Singapore’s high-net-worth and professional investors are already embracing tokenized assets at a rate that suggests demand is moving faster than the rules and market infrastructure needed to support it.

Three in four Singapore respondents in Sygnum’s latest APAC tokenization report already hold tokenized assets, according to Singapore-specific data provided by the digital-asset bank.

Among investors already participating, 48% hold or are targeting tokenized private equity and venture capital, 47% private credit and 45% commodities.

Those preferences are notable because Singapore is simultaneously exploring ways to give ordinary investors broader access to some of the same underlying markets.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) proposed a framework last year that would allow retail investors to access private-market funds, including strategies investing in private equity and private credit. In a separate consultation launched July 9, MAS proposed a faster framework for approving new retail fund categories, initially including futures-based single-commodity funds and a wider range of single-country government bond funds.

The overlap provides an early indication of what demand could look like if those markets become more broadly accessible — and increasingly available through blockchain-based structures.

Tokenized Equities Lead Investor Demand

The broader Sygnum study surveyed 212 high-net-worth individuals and professional investors across Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea. HNWIs were defined as having more than $1 million in investable assets, while professional investors included asset managers, banks, hedge funds, family offices and other firms investing on behalf of clients

Across the full regional sample, 68% said they already held tokenized real-world assets and another 12% were evaluating them.

Equities emerged as the most sought-after category. The report found 66% of respondents were invested in or interested in tokenized stocks, compared with about 44% for government bonds. Professional investors showed particularly strong interest in private equity and venture capital.

Among Singapore investors who already hold tokenized assets, the corresponding equity figure rises to 68%, according to Sygnum’s country-level data.

That appetite is arriving just as regulators grapple with a basic but consequential question: What exactly does ownership of a tokenized stock give an investor?

The US Securities and Exchange Commission said in January that tokenized securities can take several forms and that their structures and holder rights can differ. SEC guidance published in May went further, warning that the economic and voting rights attached to a token can be materially different from those of the underlying security.

The SEC is also considering how to accommodate more tokenized-stock trading in the US, including through a potential innovation exemption for crypto platforms.

That distinction between economic exposure and actual ownership is becoming harder for investors to ignore.

When SpaceX went public in June, several crypto platforms refunded customers who had subscribed for tokenized exposure after the provider, xStocks, could not secure enough of the underlying shares. The episode demonstrated that putting an investment claim on a blockchain does not eliminate the traditional-market dependencies behind it.

Tokenization Is Moving Beyond Treasuries

Sygnum’s findings also point to a broader change in the tokenization market.

Much of the sector’s institutional growth initially centered on assets that were relatively straightforward to put onchain: US Treasuries, money-market funds and other cash-like instruments.

That is changing.

Tokenized real-world assets on permissionless networks have expanded to about $36.8 billion in distributed value, excluding stablecoins, according to RWA.xyz. The market now spans government debt, private credit, equities, commodities, private equity and other strategies.

Sygnum’s data suggests investors increasingly see tokenization as a delivery format for familiar portfolio exposures, rather than an asset class in itself.

Portfolio diversification was the top reason for buying tokenized assets, cited by 72% of respondents. But the report cautions against interpreting that as investors diversifying into “tokenization.” They are primarily taking familiar exposures — equities, Treasuries, private credit and private equity — and holding them through onchain structures.

That distinction matters.

If the trend continues, tokenization’s next phase may be less about creating new financial products and more about changing how existing products are issued, owned, transferred and used as collateral.

The survey also found that only 18% of respondents expected their tokenized investments to come solely from replacing existing holdings. Thirty-six percent expected to use new capital, while 46% anticipated a mixture of new money and reallocation.

That suggests tokenization could expand investment activity rather than simply migrate existing assets from conventional databases onto blockchains.

The Bottleneck Is Shifting From Demand to Market Structure

The strongest warning in the report comes from what investors say is preventing them from allocating more.

Among the Singapore investors already participating, Sygnum said 63% cited insufficient secondary-market liquidity and 58% pointed to the need for greater legal clarity.

The regional results tell the same story, although with lower percentages. Among investors already holding tokenized assets across the full APAC sample, 43% cited thin secondary-market liquidity and 40% raised concerns about legal ownership rights.

That is a significant change in the industry’s problem set.

Custody concerns fall sharply once investors gain experience with tokenized assets, according to Sygnum. Liquidity and ownership questions do not. In other words, investors appear increasingly comfortable with the technology while remaining uncertain about the market structure around it.

Research is beginning to reach a similar conclusion. A 2026 study examining tokenized Treasuries, gold and private-credit assets found that putting an asset onchain does not by itself create an active secondary market, with substantial differences in turnover and participation across token categories.

Gerald Goh, Sygnum’s co-founder and APAC CEO, said that closing those gaps will determine whether current interest translates into substantially larger allocations.

“Investor demand is no longer the question. Asia’s professional and high-net-worth investors already hold tokenized assets and want to hold more. What determines whether that demand converts into serious allocation is expanding access to regulated, institutional-grade financial market infrastructure, greater legal clarity and deeper secondary liquidity. That is the standard this market has to reach, and it is where regulation and industry now need to move in step. The jurisdictions that get it right will capture what comes next.”

There are reasons to treat the survey figures cautiously.

Sygnum itself notes that its 212-person sample had an unusually high crypto-ownership rate of 83% and says a larger study would be needed to establish whether the results are representative of the wider Singapore and Hong Kong investor population. It also acknowledges that some respondents may have counted stablecoins as tokenized real-world assets, something it plans to separate more clearly in future research.

Still, the direction of travel is increasingly clear.

Tokenization is moving from experiments involving Treasury bills and money-market funds toward equities, private credit, private equity and commodities. Investor demand is widening at the same time regulators are deciding who can access those assets and what protections should follow them onto blockchain rails.

The above article “Beyond Treasuries: Wealthy Investors Broaden Their Tokenization Exposure” was first published on AlexaBlockchain. Read the complete article here: https://alexablockchain.com/beyond-treasuries-wealthy-investors-broaden-their-tokenization-exposure/

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