Market tone: Bullish
Kaye Quema · Crypto Briefing · 2026-10-12T19:05:23.000Z
The bank's digital asset chief says tokenized real-world assets could reach $3 trillion to $10 trillion, far above its own base case from a month earlier
Morgan Stanley thinks the market for tokenized real-world assets could reach between $3 trillion and $10 trillion by 2030.
Today that market sits at approximately $38.6-$40 billion. Getting to the low end of the forecast would require growth measured in multiples, not percentages.
The projection came from Amy Oldenburg, Morgan Stanley’s Head of Digital Asset Strategy, speaking at the TOKEN2049 conference on October 12, 2026. She did not frame it as a long shot.
She called the forecast “without question.”
A big jump from last month’s math
The new range is notably more aggressive than Morgan Stanley’s own earlier view. In a release the previous month, September 2026, the firm put its base-case forecast for tokenized RWAs at $2.3 trillion by 2030.
So within weeks, the low end of the conference estimate landed above the firm’s published base case. The high end is more than four times that figure.
Right now, that plumbing is dominated by one product. Tokenized US Treasuries account for about $14.6 billion of the on-chain RWA market.
That works out to more than a third of the total.
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Morgan Stanley’s research also breaks the opportunity into specific use cases. The firm forecasts total collateral mobility at $1.7T and treasury management at $400B by 2030.
The equities timeline slips
Optimism on market size came paired with a more cautious note on execution. Morgan Stanley has pushed back its timeline for supporting tokenized equities on its alternative trading system (ATS) to Q1 2027, rather than the previously anticipated H2 2026.
Oldenburg tied the delay to the market itself. In her view, the firm needs to see more tokenized offerings and more institutional demand before flipping the switch.
Oldenburg also pointed to where tokenization could deliver the most value. She identified private shares, structured notes and investment funds as key candidates for efficiency gains.
Why the growth thesis rests on institutions
Oldenburg attributed the expected growth to rising institutional interest. She also described a mutual reinforcement effect, where advances in different corners of finance feed off one another.
The logic runs roughly like this. More tokenized products attract more institutional users. More users justify more infrastructure, which in turn makes it easier to issue more products.
The gap between the two Morgan Stanley figures is worth watching. A $2.3 trillion base case and a $3 trillion to $10 trillion range describe very different worlds, and the spread reflects real uncertainty about adoption speed.
The current composition of the market also deserves scrutiny. With tokenized US Treasuries making up the largest single slice, growth into the trillions would require meaningful expansion beyond government debt into the private shares, structured notes and funds Oldenburg highlighted.
The Q1 2027 ATS date is the nearest concrete milestone. If Morgan Stanley hits it, that would suggest the institutional demand Oldenburg is waiting for has started to materialize. Another delay would suggest the market is moving slower than the bank’s rhetoric.
Originally published by Crypto Briefing.