In today’s world, the easiest way to make a financial product or service seem sexy is to connect it to market democratization. Anything sold as bringing new investors into markets or disrupting the “big guys” will attract positive attention and plaudits in the press.
And rightfully so. Opening up financial markets means more people get access to the biggest driver of wealth creation on the planet. Because those new entrants bring new capital, democratization also makes markets more liquid and puts money that would otherwise be sitting in savings accounts to work fueling economic growth.
For those reasons, milestones like the creation of low-cost ETFs, commission-free trading, and other products that have helped bring financial markets to the masses represent important achievements.
Although those accomplishments should be applauded, democratization has only come so far. Despite the many important steps in the right direction, retail investors still account for only an estimated 20% to 30% of U.S. equity trading volume. That’s only about $100 billion to $150 billion out of a total of $500-plus billion in daily trading activity.
The gaps are even bigger in crypto. According to most estimates, about $40 billion in bitcoin trades every day. That volume, driven mainly by individual investors, is dwarfed by activity levels on institutional blockchain platforms. For example, Broadridge’s DLR platform, which processes institutional repo trades using distributed ledger technology, executes some $350 billion in daily trades.
But the game is changing. The emergence of blockchain technology promises to remake financial markets by delivering instant settlement, massively enhanced efficiency, and something close to universal access to financial products and markets.
Tokenization on the blockchain can eliminate barriers and friction, making it easier, faster, and cheaper for everyone to buy and sell assets. Tokenization itself is simple: the creation of a token that becomes the single and definitive record of ownership that exists on a blockchain. Token ownership “on chain” is like a series of links in a bicycle chain. Each time there is a change of ownership, the chain is updated with new link, over and over again, at light speed.
And at this moment, powerful forces are aligning that promise to accelerate the growth of blockchain technology and forever change the financial industry. Innovation is setting the stage for broad tokenization. Regulatory shifts in the form of the GENIUS Act and the CLARITY Act are allowing technology providers and financial services companies to confidently invest. Markets are expanding to include more private assets, alternatives and other real assets that are hard to trade in the traditional system and difficult for many investors to access at all. The industry is laying the foundation for a blockchain-based future, with more than half (54%) of large financial services firms making moderate to large investments in tokenization and digital asset infrastructure, according to the results of Broadridge’s 2026 Digital Transformation and Next-Gen Technology Study.
Access and Choice
The confluence of these trends is creating a window of transformation. In the very near future, assets ranging from stocks and bonds to private equity funds will be tokenized. The change won’t be limited to financial assets. Fractional ownership, tokenization and the return of the much-maligned non-fungible token will bring art, office towers, and even single-family homes to the blockchain.
Widespread tokenization will provide two things: access and choice. Individual investors will have more direct access to financial markets and less need for intermediaries. At this point, they will have the choice of buying or selling tokenized products independently through their own wallets, or continuing to invest through financial institutions to take advantage of their resources and expertise.
This empowerment of individual investors will represent a major change and, in some cases, a significant challenge, for financial institutions. To retain their presence in the marketplace, institutions will have to bridge the chasm between traditional finance and democratized finance by adopting blockchain technology, adapting existing models to digital assets, and demonstrating their value to investors in a tokenized world. From there, it will be up to individuals to decide how to invest.
That’s real democratization. The ability to choose exactly when, where, and how you transact, without barriers to participation.
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