In its October 2026 Global Financial Stability Report, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned that the growth of tokenized markets could intensify traditional financial risks. The fund highlighted that while tokenization offers benefits like faster settlement and lower costs, it may also accelerate liquidity crises, fire sales, and systemic contagion.
By July 2026, the total outstanding value of tokenized real-world assets, excluding stablecoins, reached approximately $65 billion. Fixed-income products account for the majority of this sector at roughly $48 billion. Meanwhile, tokenized equities totaled about $2.3 billion, which is roughly 0.0029% of the global listed equity market valued at $151.9 trillion.
The IMF noted that tokenized equities exhibit about 1.5 times the realized volatility of traditional counterparts and suffer from lower liquidity. Daily volumes for tokenized repos averaged between $300 billion and $350 billion, compared to the $13 trillion US repo market. The fund also described the current market as fragmented, with assets trapped on non-interoperable platforms.
This report marks the third time the IMF has issued a public warning regarding tokenization in 2026, following similar alerts in April and July. The fund emphasized that as these markets integrate with the traditional financial system, the risk of cross-market contagion increases. Infrastructure developers are urged to address gaps in regulatory clarity, legal certainty, and interoperability.
