2024 was the year the term ‘tokenization’ went mainstream, and 2025 is the year we are beginning to see the first serious tokenized projects and platforms roll out.
With BlackRock (NASDAQ: BLK) CEO Larry Fink predicting the tokenization of everything and calling Bitcoin and Ethereum “stepping stones” toward a tokenized world last year, and with Robinhood (NASDAQ: HOOD) and others announcing tokenized stock trading in the past few months, tokenization has become a big deal in the non-blockchain economy.
Yet, unlike ICOs, Web3 gaming, NFTs, and other crazes in the past, RWA tokenization has largely skipped the hype cycle and gone straight to the utility phase. There haven’t been art tokens selling for millions only to crash to pennies later, and companies like Robinhood have already rolled out tokenized solutions in regulated markets.
It looks good, but it’s happening on Robinhood’s blockchain, so it controls the game and the rules.
With all of this happening, could tokenized assets finally be the thing that gives blockchain technology its much-needed mainstream use case? They certainly have the potential, but how tokenization occurs matters a lot. If we don’t want more corporate control of the industry and world at large, tokenization must occur on a scalable public blockchain no single entity can control.
Tokenize your stuff on my chain, bro
I’ve said it repeatedly, and I’ll say it as long as the problem persists: building on hundreds or thousands of private blockchains is a fool’s errand. Not only does it leave us with the same problem Bitcoin was supposed to solve — multiple conflicting ledgers — but it fragments liquidity, kills off the interoperability of apps, and gives control over tokens to the entity that controls the chain.
Let’s look at Robinhood’s recent announcement, for example: stock tokens will initially be issued on Arbitrum, but they’ll eventually migrate to their own proprietary layer two solution. That sounds great in theory, but it means Robinhood has too much control over the tokens and what can be done with them. For instance, at least initially, these assets won’t be tradable on secondary markets, so Robinhood controls the entire game.
This isn’t the world Bitcoin and blockchain technology was supposed to usher in. It was supposed to be decentralized, meaning no single entity could control anything. In this world, Robinhood would issue stock tokens on a public blockchain and let the buyer move them between wallets, sell them to someone else on another platform, or even peer-to-peer if they wish. The buyer would thus have custody of his asset and could do as he wishes with his property within the bounds of the law.
Wanting to control an application interface is reasonable: customers use it, make purchases, and the corporation generate fees from loyal users, but wanting to control the rails the tokens run on is dangerous. This is no different than how things work in the Web 2.0 world today; if Meta (NASDAQ: META) deletes your account, you’re gone, and if Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) sunsets Kindle or Prime, all your digital media goes with it.
While private chains can still show immutable records and thus be audited by anyone with access, they’re still ultimately under the control of a private entity and validators who run it for that entity’s interests. Thus, in a tokenized world on private blockchains, we have nothing more than window dressing for the old systems; this technology was supposed to help us escape.
A better solution: issue everything on one scalable, distributed blockchain
For those who don’t know, I’m talking about the BSV blockchain. While BTC and BCH went in different directions, BSVers decided to test whether Satoshi Nakamoto was right by removing the block size limit, restoring most of the original Bitcoin opcodes, and adding value by releasing token protocols, easy-to-use developer tools, and more.
Since testing of its Teranode upgrade has shown how BSV is capable of one million transactions per second on a sustained basis, and fees are fractions of a cent, this means BSV could be the distributed database that acts as the backbone for a tokenized world.
There are many other players involved in the BSV ecosystem including independent developers like Project Babbage, miners and transaction processors like GorillaPool, and decentralized protocols like 1Sat Ordinals, which indie developers like Luke Rohenaz and David Case helped implement on BSV.
In short, while there are some Network Access Rules (NAR) miners must abide by, such as not deliberately attacking the network and the value built on it, BSV today is a decentralized network with multiple independent miners, dozens of independent developers, and plenty of promising applications.
Would that be a much better database for tokens than one chain controlled by Robinhood, another by BlackRock, and perhaps another by your favorite global banking cartel?
The promise of Bitcoin is still alive, and tokens can live on it
I got into Bitcoin and blockchain because I wanted to take power out of the hands of large financial players and into a distributed system nobody could mess with. Sadly, BTC has been stripped of all capabilities for tokenization and application building, Ethereum still doesn’t scale, and most of the other blockchains are vaporware and ghost chains.
That leaves one option: Satoshi’s original protocol, capable of millions of transactions per second, controlled by no single entity, and which anyone can join and mine on, provided they follow basic rules to keep things fair. Endless tokens representing everything from gold coins to fractionalized art to in-game items can exist on BSV today, and once those tokens are in your hands, nobody can take or control them without your private keys.
That’s the world I believe in, and which I know Bitcoin is capable of paving the way for. If you feel the same, lobby your representatives, tell everyone who shares a common interest in blockchain, and lend your time, energy, and resources to ensure the tokenized world we are entering isn’t controlled by the same legacy players the old financial world was.
Thankfully, this time, there’s a tech solution that works, and with better, truly decentralized alternatives offering access to tokenized assets, it can and will win the long game.
Build on BSV, issue tokens on it, and let’s make sure the world our children inherit is decentralized, free, and truly peer-to-peer!
Watch: It’s time for corporates to turn to public blockchain solutions
