Europe’s Role in the Next Wave of Tokenisation

Tokenisation of real-world assets (RWAs) has moved beyond being just a buzzword and is now becoming a practical foundation for institutional blockchain adoption. What earlier looked like small pilot projects is slowly turning into live market infrastructure. In this shift, Europe is starting to play an important role in shaping how tokenised markets actually scale.

In the first half of 2025 alone, the value of tokenised real-world assets grew sharply, reaching close to $23 billion in on-chain value. This kind of growth points toward a structural change in financial markets, where blockchain-based versions of assets like bonds, funds and securities are being taken more seriously than before.

Tokenisation Has Momentum, but Still Faces Limits

Large global institutions have already shown interest in tokenisation. Firms such as BlackRock, JPMorgan, and Goldman Sachs have explored or launched initiatives linked to tokenised assets. Even with this progress, large-scale adoption has not fully arrived yet.

Most tokenised assets today are still issued inside permissioned systems, often split by regulatory uncertainty and limited interoperability. Public blockchain infrastructure that can support institutional-scale markets is still developing. In simple terms, tokenisation works, but the broader market rails needed for global adoption are still getting built.

Regulation as the Missing Enabler

The biggest thing holding tokenisation back is not technology, but regulation. Institutions need legal clarity before they commit balance sheets or long-term strategies. Retail investors also need rules that protect them without pushing them out completely. Markets need standards they can rely on.

Without these elements, liquidity stays shallow, systems remain siloed and innovation finds it hard to move beyond early adopters.

This is where Europe has managed to move ahead.

Europe’s Regulatory Edge

Europe has treated regulation more as an enabler rather than a roadblock. With Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) now in force, along with the DLT Pilot Regime, the region has moved past fragmented national sandboxes.

For the first time, there is a unified regulatory framework across the continent for digital assets and tokenised securities. This gives legal and operational certainty that institutions usually look for before building at scale. Instead of dealing with different rules in each country, market participants can work under a more consistent structure across the EU.

From Pilots to Real Market Activity

Europe’s regulatory-first approach is already showing results on the ground. Under MiCA and the DLT Pilot Regime, European banks have started issuing tokenised bonds on regulated infrastructure, with issuance crossing €1.5 billion during 2024. Asset managers are also testing on-chain fund structures meant for wider distribution, while fintech companies are integrating digital-asset rails into licensed platforms.

These developments show a shift from testing ideas to actual deployment. One of the industry’s long-standing challenges , building compliant infrastructure from the start , is slowly becoming less of a blocker.

The Next Phase: Interoperability and Market Structure

As tokenisation moves into its next phase, interoperability will matter more than ever. If standards are not aligned early, digital markets risk repeating the same fragmentation seen in traditional finance, just on blockchain.

Europe’s regulatory clarity gives it a chance to influence how global standards are shaped. Encouraging cross-chain interoperability and common disclosure rules could help tokenised markets scale without creating new silos.

The next wave of tokenisation will not be defined only by speed, but by trust , trust in who builds the infrastructure and how it is governed. Europe’s focus on clear rules and market structure gives it a real opportunity to lead here.

Why Europe Going Forward

Europe may not lead tokenisation through hype or aggressive experimentation, but through credibility and structure. By putting trusted frameworks in place early, the region has created conditions for institutions to move beyond cautious trials toward longer-term commitments.

As tokenisation slowly becomes part of core financial infrastructure, Europe’s steady and regulation-led approach could turn out to be its biggest strength, allowing markets to grow in a way that is scalable but also sustainable.