From Experiments to Infrastructure: Why Tokenisation Is Finally Becoming Relevant

Tokenisation has been discussed in capital markets for well over a decade, yet institutional adoption has moved far more slowly than many expected. This hesitation is often attributed to institutional inertia, but the underlying issue has been relevance rather than resistance. Early projects demonstrated, quite convincingly, that assets could be issued on distributed ledgers. They made it clear that the technology worked. What they failed to demonstrate was how that technology improved the day-to-day functioning of capital markets.

Those early efforts were driven by technological capability rather than clearly defined market demand. Innovators and technologists explored what could be built, but capital markets do not adopt something only because it is new. They change when a solution addresses a real structural problem more effectively than the existing system. Without a clearly articulated economic advantage, tokenisation remained interesting, but peripheral.

What has changed is a decisive shift from experimentation to problem-solving. The focus is no longer on proving that tokenisation is possible, but on using it to address concrete pain points such as slow settlement, capital inefficiency, operational complexity and fragmented post-trade infrastructure. When tokenisation improves how markets already work and adheres to a sound legal framework, adoption becomes an economically driven decision. This is the context in which infrastructure providers like

Axiology have emerged, building systems designed to operate as part of capital markets rather than alongside them.

Secondary markets and the question of real market value

The transition from experimental tokenisation to market-grade infrastructure becomes most visible in secondary markets. Issuance alone does not create a market. A market only exists when assets can be traded, priced and exited with confidence. This is where many early tokenisation initiatives fell short and excatly why Axiology chose to not stop at issuence.

Secondary liquidity turns an issued instrument into a functioning financial asset. From an investor’s perspective, it directly affects risk, pricing and confidence. Without a credible secondary market, investors demand a premium or choose not to participate at all, limiting issuer access to capital. From an infrastructure perspective, liquidity delivers its full value only when combined with reliable settlement system.

Atomic settlement fundamentally changes how markets operate. It reduces counterparty risk and removes layers of operational friction that have existed for decades. The economic impact is immediate: capital is recycled faster, exposures are clearer and operational complexity is reduced at the source. When trading and settlement are natively integrated, markets become structurally more efficient and economically stronger.

How tokenised infrastructure reshapes markets over time

To understand where this leads, it is necessary to look beyond the initial adoption phase and consider how capital markets evolve over longer cycles. Looking ahead to 2030, tokenised securities will coexist with traditional infrastructure rather than replace it outright. Capital markets evolve through layering. Existing systems are deeply embedded in legal frameworks, operational processes and institutional behaviour. The change will be gradual, as new infrastructure is adopted where it delivers clear advantages. New systems will reshape and ultimately replace legacy processes over time.

The most immediate impact will be felt by direct users of market infrastructure, namely financial institutions that trade, settle and manage assets on a daily basis. Instant settlement alters how capital is deployed. It directly affects balance sheet efficiency, risk management and trading strategies. At the same time, DLT-based infrastructure enables markets to operate at real time, with fewer cut-offs and less reliance on batch processing, improving execution speed and ownership certainty.

Indirect users, i.e. end investors, are affected as well, even if they do not interact with the infrastructure itself. They benefit from improved liquidity and faster, more reliable settlement. What changes for them is not the product, but the quality of the market behind it. The investment experience remains familiar, while the market becomes more efficient and resilient underneath.

What disappears as tokenisation scales

As tokenisation scales, the first elements to disappear are inefficiencies. Much of today’s post-trade ecosystem exists to compensate for slow settlement, fragmented records and a lack of real-time transparency. When ownership, trading and settlement are synchronised on a single infrastructure, large parts of that operational overhead disappear.

Trust does not disappear in this process. It becomes embedded into the infrastructure itself.

Compliance, governance, oversight and investor protection remain essential. They are delivered more efficiently and closer to the core of the market, rather than layered on top of it. Tokenisation and solutions like Axiology’s reshape capital markets by removing processes that exist purely to manage legacy constraints. Participants that create economic value through efficient trading, risk management, liquidity provision and market oversight become more central, while administrative roles shrink. This is how markets become more efficient, more resilient and more scalable over time.