Wall Street is quietly staging a takeover of its own future. Its weapon of choice: the blockchain.
The long-promised revolution of tokenization—turning bonds, funds, and other assets into digital tokens—is no longer hype. But it’s not crypto startups leading the charge. It’s BlackRock, JPMorgan, and Citi, moving fast to rip out their own legacy infrastructure and replace it with a system that is instant, 24/7, and ruthlessly efficient.
Rundown
- Wall Street’s Titans Go All-In: BlackRock, JPMorgan, and Citi are moving past experiments and actively tokenizing trillions in assets. Their goal is to create a faster, more efficient financial system, with projections for the tokenized asset market hitting $16 trillion by 2030.
- Building the New Plumbing: This isn’t theoretical. JPMorgan’s Onyx platform already processes over $1 billion in daily transactions, while BlackRock’s $2.8B+ BUIDL fund is being used as live collateral in trades, proving the real-world utility of the technology for elite finance.
- A Revolution from the Inside: This isn’t Wall Street joining the crypto movement; it’s co-opting it. The goal is a hyper-efficient, permissioned system controlled by the incumbents—a “walled garden” version of the blockchain designed to solidify their dominance for the next generation.
The Titans Move In
BlackRock, JPMorgan, and Citi are moving past pilots and deploying tokenization at scale, with estimates for the market reaching $16 trillion by 2030. For them, this is not about chasing crypto—it’s about building the next generation of finance on their terms.
BlackRock: The $10 Trillion Bull
Larry Fink calls tokenization “the next generation for markets.” BlackRock’s $2.8B BUIDL fund, built on Ethereum, holds tokenized U.S. Treasuries, cash, and repos. These tokens are already being used as collateral in live trades, including a deal with Barclays on JPMorgan’s network. By embedding tokenized assets into its Aladdin platform and investing in Securitize, BlackRock is positioning itself as the asset manager of a tokenized world.
JPMorgan: The New Rails
If BlackRock brings the assets, JPMorgan provides the rails. Its Onyx Digital Assets blockchain already processes $1B in daily repo trades, offering intraday liquidity that was previously impossible. The Tokenized Collateral Network allows clients to post collateral instantly, replacing a process that used to take days. “It’s faster and more cost-effective,” said Tyrone Lobban, who leads Onyx Digital Assets.
Citi: Payments and Services
Citi is taking on payments, custody, and interoperability. Its Citi Token Services let clients move tokenized deposits across borders. It is also building the custody layer for ETFs and stablecoins, competing directly with crypto-native firms like Coinbase.
ChainStreet’s Take
Don’t mistake this for Wall Street joining the crypto revolution—it’s the great co-opting of it.
The banks are cherry-picking blockchain’s strengths—efficiency, speed, programmability—while discarding decentralization and openness. The result is a system of permissioned walled gardens, designed to reinforce incumbents’ dominance, not weaken it.
By tokenizing assets like money market funds, the banks are solving real, billion-dollar headaches. But the endgame is control. They are adopting crypto’s form (tokens) without its function (decentralization). The revolution is happening—but it’s an inside job.
