Letter from Johnny Reinsch, the Tokenized Asset Coalition's New Executive Director
I’m thrilled to announce I’ll be serving as Executive Director of the Tokenized Asset Coalition (TAC) for 2025. With 44 member organizations (and growing) with a combined market cap exceeding $100 billion, TAC is the world’s leading industry group dedicated to asset tokenization. I’m honored to guide such a prestigious coalition—and determined to make 2025 a defining year for the TAC in this rapidly evolving space. My goal with this post is to introduce myself and my high level plan for the TAC in 2025.
I’ll start with my strongly held view that not every asset should be tokenized. Headlines would have you believe trillions of dollars are migrating on-chain via tokenization but they rarely address which assets _truly_ benefit from it. In reality, oftentimes tokenizing an asset just adds complexity, cost or risk without any upside.
My equally strong belief is that, for the right assets at the right time, tokenization represents a profound upgrade to the global financial system—one that promises near-instant settlement, drastic cost reductions and new possibilities with programmability. Think fewer middlemen, radically improved accessibility, more efficient markets operating 24/7 and beyond. This isn’t just an incremental improvement; it’s a reimagining of how we move value, settle trades, and share ownership.
The tension between these two ideas—not everything should be tokenized and its obvious benefits—begs the most important question: when does tokenization make sense? Understanding the answer to this basic question is important because without an answer it’s impossible to estimate the upper bound of tokenization’s total addressable market. Industry reports and consulting firms cite figures like [$16T](https://rsch.baml.com/access?q=s-i517792VNkDKydHLEioQ&ps=true&pv=validated) in 5-15 years or [$4-5T by 2030](https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/financial-services/our-insights/tokenization-a-digital-asset-deja-vu). We could get carried away by setting the theoretical limit at [$5 Quadrillion](https://oklo.org/2009/03/12/too-cheap-to-meter/) by tokenizing planet earth (I wonder what the DeFi borrow rate would be?). I want to identify the actual upper bound though so we at the TAC can reliably chart the progress bar of asset tokenization in real time.
Over the next year, my focus is to help everyone differentiate the _truly transformative_ applications of tokenization and hopefully discover tokenization’s true TAM. We’ll do this by:
1. **Tracking the financial system’s progress bar**
Through regular news updates, we’ll keep you up to speed on new asset classes, emerging technologies, and evolving regulations relevant to tokenized assets. As each frontier advances, we’ll highlight what genuinely moves the needle for issuers and investors. Think of it like a higher frequency [State of Tokenization](https://www.rwa.xyz/blog/tokenized-asset-coalition-state-of-tokenization-2024).
2. **Plain-language deep dives**
We’ll detail, in clear, straightforward language, why and how various tokenization solutions or tokenized products work—and why you’d choose them over traditional or off-chain options. Our goal is to equip the next wave of builders with tangible knowledge, not just buzzwords or editorials. Inspiration for this approach comes from seminal TAC publications like The [Spectrum of Asset Tokenization](https://www.rwa.xyz/blog/the-spectrum-of-tokenization-report). But more of them and more often.
3. **Experimentation!**
The TAC will also experiment with ways to promote education and engagement to support the previous two points. The audience we’re trying to reach is anyone needing to understand tokenized assets on behalf of their customers or stakeholders—whether its the wealth manager advising their clients, the technologist building the next neobank, or the policymaker crafting regulations. Knowing out the gate how we’ll do that in the best way would simply be hubris! The TAC will experiment along the way and double down on what works best.
Lastly, a bit of semantics — when we say “tokenized assets,” we’re talking about real-world value digitized or represented on a blockchain. Easy examples include stablecoins representing off-chain fiat currencies, tokenized strategies like treasuries and private credit where the token represents a fractional interest in an underlying off-chain instrument’s principal and interest and the like. I’d stretch our coverage to include representations of more esoteric off-chain assets, such as intellectual property or even memecoins—essentially tokenized vibes / culture. The areas out of scope for our coverage include digitally native tokens or cryptocurrencies like BTC, ETH, etc. (though a tokenized crypto strategy would still count). I clarify this not to discount the value of those things but frankly in a desperate attempt to limit the scope of our coverage.
If I’ve done my job right, this year the TAC will become the market’s source for why tokenizing makes sense, what the state of the art is, and what the best practices are. I look forward to collaborating with our members, sharing high value content demonstrating tokenization’s potential, and showing how it can _legitimately_ reshape the way we trade, invest, and manage value. Let’s make 2025 the year we bring real clarity—and lasting change—to finance!
I'm thrilled to share that I'll be serving as Executive Director of the Tokenized Asset Coalition (TAC) for 2025.
With 44 member organizations (and growing) representing a combined market cap of more than $100 billion, TAC is the world's leading industry group dedicated to asset tokenization. I'm honored to help guide such a strong coalition—and determined to make 2025 a defining year for TAC in this rapidly evolving space.
