Centrifuge, the open infrastructure for onchain asset management and tokenization, today released its Tokenization Outlook 2026 report at the Real-World Asset Summit in Cannes, based on a survey of 150 operators across issuance, distribution, liquidity, DeFi, infrastructure, and data.
The report finds a market that is moving faster than many of its public narratives. 86% of operators say scaling distribution for existing products matters more than launching new ones, pointing to a clear shift: issuance may have opened the market, but it is no longer seen as the main challenge to scale.
That shift is visible in how operators assess value. Tokenized Treasuries helped establish the category, but respondents do not see passive yield as the end state. When asked about the primary long-term use case for tokenization, 66% of operators chose product building blocks and collateral, compared with 9% who chose treasury management, suggesting the next phase of growth will be shaped less by issuance itself and more by what assets can do once onchain.
The findings also challenge some of the industry’s most familiar assumptions. Only 5% of respondents identify transparency as the biggest benefit of onchain finance, despite its prominence in market messaging. Instead, programmability ranks as the leading advantage today (24%) and is expected to grow further over the next two years (31%). In other words, operators are placing greater value on utility, flexibility, and financial functionality than on features increasingly viewed as table stakes.
The same pattern appears in how operators assess constraints. Almost no respondents cite technology or smart contract risk as a meaningful barrier, while 76% say regulation or liquidity are what still hold the market back. The implication is that tokenization is no longer primarily a technology story. It is increasingly a market structure, distribution, and investor confidence story.
That investor confidence gap comes through clearly in the data. While 44% cite regulation as the biggest barrier to scale, respondents do not rank regulators as the stakeholder whose confidence matters most. That distinction goes to end investors. The survey suggests the market is converging on a harder truth: adoption will depend not only on yield, but on whether that yield is paired with clear legal rights, reliable liquidity, and credible exit paths.
The report also reveals that where firms sit in the market shapes how they see its future. US-based operators are markedly more bullish than their European peers, with 79% projecting tokenized asset AUM above $150B by 2027, compared with 54% in Europe. Smaller firms also tend to show greater conviction in the market’s trajectory, while larger institutions are more measured. The result is not a lack of belief in tokenization, but a widening gap in how quickly different parts of the market expect it to scale.
Across asset classes, conviction is broadly distributed. Money markets lead, while stocks, ETFs, and commodities follow closely behind. Real estate stands out as the notable exception, trailing other categories by a wide margin and underscoring the continued difficulty of bringing physical, illiquid, and jurisdiction-bound assets onchain.
“The findings in the report show a market that is moving beyond issuance as the headline,” said Bhaji Illuminati, CEO & Co-Founder of Centrifuge Labs. “What matters now is whether tokenized assets can be used inside products, distributed through real channels, and supported by the liquidity and clarity investors need. Centrifuge’s role is to provide the infrastructure that makes that possible.”
That shift is already visible onchain. Centrifuge infrastructure powers products across the risk curve, including JTRSY, the tokenized Janus Henderson Anemoy Treasury Fund, and JAAA, the tokenized Janus Henderson AAA CLO fund, both of which are already usable as components in DeFi. Earlier this year, JAAA began being deployed as leveraged collateral inside Aave Horizon, enabling institutional credit to be borrowed against, looped, and actively managed within a decentralized lending market.
About the survey 150 operators across issuance, distribution, DeFi, liquidity, infrastructure, and data/analytics. Organizations range from crypto-native startups to publicly listed financial institutions, headquartered across North America (38%), Europe (37%), Asia-Pacific (13%), and the Middle East (7%). Conducted February to March 2026.
About Centrifuge
Centrifuge is the open infrastructure powering onchain asset management. As one of the first and largest tokenization platforms, Centrifuge bridges traditional and onchain capital markets, tokenizing high-quality institutional assets and integrating them deeply across DeFi. The platform powers onchain strategies for Apollo, Janus Henderson, and S&P Dow Jones Indices, with tokens now live across leading DeFi protocols including Sky, Aave, and Morpho. Beyond infrastructure, Centrifuge advances the broader ecosystem through the Real-World Asset Summit, the Tokenized Vault Foundation, and the Tokenized Asset Coalition.
