While tokenizing private assets gets attention, the most compelling near-term use cases are operational: enabling 24/7 collateral movement and freeing up idle corporate liquidity held 'just in case.' This unlocks significant capital efficiency, overshadowing the hype around private markets.

A key, non-obvious goal of DTCC's tokenization project is to create a reliable underlying asset for crypto tokens backed by US stocks. By tokenizing real shares held at the core of the market, it could provide a "more direct claim" and superior backing method compared to current crypto-native solutions.

The 24/7 nature of perpetual futures (“perps”) is attractive to traditional markets for assets like the S&P 500. This shift requires 24/7 settlement infrastructure, making stablecoins essential collateral and creating a massive, non-speculative demand driver for them.

Crypto derivatives allow speculation on pre-IPO company valuations without owning underlying shares. For SpaceX, these traded over 20% higher than the IPO price on exchanges like Binance, indicating massive unmet demand and providing a novel price discovery tool for oversubscribed offerings.

Coinbase views tokenization as a massive financial inclusion opportunity. Mirroring how stablecoins gave global access to the US dollar, tokenizing assets like stocks can provide high-quality US investment opportunities to the 4 billion people without brokerage accounts.

The key to tokenization is combining two worlds: traditional finance's expertise in legally custodying assets, and crypto's native, free infrastructure for 24/7 trading and liquidity. This fusion makes it possible to make previously untradable assets like private equity, art, or collectibles instantly liquid and accessible.

On-chain financial products like perpetual futures (perps), originally built for crypto tokens, are now being applied to traditional assets like equities, commodities, and FX. This signals a major shift where crypto-native infrastructure is seen as a superior venue for trading all asset classes, not just digital ones.

Sophisticated perpetual DEXs allow speculators to take highly leveraged positions on blue-chip assets, offering the asymmetric upside they seek without the informational disadvantages and risks of the meme coin 'swamp.' This product refinement is changing the landscape of on-chain speculation.

A major wealth preservation strategy for the ultra-rich is borrowing against their appreciated public stock. This provides them with massive, tax-free cash liquidity for living expenses or new ventures, without ever triggering a taxable event like selling the stock.