My goal with this post is to introduce myself and outline my high-level plan for TAC in 2025.
My core belief: not everything should be tokenized
I hold a strongly contrarian view for someone in my role: not every asset should be tokenized.
Headlines would have you believe that trillions of dollars are inevitably migrating on-chain, but they rarely address a basic question: which assets actually benefit from tokenization? In many cases, tokenizing an asset just adds complexity, cost, or risk—without any real upside.
At the same time, I’m equally convinced that for the right assets at the right time, tokenization is a profound upgrade to the global financial system. It promises:
- Near-instant settlement
- Drastically lower costs
- Fewer intermediaries
- Radically improved accessibility
- 24/7 markets
- New forms of programmability and composability
This isn’t just an incremental improvement. It’s a reimagining of how we move value, settle trades, and share ownership.
The tension between these two ideas—not everything should be tokenized vs. tokenization’s obvious benefits—leads to the most important question:
When does tokenization actually make sense?
Without a clear answer, it’s impossible to estimate the true upper bound of tokenization’s total addressable market (TAM). Industry reports and consulting firms cite figures like $16T in 5–15 years or $4–5T by 2030. We could even get carried away and set a theoretical limit at $5 quadrillion by “tokenizing planet Earth” (I do wonder what the DeFi borrow rate would be).
But my focus at TAC is different: I want to identify the actual upper bound so we can track the real progress bar of asset tokenization in real time.
What TAC will focus on in 2025
Over the next year, my priority is to help the market distinguish between truly transformative applications of tokenization and everything else—and, in the process, get closer to understanding tokenization’s real TAM.
We’ll do this through three main workstreams:
1. Tracking the financial system’s “progress bar”
We’ll build a clearer picture of where we are in the tokenization journey.
Through regular updates, TAC will:
- Track new tokenized asset classes
- Highlight emerging technologies and infrastructure
- Monitor evolving regulations and policy
- Distinguish between experiments, pilots, and scaled adoption
As each frontier advances, we’ll focus on what genuinely moves the needle for issuers, investors, and end users—not just what makes for a good headline.
Think of this as a higher-frequency, more actionable version of our State of Tokenization report.
2. Plain-language deep dives
Tokenization is often explained with jargon, abstractions, or marketing language. That’s not good enough for the next wave of builders, institutions, and policymakers.
TAC will publish clear, plain-language deep dives that explain:
- Why a given tokenization approach exists
- How it works from both a technical and legal/structural perspective
- Where it fits relative to traditional or off-chain alternatives
- When it doesn’t make sense to use tokenization at all
Our goal is to equip practitioners with tangible, decision-useful knowledge, not just narratives.
We’ll build on seminal TAC work like The Spectrum of Asset Tokenization—but do it more often, across more asset classes and use cases.
3. Experimentation in education and engagement
We don’t pretend to know, in advance, the single best way to educate and engage everyone who needs to understand tokenized assets.
Our audience includes:
- Wealth managers advising clients
- Technologists building the next generation of financial products
- Institutional leaders and market operators
- Policymakers and regulators
- Corporate treasurers and risk managers
So in 2025, TAC will experiment with formats and channels—reports, workshops, data tools, events, and more—and double down on what proves most effective.
The goal is simple: meet people where they are, and give them what they need to make informed decisions about tokenization on behalf of their customers and stakeholders.
What we mean by “tokenized assets”
A quick but important semantic note.
When TAC talks about “tokenized assets,” we’re focused on real-world value that is digitized or represented on a blockchain. Examples include:
- Stablecoins representing off-chain fiat currencies
- Tokenized strategies like treasuries or private credit, where a token represents a fractional interest in an underlying off-chain instrument’s principal and interest
- Tokenized funds or vehicles that wrap traditional exposures in on-chain form
- More esoteric off-chain assets, such as:
- Intellectual property
- Revenue streams
- Even memecoins, inasmuch as they represent tokenized culture or “vibes” tied to off-chain communities
By contrast, digitally native cryptocurrencies like BTC, ETH, and similar assets are out of scope for TAC’s tokenized asset coverage—unless they are part of a tokenized strategy or structured product.
This is not a value judgment about those assets. It’s a pragmatic decision to keep our scope focused and our work actionable.
What success looks like in 2025
If we do our job well this year, TAC will become the market’s reference point for:
- Why tokenization makes sense (and when it doesn’t)
- What the current state of the art is—across technology, market structure, and regulation
- How to design, launch, and operate tokenized assets responsibly and at scale
I’m excited to collaborate with our members and the broader ecosystem to:
- Share high-value, evidence-based content
- Highlight real-world implementations that are working today
- Clarify best practices and standards as they emerge
- Show how tokenization can legitimately reshape how we trade, invest, and manage value
Let’s make 2025 the year we bring real clarity—and lasting change—to finance.
If you’re building, investing in, or regulating tokenized assets and want to engage with TAC’s work this year, I’d love to connect.