IMF on Tokenization: A $65 Billion Market With a Catch

On 8 October 2026 the International Monetary Fund published "Scaling Tokenization: New Efficiencies, New Vulnerabilities", Chapter 3 of its October 2026 Global Financial Stability Report. It puts the public market for tokenized real-world assets at about $65.1 billion as of 31 July 2026, not counting repos. The catch in the headlines is the IMF's central warning: the features that make tokenized markets efficient — trading around the clock, instant settlement, collateral that moves itself — can also make a sell-off faster.

Key facts

• The source: Chapter 3 of the IMF's October 2026 Global Financial Stability Report, published on 8 October 2026 alongside an IMF blog post.
• Size: $65.10 billion of tokenized real-world assets on public markets, excluding repos, as of 31 July 2026 — equal to 0.20% of outstanding US Treasuries and 0.12% of the S&P 500's market value.
• The mix: tokenized fixed income about $48 billion (credit $30.4 billion, money market funds $17.5 billion); tokenized equities $2.3 billion.
• Repos: a 30-day average daily volume of $303 billion.
• Tokenized stocks: realized volatility about 1.5 times that of the underlying shares; more than half of trading happens outside regular US market hours; about 80% of trades are smaller than one share.
• The ask: legal certainty, regulatory clarity, interoperability and safe settlement money, under a technology-neutral approach.

What does the $65 billion actually measure?

The value of tokenized assets outstanding on public blockchains, not trading volume.

Repos are left out because they are a flow rather than a stock: short loans opened and closed daily, which the IMF reports as volume instead. Private markets add at least $8 billion in tokenized bonds issued since 2022. Trackers count this market differently, so the figure will not match others. Our tokenized treasuries article cites about $37.9 billion of distributed asset value as of 6 August 2026, a narrower measure.

What is the dangerous catch?

Speed takes away the buffers.

Today a trade passes through several steps, and each one is friction. It is also time in which a margin call can be met or a problem noticed. The IMF's blog says these sequential processes provide buffers, safety and liquidity management that could disappear in a fully tokenized environment.

The chapter names the channels:

• Liquidations: automated collateral management can speed up margin calls and forced sales.
• Runs: real-time settlement, 24/7 trading and automated liquidation may increase redemption pressure on tokenized funds.
• Contagion: connected platforms and composable applications can pass a shock from one market to the next.
• Leverage: a tokenized fund share used as collateral can be reused across several transactions, building collateral chains between platforms.

Why are tokenized stocks more volatile?

Mostly because they are small.

The IMF studied the five most liquid tokenized US equities from two issuers, across 11 venues, over 365 trading days — about $345 million in market value, roughly 15% of the $2.3 billion segment. Traditional markets were the most liquid, centralized exchanges materially less, and decentralized exchanges the least by a wide margin. The IMF calls these findings preliminary. Our tokenized stocks explainer covers how the trading works.

Is tokenization a threat to the financial system today?

The warning is about scale. At 0.20% of outstanding US Treasuries the market is still small, and the IMF's blog frames the concern as what happens as it grows: scaling tokenized markets can amplify risks, creating new channels for transmitting and amplifying traditional financial risks.

What does the IMF want regulators to do?

Remove four constraints, and supervise the new plumbing.

• Legal certainty: clear rights over tokens and the assets behind them, and recognized settlement finality.
• Regulatory clarity: same activity, same risk, same regulatory outcome.
• Interoperability: common standards rather than isolated platforms that trap liquidity.
• Settlement assets: settlement in safe and widely accepted forms of money.

It also asks supervisors to assess reliance on bridges and oracles, to require smart contract audits and reconciliation between on-chain and off-chain records, and to keep intraday liquidity monitoring, circuit breakers and crisis tools in step with the market.

What does this mean if you hold a tokenized asset?

• Know what you hold. A tokenized bond or share is a claim on an issuer, redeemed on the issuer's terms.
• Expect thin markets off-hours. A price at 3 a.m. on a small venue is not the price at the open.
• Respect automated leverage. If you borrow against a token, liquidation is fast and does not wait for you.
• Ask which record counts. The IMF wants the authoritative ownership record legally clear; check that it is.

Every one of those checks starts with the token itself. A token is a contract, and its supply and transfer rules can be read from it — how to read the Nura Chain explorer shows where to look on this network. Nothing in the IMF's figures describes an asset on Nura Chain.

The figures are the IMF's, as of 31 July 2026, from Chapter 3 of the October 2026 Global Financial Stability Report.