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Tokenisation moves from theory to infrastructure
May 2026
Speakers at the Securities Finance Times Boston Symposium examined how digital assets are moving from experimentation towards institutional infrastructure, while warning that legacy systems, interoperability, and operational complexity remain major hurdles
Image: mircea_costina/stock.adobe.com
The ‘Blockchain, Digital Assets, and the Tokenisation of Securities Finance’ panel at the Securities Finance Times Boston Symposium brought together perspectives from across the securities finance ecosystem, with participants largely aligned on one point: digital assets are no longer a theoretical discussion.
Moderated by Tina Joshi, head of securities finance and collateral management solutions at Broadridge, the panel explored how institutional thinking around tokenisation has evolved, what is still holding adoption back, and whether the industry is genuinely approaching a large-scale inflection point.
Opening the discussion, Joshi asked whether the industry is now at an inflection point or still firmly in the infrastructure build-out phase. Sasha Sitsker, vice president, solutions engineering at EquiLend, argued that the answer is both. “There was a lot of apprehension about digital assets,” he explained. “No one knew exactly what stepping into the digital asset space represented, or what the benefits necessarily were.”
According to Sitsker, the industry has now moved beyond that uncertainty, with early adopters and major market participants beginning to align around what future infrastructure may look like and the tangible benefits of its adoption. “At least now we know which infrastructure we are building out to,” he noted.
Nathaniel Lindsay, vice president and head of electronic trading, agency securities lending at State Street, agreed, but highlighted the importance of the evolving US regulatory landscape in accelerating institutional interest.
He pointed to the January 2025 executive order supporting digital assets in the US, alongside the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC’s) rescission of Staff Accounting Bulletin (SAB) 121 through SAB 122.
Lindsay explained that SAB 121 effectively prevented prudentially regulated institutions from engaging meaningfully in digital asset custody because it required assets under custody to sit on balance sheet. “Imagine if State Street’s US$50 trillion was on balance sheet,” he remarked. “It is completely infeasible from a regulatory capital standpoint.”
Steve Everett, chief commercial officer CDS and head of post-trade innovation at TMX Group, meanwhile argued that the infrastructure discussion needs to be viewed more holistically.
While many digital asset discussions focus on innovation layers and settlement rails, Everett suggested the industry often overlooks the operational bottlenecks inside firms themselves.
“No matter how efficient your rails are, when a client back-end infrastructure does not quite meet up to the same speed, it all goes down to the lowest common denominator,” he observed.
When asked about which part of the industry could see scale adoption of digital assets, Everett highlighted private markets as one area where digital transformation may accelerate more quickly because, unlike many public markets, there is little entrenched infrastructure to replace.
“Private markets actually have very little infrastructure, certainly in Canada and it’s mostly paper based,” he said.
A major theme throughout the panel was the growing distinction between cryptocurrency and broader digital asset infrastructure.
Sitsker noted that for many years digital assets were effectively treated as synonymous with cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. Now, however, the industry is developing a much more nuanced understanding of the space, and is better able to distinguish between the asset class and the underlying technology. This includes tokenised securities, tokenised real-world assets, stablecoins, and even the use of distributed ledger technology (DLT) purely for operational workflows.
As an example, Sitsker referenced EquiLend’s 1Source distributed ledger platform, which creates a single onchain version of a securities lending contract accessible to both counterparties. “If adopted at scale, it completely eliminates the notion of counterparties being out of sync or needing to come and reconcile their contracts on a day-to-day basis,” he said.
Lindsay added that State Street’s strategic approach to digital assets has also evolved significantly. “Our 2026 gross technology investment in digital has grown orders of magnitude since 2025 and even more substantially since 2024,” he revealed.
According to Lindsay, digital assets have shifted from being a niche custody discussion to something being assessed strategically across the entire organisation.
The question of complexity versus simplification was another central topic during the discussion.
Asked whether tokenisation simplifies custody operations or makes them more complex, Lindsay acknowledged that the short-term reality is likely more difficult operationally.
Maintaining synchronisation between traditional securities and their digital representations, he explained, introduces challenges around minting, burning, corporate actions, stock splits, and dividend processing.
However, he argued that in a fully digitally native environment, complexity could ultimately decrease significantly.
“That is where we start to reap some of the more compelling benefits of this technology, like programmability and atomic settlement,” he noted.
On the question of what still prevents institutions from moving faster into digital assets, the panel broadly agreed that the primary challenge has shifted away from regulation and towards technology integration.
Sitsker argued that the industry now broadly understands the regulatory framework, and the focus has instead turned towards scaling adoption and reducing integration pain points. “Right now everyone has got their sights focused on: okay, we know what the rules of the playground are,” he said.
Lindsay similarly highlighted the importance of education and institutional-grade security. He explained that many clients still associate digital assets primarily with cryptocurrencies, rather than with tokenised representations of traditional financial instruments.
