The Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) has published Scaling Tokenisation: The Road Ahead, a white paper assessing the infrastructure and coordination needed to scale tokenised financial markets. The next phase depends less on individual products’ technical feasibility than on connecting participants across a wider ecosystem. Regulated custody, trusted digital cash and interoperability are central priorities, supported by more consistent standards across jurisdictions.
Issuers and institutional investors are unlikely to adopt tokenisation at scale without confidence that associated risks can be managed. Regulated custody can help institutions manage their exposure. A widely accepted, trusted form of digital cash on a blockchain is another prerequisite for benefits such as simultaneous settlement. Potential settlement models include regulated stablecoins, tokenised commercial bank deposits and wholesale central bank money.
Interoperability must extend beyond technical connections to workable operational processes, legal certainty and regulatory coordination. Without connections between blockchains, trading platforms, and tokenised and traditional infrastructure, markets risk fragmenting liquidity. Detailed regulatory harmonisation may not be realistic in the near term, but greater consistency in legal, operational and technical standards could reduce fragmentation. Tokenisation appears unlikely to pose a material financial stability risk at its current scale, although its implications could grow as markets expand and become more interconnected with traditional finance.