New Research: What Does Tokenization Actually Intermediate?: Evidence from Real-World Asset Ledgers

Tokenized real-world assets have grown into a multi-billion-dollar market almost overnight — but when a fund’s shares move onto a blockchain, how much of the actual investment process moves with them?

In a new white paper from Reena Aggarwal, Robert E. McDonough Professor of Finance and Director of Psaros Center for Financial Markets and Policy, along with co-authors Changyong Song, Postdoctoral Researcher at Psaros Center for Financial Markets and Policy and Xiaofei Zhao, Professor of Finance, dig into the smart-contract code and market data behind tokenized U.S. Treasury funds to find out exactly which parts of a fund’s operations move on-chain — and which stay firmly in the hands of traditional intermediaries.

What this paper covers:

• How tokenized markets differ across asset classes — from Treasuries to stocks to real estate — in scale, structure, and who sponsors them
• What smart-contract source code reveals about which fund functions (issuance, transfers, custody, valuation) actually run on-chain versus off-chain
• Why more blockchains and lower fees don’t automatically mean broader investor access or more capital raised
• How closely tokenized Treasury yields track the benchmark, and why they consistently fall short

As banks, asset managers, and now everyday investors move deeper into tokenized products, understanding what tokenization actually changes — and what it doesn’t — matters for anyone weighing the promised efficiency gains against the real economics. Read the full white paper to see where the blockchain layer ends and the traditional financial system begins.