SEC’s Hester Peirce Signals Openness to Tokenization, Urges Industry Dialogue

SINGAPORE — U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Commissioner Hester Peirce said Tuesday that the agency is prepared to engage with firms pursuing tokenization, while underscoring the regulatory complexities of integrating blockchain-based assets with traditional markets.

“We are willing to work with people who want to tokenize — we urge them to come talk to us,” Peirce told attendees at the Digital Assets Summit in Singapore.

Tokenized securities are digital representations of ownership rights in underlying assets such as stocks or bonds, existing alongside paper and electronic certificates. According to Peirce, a central challenge for regulators lies in defining how these various forms of the same security interact.

“Some of the questions are: how does a tokenized security interact with other iterations of the security and other forms of that security?” she said, noting that the classification depends heavily on the structure of the tokenized product.

Tokenization has emerged as one of the most practical applications of blockchain technology, alongside stablecoins. Banks, asset managers, and financial institutions globally are adopting tokenized solutions to enhance liquidity, streamline settlement, and reduce operational friction.

The market has already gained significant traction. Data from RWA.xyz shows the value of on-chain tokenized assets stood at $31 billion as of Tuesday, including $714 million in tokenized equities.

Looking ahead, McKinsey projects that the tokenized asset market could expand to nearly $2 trillion by 2030, highlighting its potential to reshape capital markets and the global financial infrastructure.