenisation journey. Whether your fund is exploring tokenised feeder funds, launching a digital-native vehicle, or integrating tokenised assets into a traditional structure, we provide the operational infrastructure to help you scale with confidence.
Our team has supported one of the most pioneering launches in the space:
- Anemoy & Janus Henderson’s Tokenised S&P 500 Index Fund: The first tokenised S&P 500 fund built on Centrifuge’s onchain index infrastructure, recognised as a winner in the Spark $1B Tokenisation Grand Prix.
Our global footprint includes key jurisdictions leading the charge in tokenisation. We offer:
- Fund Formation & Administration: Expertise in structuring and administering tokenised funds across regulated and flexible jurisdictions.
- Digital Asset Servicing: Through our partnerships with 1Token, we deliver digital asset trading information through integrations with exchanges and custodians, enabling accurate portfolio tracking and NAV reporting.
- Investor Onboarding & Servicing: Our integrations enable investor onboarding, digital subscriptions, and compliance checks.
- Blockchain Compliance & AML: We use Scorechain to support robust on-chain AML/KYC monitoring and regulatory reporting.
- Fund Accounting & Reporting: Our use of institutional-grade platforms including Allvue, Advent Geneva, and Paxus ensures accurate, timely, and scalable reporting for both traditional and tokenised assets.
We understand that tokenisation is a strategic evolution and not just a technology shift, which is why we focus on ensuring that your operations remain compliant, efficient, and investor-ready as you explore this new frontier.