“We think about abstracting away complexity and really being a bridge between traditional and digital markets for our clients,” Lindsay said.
The concept of institutional-grade infrastructure became a recurring theme throughout the discussion.
From a vendor perspective, Sitsker argued that many of the industry’s early assumptions around decentralisation are now being reconsidered.
Rather than prioritising decentralisation, he suggested institutional markets instead require scalability, security, and trusted operators.
“The decentralisation angle was probably more of a hindrance than a benefit to an industry that needs clarity around who is maintaining these networks and applications,” he explained.
Everett agreed, referencing Canada’s Project Samara as an example where assumptions around disintermediation did not ultimately hold up under scrutiny. “The starting point should not be disintermediation,” he argued. “The starting point should be: what value is being derived and what exactly is the problem we are trying to solve for?”
The panel also challenged some of the industry’s assumptions around atomic settlement.
While often presented as one of tokenisation’s key advantages, Everett questioned whether marginal settlement speed improvements alone justify the operational transformation required.
“Is atomic settlement as big a value as we say it is?” he asked. “Today settlement in traditional infrastructure is measured in 10ths of second. The issue isn’t the technology, it’s more about how the ecosystem connects with each other today and the associated behaviour which is concomitant.”
Instead, Everett highlighted programmability, reconciliation reduction, and cross-border collateral mobility as potentially more meaningful long-term benefits as opposed to pure atomic settlement as a value driver. “Cross-border mobilisation of securities is really not great,” he said, suggesting digital infrastructure could materially improve that process.
The discussion later turned towards competition and market structure.
While the panellists generally agreed that trusted incumbents are likely to remain dominant in institutional markets, they also acknowledged that barriers to entry are falling rapidly.
Everett suggested advances in technology and artificial intelligence are making it significantly easier for new firms to build digital infrastructure. “The barrier to entry dropping means that you are going to naturally get more competition,” he said.
Still, both Lindsay and Sitsker argued that network effects and institutional trust will continue to favour large incumbent providers, particularly in custody and asset servicing.
Finally, Joshi asked the panel which asset classes they believe will first achieve genuine tokenised scale beyond pilot programmes.
Sitsker pointed towards stablecoins, describing them as the most easily understood digital asset use case and potentially foundational infrastructure for digitally native transactions.
Lindsay instead highlighted tokenised money market funds, citing growing institutional demand for yield-bearing digital cash instruments that can also be mobilised as collateral. “The product-market fit is pretty clear,” he said.
Everett agreed with the money market fund thesis as collateral, but also argued that private markets may ultimately see the most complete digital migration due to their lack of entrenched infrastructure. “When that [private markets] moves across to this technology,” he concluded, “I think it is going to move at scale.”
Moderated by Tina Joshi, head of securities finance and collateral management solutions at Broadridge, the panel explored how institutional thinking around tokenisation has evolved, what is still holding adoption back, and whether the industry is genuinely approaching a large-scale inflection point.
Opening the discussion, Joshi asked whether the industry is now at an inflection point or still firmly in the infrastructure build-out phase. Sasha Sitsker, vice president, solutions engineering at EquiLend, argued that the answer is both. “There was a lot of apprehension about digital assets,” he explained. “No one knew exactly what stepping into the digital asset space represented, or what the benefits necessarily were.”
According to Sitsker, the industry has now moved beyond that uncertainty, with early adopters and major market participants beginning to align around what future infrastructure may look like and the tangible benefits of its adoption. “At least now we know which infrastructure we are building out to,” he noted.
Nathaniel Lindsay, vice president and head of electronic trading, agency securities lending at State Street, agreed, but highlighted the importance of the evolving US regulatory landscape in accelerating institutional interest.
He pointed to the January 2025 executive order supporting digital assets in the US, alongside the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC’s) rescission of Staff Accounting Bulletin (SAB) 121 through SAB 122.
Lindsay explained that SAB 121 effectively prevented prudentially regulated institutions from engaging meaningfully in digital asset custody because it required assets under custody to sit on balance sheet. “Imagine if State Street’s US$50 trillion was on balance sheet,” he remarked. “It is completely infeasible from a regulatory capital standpoint.”
Steve Everett, chief commercial officer CDS and head of post-trade innovation at TMX Group, meanwhile argued that the infrastructure discussion needs to be viewed more holistically.
While many digital asset discussions focus on innovation layers and settlement rails, Everett suggested the industry often overlooks the operational bottlenecks inside firms themselves.
“No matter how efficient your rails are, when a client back-end infrastructure does not quite meet up to the same speed, it all goes down to the lowest common denominator,” he observed.
When asked about which part of the industry could see scale adoption of digital assets, Everett highlighted private markets as one area where digital transformation may accelerate more quickly because, unlike many public markets, there is little entrenched infrastructure to replace.
“Private markets actually have very little infrastructure, certainly in Canada and it’s mostly paper based,” he said.
