Tiger Research Report: Institutional RWA Adoption Moves Beyond Tokenization to Capital Market Infrastructure Overhaul

SEOUL, South Korea, July 8, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Tiger Research, a Seoul-based blockchain research firm, reports that institutional RWA tokenization has entered a new phase. The real transformation is not in placing assets onchain, but in reconstructing the clearing systems, settlement layers, and liquidity networks underpinning every institutional transaction.

According to rwa.xyz, onchain-issued assets reached approximately USD 34 billion as of May 2026, more than 20 times the USD 1.5 billion recorded in early 2020. Including represented assets, where ownership is recorded onchain while physical assets remain with custodians, the total rises to approximately USD 360 billion.

Tiger Research identifies four capital market verticals where onchain infrastructure is already operational. In short-term funding, Broadridge's Distributed Ledger Repo platform, built on the Canton Network, processes USD 7.7 trillion in monthly settlement volume, with average daily volume of USD 368 billion as of April 2026. In securities settlement, the DTCC partnered with Digital Asset and received a no-action letter from the SEC in December 2025 to tokenize U.S. Treasuries, targeting an MVP in the first half of 2026. In capital raising, the Hong Kong government issued HKD 6 billion in digital green bonds through HSBC Orion in February 2024, compressing settlement from T+5 to T+1, with bonds deployed as repo collateral within days. In digital payments, Bitwave built a private B2B stablecoin infrastructure on Canton, integrating directly with enterprise ERP systems.

Tiger Research identifies three shared infrastructure requirements: transaction-level privacy, atomic settlement, and a public permissioned structure satisfying BCBS requirements. Permissionless blockchains carry risk weights of up to 1,250% under BCBS Group 2 classification, creating a significant balance sheet burden for regulated institutions.

To illustrate how these conditions are met, the report features Canton Network as a case study. Designed for institutional finance from the outset, Canton was developed by Digital Asset, which received investment from institutions including JPMorgan, Citi, Goldman Sachs, and DTCC. The firm drew on experience from projects such as the ASX settlement system replacement and the DTCC credit derivatives infrastructure rebuild in shaping Canton's architecture. Canton embeds authorization and privacy at the smart contract level, limits validation to transaction parties, and enables atomic settlement without asset bridging.

Its Asia expansion is accelerating. In Korea, following STO legislation passed in January 2026, Hanwha Investment & Securities partnered with Digital Asset, while Shinhan Asset Management, Shinhan Securities, and KB Securities signed agreements with the Canton Foundation in June 2026. In Japan, JSCC, Nomura Holdings, and Mizuho Financial Group launched a proof-of-concept using Japanese government bonds. In Hong Kong, Canton has been integrated into the Central Moneymarkets Unit at the monetary authority level.

"Capital market infrastructure, once built, does not change easily," said Seungsik Yoon, who leads Tiger Research's Research Center and authored the report. "The gap between institutions that join while standards are still being set and those that try to catch up later only widens over time."

Tiger Research concludes that regulatory clarity, institutional demand, and infrastructure maturity present the most favorable conditions yet for institutions evaluating onchain capital market infrastructure.

The full report, Below the Surface: How Canton Network Is Reshaping Capital Market Infrastructure, can be accessed [here].

About Tiger Research

Tiger Research is an independent research institution covering digital asset markets across Asia. Founded in 2022, Tiger Research has helped projects shape and distribute their narratives as one of Asia's most referenced sources of blockchain intelligence and institutional connectivity. Its reports, published in five languages, reach 100,000 monthly subscribers and more than 200 institutional clients, including banks, asset managers, and enterprises.

SOURCE Tiger Research