Tokenized assets are rapidly opening new trading opportunities across global financial markets, but the growing supply of real-world assets (RWAs) being brought onchain has yet to be matched by commensurate investor demand. This structural mismatch is creating unique hurdles for issuers and trading desks alike, according to industry leaders who gathered to discuss the evolving state of digital finance.
Speaking during a panel on liquidity and market fragmentation at CONNECT by Cointelegraph: Singapore Edition on Oct. 9, Alex Taaffe, chief revenue officer at prominent crypto trading firm GSR, pointed out that while trading liquidity is steadily improving across pre-IPO stocks, commodities, and global equities that investors previously struggled to access, demand for fully tokenized RWAs is lagging far behind the rapid pace of issuance.
The event brought together a wide array of Web3 founders, institutional investors, and senior industry executives for four intensive panel discussions covering tokenization, stablecoin payments, onchain trading infrastructure, and venture capital exits, alongside a high-stakes startup pitch competition.
"Specifically on RWAs, and fully tokenized assets, there’s a supply and demand imbalance. There’s a ton of supply. Every asset manager issuer wants to do capital formation onchain," Taaffe told attendees during the liquidity panel. He added that the proliferation of both asset issuers and underlying blockchains has further exacerbated the problem, effectively fragmenting liquidity across an increasingly complex and disconnected web of tokenized markets.
Lingling Jiang, a partner at DWF Labs who shared the stage with Taaffe, echoed these concerns, agreeing that market fragmentation remains a persistent obstacle. This challenge is particularly acute when multiple independent issuers attempt to tokenize the exact same underlying asset, inadvertently creating isolated liquidity pools rather than a unified, deep market. Despite these structural friction points, Jiang noted that overall cryptocurrency liquidity has improved significantly over recent years, even as the industry continues to tackle remaining growth pains.
Stablecoin Adoption Hinges on Everyday Payments
As the summit shifted its focus toward the practical utility of digital currencies, the "Stablecoins at the Point of Sale: Cards, Wallets and the Race for Everyday Spend" panel highlighted the growing consensus that widespread stablecoin adoption ultimately depends on seamless integration into everyday consumer experiences.
Mike Silagadze, the founder and CEO of ether.fi, argued that while stablecoins have undeniably revolutionized cross-border money movement, their broader adoption remains throttled by whether everyday consumers can easily use them for routine, daily expenses. Pointing to markets like Singapore, Silagadze noted that a consumer might comfortably hold digital dollars like USDC, yet still find themselves forced to rely on local fiat currency to pay routine utility bills or buy groceries, underscoring the lingering gap between advanced blockchain payment infrastructure and practical, everyday financial services.
Echoing this user-centric perspective, Yvonne Chia, head of communications at USDD, emphasized that stablecoin issuers must prioritize the consumer’s lived experience above all else. "That’s the kind of direction that we want to move in, to make it as easy as possible for the user to have stablecoins, use stablecoins, to the point where it doesn’t cross their mind that they are using a stablecoin. It’s just a regular part of their lives," Chia explained.
"The reason no one uses stablecoins in many parts of the world is because it just doesn’t plug into your day-to-day life," Silagadze added, summarizing the core friction keeping digital currencies from achieving universal retail adoption.
Beyond everyday usability, complex regulatory hurdles continue to complicate expansion efforts. Ilya Podoynitsyn, co-founder and CEO of FinHarbor, pointed out that service providers must constantly navigate conflicting rules that vary wildly across international jurisdictions. This regulatory patchwork forces companies to continuously adapt their underlying infrastructure and compliance systems to meet the idiosyncratic demands of individual national markets.
To overcome these barriers, Ashna Vaghela, chief customer officer at crypto payments provider Mercuryo, suggested that stablecoin payments must eventually evolve to become as effortless as traditional consumer technologies like Apple Pay, allowing users to complete transactions instantly without ever leaving an application. "I think that’s the whole point, to be invisible," Vaghela remarked.
These discussions unfolded against the backdrop of a massive macro landscape, with the global stablecoin market capitalization hovering around $306 billion. While this represents a modest 2% increase year-over-year, it follows an explosive roughly 74% growth surge observed over the preceding 12 months.
Onchain Trading Faces Liquidity Fragmentation and Risk Management Challenges
Moving deeper into the mechanics of digital asset markets, panelists tackling the topic of what is still missing in the onchain trading stack discussed the ongoing difficulties crypto trading platforms face when attempting to map available liquidity across a dizzying array of independent blockchain networks while effectively managing counterparty risk.
Austin Federa, co-founder of DoubleZero, explained that moving liquidity fluidly between disparate blockchain environments remains significantly more cumbersome than in traditional, legacy financial markets. "Fragmentation is not just an execution problem, it’s like a data problem," Federa said, noting that it is genuinely difficult for market participants to accurately calculate how much liquidity truly and securely exists onchain at any given moment.
From a risk management standpoint, Miguel Morel, founder and CEO of blockchain analytics firm Arkham Intelligence, highlighted how modern trading firms can leverage granular onchain data to better evaluate counterparty risks—particularly within prediction markets, where certain participants may hold informational advantages over others.
"If you know who’s on the other side and you’re taking less risk, you can offer a tighter spread," Morel explained, pointing out that enhanced data transparency ultimately paves the way for superior pricing for retail and institutional customers alike. Furthermore, Morel noted that this exact same blockchain intelligence can assist exchanges in evaluating customer deposits, enabling platforms to trace the origin of incoming funds and streamline internal compliance workflows. "Without needing to ask for a passport, you can know where those deposits are coming in from," Morel said, adding that platforms can utilize such insights to immediately determine whether to permit trading activity or route funds for further compliance review.
Crypto Investors Face Tougher Exits as Markets Mature
The realities of market maturation were laid bare during the summit’s final major panel, titled "The Exit Problem: How Investors Get Their Money Back," where venture capital participants candidly discussed how evolving liquidity dynamics have complicated exit strategies for early-stage backers.
Pulkit Gupta of Nomad Capital observed that liquidity across crypto markets had tightened noticeably over the preceding three months, with the lion’s share of available capital concentrating heavily in the largest, most established cryptocurrencies. "For me, on the altcoins, it has been really tough for us to get an exit," admitted Gupta, whose firm has backed several high-profile crypto projects featuring publicly traded tokens, including Movement, Solayer, and Berachain.
Reflecting on this broader shift toward long-term operational expectations rather than quick speculative flips, Sonia Shaw, CEO of OneAsset, noted that the cryptocurrency market has matured to a point where startups are expected to demonstrate robust underlying business fundamentals. Recalling an early investor who once anticipated a complete exit within a mere six months, Shaw asserted that such compressed timelines are largely a thing of the past. "I don’t think the market’s like that anymore," she said, characterizing the industry’s departure from rapid, easy exits as a healthy, welcome sign of long-term structural maturity.
Adding to this perspective, Aleksandr Nechaev, a partner at Funders VC, underscored the unique operational challenges presented by the relentless pace of product and market evolution in the Web3 space. "The rapid pace of change makes founders’ expertise and ability central to investment decisions," Nechaev noted, emphasizing that the ability of founding teams to gracefully navigate acute uncertainty remains the ultimate test for modern venture capital investors.
Crypto Startups & Venture Capital
Crypto Startups & Venture Capital
Crypto Startups & Venture Capital
