Wall Street suddenly feeling the heat from a flashy new contender, stablecoins. These digital dollars are making waves, promising speed, transparency, and blockchain magic.
So what do the big players do? They push their own move, tokenizing money market funds. Yeah, Goldman Sachs and BNY Mellon, they’re not just sitting on their hands.
Tokenized shares
See, money market funds have long been the cash everyone trusts, short-term debt, Treasury bills, safe as houses.
But now, stablecoins threaten to steal some of that thunder, offering a digital alternative that’s fast and slick.
That’s where JPMorgan’s strategist Teresa Ho steps in, sounding the alarm and saluting the tokenization effort.
She says this move is about survival and innovation, turn those money market shares into tokens, and boom,you get the best of both worlds.
Investors can post tokenized shares as collateral, keep earning interest, and avoid the old dull stuff like physical cash or Treasurys clogging up the system.
It’s like trading your beat-up office chair for a sleek new ergonomic throne but still getting the work done.
Keep the interest coming
And honestly, this push couldn’t come at a better time. The US just passed the GENIUS Act, a fancy new crypto-friendly law that basically greases the wheels for digital dollars to merge with traditional banking.
It’s a big deal that’ll crank up stablecoin adoption, and Wall Street’s trying to make sure they don’t get left in the dust.
It’s a whole new paradigm for the money fund biz. As Ho put it to Bloomberg, instead of posting cash or Treasuries, you post money-market shares and keep the interest coming.
And no, it’s not just talk, industry veterans like Peter Crane and even State Street’s CEO agree, if Wall Street slows down on tokenizing their assets, cash could lose its crown.
📈 Tokenized money market funds: what are the implications for financial stability? Faced with the proliferation of fund tokenization initiatives, economists at the #BanqueDeFrance examine this movement.
🪙 The tokenization of money market funds represents a new bridge between…
— Banque de France (@banquedefrance) July 4, 2025
That’s like letting the interns run the shop, and nobody wants that.
Evolution
Now, the GENIUS Act is the spotlight. It gives tokenization projects legal cover and regulatory clarity, something companies like Securitize’s Michael Sonnenshein say is air cover to jump in without fearing a raid from the regulators.
With real-world assets tokenizing like wildfire, private credit, treasury bonds, you name it, this market has already hit $25 billion across 256 issuers, excluding stablecoins.
And it’s only getting wilder. Aptos Labs’ Solomon Tesfaye envisions tokenized assets expanding into derivatives, IP, and other wild cards.
So, Wall Street’s not just simply defending its turf, they’re evolving, because they have no other choice.
