Fink and Goldstein Highlight Tokenization’s Global Rise
- Tokenized assets show swift expansion as global markets shift toward digital settlement.
- BlackRock leaders trace a clear path from early paper systems to modern blockchain rails.
- Tokenization now signals a new era as more assets move into unified digital records.
Tokenization is entering a new global phase, as BlackRock CEO Larry Fink and COO Rob Goldstein describe it as a financial breakthrough comparable to the early internet. They wrote in The Economist that digital ledgers could modernize markets by improving transparency, efficiency, and access. They added that the technology is advancing quickly as major institutions adopt blockchain-based systems for recording ownership.
They also noted that ledgers “haven’t been this exciting since the invention of double-entry bookkeeping,” pointing to a long arc of technological change that continues to reshape global finance. Their remarks reflect growing interest in blockchain as markets search for faster settlement and more efficient record-keeping.
A pivotal question now stands before global institutions: How quickly will tokenization move from experimentation to a core part of financial infrastructure?
Tracing the Shift From Paper Trades to Digital Assets
Fink recalled a time in the 1970s when trades were placed by phone and settled through courier-delivered paper certificates. That process changed sharply in 1977 when SWIFT introduced standardized electronic messages between banks. Settlement times dropped from days to minutes, while digital systems soon enabled trades to move within milliseconds.
Blockchain technology entered the picture in 2009 when Satoshi Nakamoto released Bitcoin’s shared digital ledger. That innovation allowed transactions to be recorded without intermediaries. It also opened the door for tokenization, which can place nearly any asset on a common digital record.
Fink and Goldstein wrote that many institutions once struggled to see the big idea because the concept was tangled in the noise of the crypto boom. They stated that traditional finance now sees the underlying utility. They also said tokenization can expand the investable universe far beyond public stocks and bonds.
The executives believe this shift can broaden access by replacing manual processes with code. They said it can also support smaller, fractional positions in large private-market assets.
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Early Adoption and Rapid Market Growth
BlackRock has already begun testing tokenized products. Its BUIDL tokenized U.S. money market fund runs on public blockchain infrastructure and has grown to more than $2 billion in value locked. The firm also expanded its digital presence through spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs, which have received $62.6 billion and $13.2 billion in net inflows.
Fink and Goldstein wrote that tokenized assets remain a small portion of global markets. Yet they said growth is accelerating, rising nearly 300% in the last 20 months. They compared today’s development stage to “the internet in 1996,” when Amazon had sold only $16 million in books.
During BlackRock’s third-quarter earnings call, Fink told investors that “we need to be tokenizing all assets,” naming real estate as a sector that could benefit from lower costs and fewer intermediaries. He argued that the technology can improve affordability by reducing layers of middlemen.
The executives stated that tokenization will not replace existing systems at once. Instead, they described it as “a bridge being built from both sides of a river,” linking traditional finance with digital-first innovators.
