Key takeaways from the Abu Dhabi Finance Week panel dialog in December.
At Abu Dhabi Finance Week 2025, conversations on capital effectivity constantly returned to the identical query – whether or not immediately’s market infrastructure is definitely constructed to help it.
On a panel targeted on constructing the rails for tokenized leverage, Redwan Meslem, Govt Director of the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance, joined leaders from insurance coverage, clearing, custody, and buying and selling to unpack what’s actually standing between tokenized collateral and institutional-scale adoption.
The dialog rapidly moved previous whether or not tokenization issues, and as an alternative targeted on how, the place, and below what constraints it may very well be built-in into leverage, credit score, and liquidity frameworks.
Tokenized collateral is greater than a technical query, it’s a methods query
Throughout insurance coverage underwriting, CCPs, and custodianship, panelists converged on one actuality: collateral lives on the intersection of danger administration, authorized certainty, and operational management.
From an insurance coverage perspective, tokenized belongings face fast scrutiny on 4 fronts: stability, authorized readability, transparency, and regulatory acceptance. Even with tons of of billions deployed globally as fiat collateral, crypto-based collateral stays marginal – not due to liquidity constraints, however as a result of regulators nonetheless lack confidence in enforceability, valuation requirements, and custody fashions.
Clearing and derivatives infrastructure echoed this view. Central counterparties don’t consider collateral by a “crypto vs. TradFi” lens, they consider whether or not belongings might be valued reliably, apportioned per account, mobilized 24/7, and liquidated with out introducing systemic danger.
Tokenization, on this context, is about shortening settlement cycles and lowering counterparty publicity in markets that already function across the clock.
Management issues as a lot as possession
Custody introduced the dialogue into sharper focus. Authorized title alone doesn’t make an asset usable as collateral if management can’t be exercised in actual time.
Andrej Majcen of Bitcoin Suisse captured the custody problem succinctly: “Not your keys, not your cash.” When collateral values transfer rapidly, the flexibility to behave immediately issues, and complicated custody or authorization buildings can undermine enforceability when it’s wanted most.
That is the place tokenized belongings face their first actual institutional stress check not in issuance, however in enforcement below strain.
Interoperability is the true unlock
When the dialog turned to interoperability, Redwan’s perspective was clear: tokenization with out connectivity merely recreates the silos of legacy finance, on-chain.
“There’s no technical downside we are able to’t remedy,” he famous, however interoperability solely creates worth if it permits capital velocity, not fragmentation. Tokenized belongings should be capable of transfer throughout venues, talk with current methods, and stay composable throughout clearing, settlement, and collateral administration workflows.
Requirements are starting to emerge – together with ERC-based frameworks gaining traction for compliant tokenization – however Redwan emphasised that requirements alone will not be sufficient. The actual work occurs when technical design is knowledgeable by enterprise actuality.
Too typically, crypto conversations, particularly institutional ones, stay engineering-first. Institutional adoption, against this, requires translating these requirements into language danger committees, compliance groups, and treasury departments can act on.
Regulation: equivalence over innovation
One of the understated, but essential, insights from the panel was the position of regulatory equivalence.
World markets perform as a result of jurisdictions acknowledge one another’s regulatory regimes as comparable. Tokenized collateral is not going to scale globally until related equivalence emerges, not simply between international locations, however between kinds of establishments. Banks have lengthy acted as trusted collateral intermediaries. Token-native custodians should ultimately be acknowledged as bearing comparable fiduciary, compliance, and supervisory requirements for regulators to grow to be snug.
“Having parity and recognizable equal regimes could be very paramount”, stated Sabrina Wilson of GFOX, underscoring that regulatory equivalence, not novelty, is what permits international markets to perform at scale.
That theme was strengthened from the insurance coverage aspect by Helen Ye, CEO of Qubit Underwriting, who pointed to a unique – however associated – hole: “How can we even have the equivalently regulated entity as credible as banks… so regulators will say, ‘Sure, we really settle for that’?”
From Europe’s MiCA framework to regional experimentation within the Center East, regulatory certainty, even when imperfect, is proving extra catalytic than regulatory silence.
From “in code we belief” to institutional belief
Redwan closed with a framing that resonated strongly with the monetary viewers: “In code we belief” will not be ample when methods contact the true economic system.
Ethereum and the broader ecosystem are now not of their infancy. Privateness-preserving requirements, interoperability frameworks, and enterprise-grade tooling are maturing rapidly, however progress is dependent upon sustained dialogue between builders and establishments, not parallel conversations.
The way forward for tokenized collateral is not going to be determined by a single protocol or jurisdiction. It will likely be formed by how successfully requirements, regulation, and infrastructure converge round shared danger fashions.
Wanting towards 2030
By the top of the session, the panel aligned on a realistic outlook. Tokenized collateral is unlikely to exchange conventional methods in a single day. As an alternative, it’ll grow to be one other more and more necessary device inside institutional toolkits.
The actual transformation lies in velocity: quicker settlement, diminished counterparty danger, and extra environment friendly use of capital throughout markets. If these advantages materialize, tokenization will transcend merely modernising collateral – it’ll quietly redefine how leverage, credit score, and liquidity are structured throughout the monetary system.
And as Redwan steered, as soon as interoperability and belief are in place, the vary of belongings that may take part could develop far past immediately’s creativeness – from monetary devices to real-world worth itself!
