Bitfinex Exec: Emerging Markets to Drive RWA Tokenization Boom in 2026

Forget waiting for Wall Street to get its act together. The real fuel for tokenizing everything from real estate to royalties isn't coming from the usual financial hubs—it's brewing in the world's emerging economies.

The Unlikely Engine of Finance 2.0

A top Bitfinex executive just laid out the case. While legacy institutions in developed markets fiddle with compliance and committees, regions across Asia, Africa, and Latin America are poised to leapfrog the old system entirely. They're not burdened by outdated infrastructure; they're building the new one.

Why 2026 is the Tipping Point

The logic is brutally simple. Tokenization cuts out middlemen, bypasses capital controls, and unlocks liquidity for assets traditionally frozen on local balance sheets. For markets hungry for investment and transparency, it's not a fancy upgrade—it's a fundamental solution. The growth projection for 2026 isn't a hopeful guess; it's a trajectory set by necessity meeting technology.

So, watch the so-called 'frontier.' While traditional finance debates the color of the boardroom carpet, the future of asset ownership is being coded elsewhere—proving once again that innovation rarely comes from the center. It comes from the edges, where the old rules don't apply.

Knutson shares unexpected forecast about tokenized RWA market

In a statement, Knutson highlighted that tokenizing real-world assets, which involves converting ownership rights to physical or financial items (such as real estate, art, or stocks) into digital tokens on a blockchain, addresses the challenges encountered in emerging markets. This is because the process enables capital to FORM on-chain effectively. Additionally, it eliminates the need for traditional financial middlemen. 

The crypto executive further asserted that emerging markets frequently overlook aging infrastructure that lags behind that of developed nations, and instead embrace digital systems, such as stablecoin settlement, more swiftly than areas with outdated financial systems.

Tokenization enables fractional ownership of assets. According to Knutson, this MOVE streamlines the process for regular investors to access investments that might otherwise be very costly.

He also unveiled that firms find it easy to provide fixed returns to investors but struggle to acquire stable traditional funding to benefit most from asset tokenization. 

Currently, fixed-income instruments such as US Treasuries and money market funds dominate tokenization efforts in developed markets. In contrast, developing economies are increasingly focusing on tokenizing tangible assets, such as real estate and commodities.

Following this finding, Knutson anticipated that the total market value of tokenized RWAs WOULD expand to a record number of one trillion dollars within the next decade.

Nonetheless, as the crypto ecosystem continues to achieve several accomplishments following Knutson’s prediction, reliable sources have noted that this growth, as anticipated, depends on leading firms shifting from testing phases to actual commercial products.

Despite the promising outlook for the RWA market, reports still identified several key challenges in the market. Some of these challenges include ensuring that on-chain contracts can be lawfully enforced, offering sufficient liquidity for settlements without incurring losses, and adopting workable frameworks to safeguard investors, said Knutson.

Knutson outlines challenges faced in the RWA market

As Knutson outlined the issues faced in the RWA market, he mentioned that another major obstacle in this market is establishing a common way for various blockchain networks and platforms to collaborate, particularly when developing tokenized assets effectively.

Even with these challenges in mind, the crypto executive still insisted that it is important to secure widespread acceptance. He argued that the various types of token standards and the contrasting nature between permissioned blockchains and open crypto systems pose a technical issue for RWA issuers. 

To maximize the full potential of on-chain assets, Knutson urged issuers to consider creating tokenized products that can be effectively transferred throughout different parts of the crypto ecosystem and later used as collateral in decentralized finance (DeFi) applications.

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