Key takeaways from the Abu Dhabi Finance Week panel dialog in December.
At Abu Dhabi Finance Week 2025, conversations on capital effectivity persistently returned to the identical query – whether or not at the moment’s market infrastructure is definitely constructed to assist it.
On a panel centered 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 shortly moved previous whether or not tokenization issues, and as an alternative centered on how, the place, and beneath 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 property face speedy 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 way of a “crypto vs. TradFi” lens, they consider whether or not property will 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 decreasing 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 shortly, the flexibility to behave immediately issues, and complicated custody or authorization constructions can undermine enforceability when it’s wanted most.
That is the place tokenized property face their first actual institutional stress take a look at not in issuance, however in enforcement beneath stress.
Interoperability is the actual 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 drawback we are able to’t resolve,” he famous, however interoperability solely creates worth if it permits capital velocity, not fragmentation. Tokenized property should be capable to transfer throughout venues, talk with present 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 are usually not sufficient. The actual work occurs when technical design is knowledgeable by enterprise actuality.
Too usually, crypto conversations, particularly institutional ones, stay engineering-first. Institutional adoption, in contrast, requires translating these requirements into language danger committees, compliance groups, and treasury departments can act on.
Regulation: equivalence over innovation
One of the vital understated, but essential, insights from the panel was the position of regulatory equivalence.
International markets operate as a result of jurisdictions acknowledge one another’s regulatory regimes as comparable. Tokenized collateral won’t scale globally except 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 finally be acknowledged as bearing comparable fiduciary, compliance, and supervisory requirements for regulators to turn out to be snug.
“Having parity and recognizable equal regimes may be very paramount”, stated Sabrina Wilson of GFOX, underscoring that regulatory equivalence, not novelty, is what permits international markets to operate at scale.
That theme was bolstered 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 truly 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” isn’t enough when methods contact the actual financial system.
Ethereum and the broader ecosystem are not of their infancy. Privateness-preserving requirements, interoperability frameworks, and enterprise-grade tooling are maturing shortly, however progress will depend on sustained dialogue between builders and establishments, not parallel conversations.
The way forward for tokenized collateral won’t 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 practical outlook. Tokenized collateral is unlikely to interchange conventional methods in a single day. As a substitute, it would turn out to be one other more and more necessary software inside institutional toolkits.
The actual transformation lies in velocity: sooner settlement, lowered counterparty danger, and extra environment friendly use of capital throughout markets. If these advantages materialize, tokenization will transcend merely modernising collateral – it would 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 property that may take part could increase far past at the moment’s creativeness – from monetary devices to real-world worth itself!
