<h2 id="header-0">Key Facts</h2>
<ul>
 <li>International Monetary Fund staff said on Thursday that tokenized markets remain small, fragmented, relatively illiquid and more volatile than their traditional counterparts.</li>
 <li>Tokenized repurchase agreements average around $300 billion to $350 billion in daily transaction volume, and trading in other tokenized assets adds another $65 billion, the IMF said.</li>
 <li>The analysis is based on Chapter 3 of the IMF's October 2026 Global Financial Stability Report, on scaling tokenization.</li>
</ul>
Tokenized financial markets are growing quickly but remain small, fragmented and more volatile than traditional markets, International Monetary Fund staff said on Thursday, warning that greater scale could also amplify familiar financial risks.
The analysis is based on Chapter 3 of the IMF's October 2026 <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.imf.org/en/publications/gfsr/issues/2026/10/13/global-financial-stability-report-october-2026">Global Financial Stability Report</a>, titled "Scaling Tokenization: New Efficiencies, New Vulnerabilities."
"Although growing rapidly, tokenized markets remain very small and fragmented," IMF staff Gonzalo Fernandez Dionis, Caio Ferreira, Mindaugas Leika and Athanasios Vamvakidis wrote in a <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.imf.org/en/blogs/articles/2026/10/08/blog-what-is-needed-for-tokenization-to-deliver">blog</a> post.<tweet-embed url="https://x.com/IMFNews/status/2108090219467805104"></tweet-embed>
Most tokenized activity takes place in repurchase agreements, which average around $300 billion to $350 billion in daily transaction volume, the authors said. Trading in other tokenized assets, including credit, money market funds and <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://coinmarketcap.com/academy/glossary/tokenized-securities">tokenized securities</a> such as equities, adds another $65 billion. Those volumes remain tiny next to their traditional counterparts. The US repo market trades about $13 trillion a day, and global capital markets hold $300 trillion in assets.
<h2 id="header-1">IMF Finds Interest in 24/7 Trading and Fractional Shares</h2>
The IMF found early signs that investors value some key features of tokenized markets. More than half of trading occurs outside traditional market hours, and around 80% of the tokenized equity trades the authors analyzed were for less than one share.
Overnight tokenized equity returns were reflected in traditional equity prices shortly after the market opened, suggesting that both markets respond to similar information, according to the blog.
Even so, tokenized markets remain relatively illiquid and show higher <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://coinmarketcap.com/academy/glossary/volatility">volatility</a> than their traditional counterparts, the authors said, with fragmentation across networks and venues further weakening <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://coinmarketcap.com/academy/glossary/liquidity">liquidity</a>.
<h2 id="header-2">Scaling Tokenization Could Amplify Runs and Fire Sales</h2>
The authors said greater scale could also amplify risks. Some tokenization features "can create new channels for transmitting and amplifying traditional financial risks, such as fire sales, liquidity runs, and contagion through greater interconnectedness and leverage," they wrote.
They named four constraints on growth: legal certainty, regulatory clarity, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://coinmarketcap.com/academy/glossary/interoperability">interoperability</a> and the availability of settlement assets. They called for a technology-neutral approach that regulates similar activities consistently, regardless of the technology used.
The IMF has flagged tokenization before, saying in July that it <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://coinmarketcap.com/academy/article/imf-tokenization-financial-markets-settlement-risks">could reshape settlement and financial stability</a>. In September, US Commodity Futures Trading Commission chair Michael Selig said regulators should <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://coinmarketcap.com/academy/article/cftc-chief-michael-selig-mass-tokenization-24-7-trading-stablecoins">get markets ready for "mass tokenization"</a>.
Read More:&nbsp;<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://coinmarketcap.com/academy/article/how-to-buy-tokenized-stocks">How To Buy Tokenized Stocks, Self-Custody Them, and Earn Yield</a>

IMF Says Tokenized Markets Remain Small, Illiquid and More Volatile

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