A major theme throughout the panel was the growing distinction between cryptocurrency and broader digital asset infrastructure.
Sitsker noted that for many years digital assets were effectively treated as synonymous with cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. Now, however, the industry is developing a much more nuanced understanding of the space, and is better able to distinguish between the asset class and the underlying technology. This includes tokenised securities, tokenised real-world assets, stablecoins, and even the use of distributed ledger technology (DLT) purely for operational workflows.
As an example, Sitsker referenced EquiLend’s 1Source distributed ledger platform, which creates a single onchain version of a securities lending contract accessible to both counterparties. “If adopted at scale, it completely eliminates the notion of counterparties being out of sync or needing to come and reconcile their contracts on a day-to-day basis,” he said.
Lindsay added that State Street’s strategic approach to digital assets has also evolved significantly. “Our 2026 gross technology investment in digital has grown orders of magnitude since 2025 and even more substantially since 2024,” he revealed.
According to Lindsay, digital assets have shifted from being a niche custody discussion to something being assessed strategically across the entire organisation.
The question of complexity versus simplification was another central topic during the discussion.
Asked whether tokenisation simplifies custody operations or makes them more complex, Lindsay acknowledged that the short-term reality is likely more difficult operationally.
Maintaining synchronisation between traditional securities and their digital representations, he explained, introduces challenges around minting, burning, corporate actions, stock splits, and dividend processing.
However, he argued that in a fully digitally native environment, complexity could ultimately decrease significantly.
“That is where we start to reap some of the more compelling benefits of this technology, like programmability and atomic settlement,” he noted.
On the question of what still prevents institutions from moving faster into digital assets, the panel broadly agreed that the primary challenge has shifted away from regulation and towards technology integration.
Sitsker argued that the industry now broadly understands the regulatory framework, and the focus has instead turned towards scaling adoption and reducing integration pain points. “Right now everyone has got their sights focused on: okay, we know what the rules of the playground are,” he said.
Lindsay similarly highlighted the importance of education and institutional-grade security. He explained that many clients still associate digital assets primarily with cryptocurrencies, rather than with tokenised representations of traditional financial instruments.
“We think about abstracting away complexity and really being a bridge between traditional and digital markets for our clients,” Lindsay said.
The concept of institutional-grade infrastructure became a recurring theme throughout the discussion.
From a vendor perspective, Sitsker argued that many of the industry’s early assumptions around decentralisation are now being reconsidered.
Rather than prioritising decentralisation, he suggested institutional markets instead require scalability, security, and trusted operators.
“The decentralisation angle was probably more of a hindrance than a benefit to an industry that needs clarity around who is maintaining these networks and applications,” he explained.
Everett agreed, referencing Canada’s Project Samara as an example where assumptions around disintermediation did not ultimately hold up under scrutiny. “The starting point should not be disintermediation,” he argued. “The starting point should be: what value is being derived and what exactly is the problem we are trying to solve for?”
The panel also challenged some of the industry’s assumptions around atomic settlement.
While often presented as one of tokenisation’s key advantages, Everett questioned whether marginal settlement speed improvements alone justify the operational transformation required.
“Is atomic settlement as big a value as we say it is?” he asked. “Today settlement in traditional infrastructure is measured in 10ths of second. The issue isn’t the technology, it’s more about how the ecosystem connects with each other today and the associated behaviour which is concomitant.”
Instead, Everett highlighted programmability, reconciliation reduction, and cross-border collateral mobility as potentially more meaningful long-term benefits as opposed to pure atomic settlement as a value driver. “Cross-border mobilisation of securities is really not great,” he said, suggesting digital infrastructure could materially improve that process.
The discussion later turned towards competition and market structure.
While the panellists generally agreed that trusted incumbents are likely to remain dominant in institutional markets, they also acknowledged that barriers to entry are falling rapidly.
Everett suggested advances in technology and artificial intelligence are making it significantly easier for new firms to build digital infrastructure. “The barrier to entry dropping means that you are going to naturally get more competition,” he said.
Still, both Lindsay and Sitsker argued that network effects and institutional trust will continue to favour large incumbent providers, particularly in custody and asset servicing.
Finally, Joshi asked the panel which asset classes they believe will first achieve genuine tokenised scale beyond pilot programmes.
Sitsker pointed towards stablecoins, describing them as the most easily understood digital asset use case and potentially foundational infrastructure for digitally native transactions.
Lindsay instead highlighted tokenised money market funds, citing growing institutional demand for yield-bearing digital cash instruments that can also be mobilised as collateral. “The product-market fit is pretty clear,” he said.
Everett agreed with the money market fund thesis as collateral, but also argued that private markets may ultimately see the most complete digital migration due to their lack of entrenched infrastructure. “When that [private markets] moves across to this technology,” he concluded, “I think it is going to move at scale.”
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