Editor's Note:Artem Tolkachev is the Chief RWA (Real World Asset) Officer ofFalcon Finance, a blockchain-based digital lending platform for collateralized loans. The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author.

Tokenized Assets Will Enter Corporate Treasuries Faster Than Expected

Tokenized (i.e., digitized) assets used for collateral purposes will move beyond the pilot phase this year, entering corporate treasuries faster than most CFOs expect.

Last month, staff of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) Division of Trading and Markets issued a no-action letter, conditionally approving a proposal by the Depository Trust Company (DTC), a subsidiary of the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), for asecurities tokenization pilotprogram.

The letter permits DTC to conduct a three-year limited program enabling participants to use distributed ledger technology to record their interests in securities held by DTC, rather than solely through its existing centralized ledger. DTC plans to launch the program in the second half of 2026.

This development marks a point where "institutional adoption of blockchain in traditional assets is accelerating," according to analysts.

Nasdaq and DTC Move in Parallel

Meanwhile, Nasdaq is seeking to support tokenized securities—digital representations of traditional financial assets like stocks or bonds on a blockchain—but plans to keep the final transfer of ownership and cash within the existing DTC system. Nasdaq hasfiled an applicationto support trading of tokenized securities that still settle through DTC.

In other words, the asset transfer rails that CFOs rely on are being upgraded—when collateral can move faster, balance sheets will behave differently.

These projects are not obscure experiments on the fringes of finance, but signals that core U.S. capital market infrastructure is preparing for the future: tokenized assets will operate as regulated collateral within the same system CFOs already depend on. At that point, collateral will no longer sit still.

Hidden Frictions in Today's Balance Sheets

Every CFO knows that balance sheets contain inefficiencies that are hard to quantify yet impossible to ignore. Treasury teams manage cash equivalents, money market funds, short-term credit, and sometimes equity exposure, each held in separate custody arrangements, subject to different accounting rules, different settlement logic, and different timelines for value transfer. The fundamental problem is not the assets themselves, but that they are managed as isolated silos rather than as a programmable, unified collateral portfolio.

When liquidity is needed, assets must be sold; when margin is required, teams wait for settlement; when markets move quickly, the gap between intending to act and being able to act can be measured in days. This friction rarely appears as an explicit cost, but it affects return on invested capital, working capital efficiency, and liquidity buffers. It also limits the CFO's ability to provide the board with real-time visibility into exposure and liquidity. In short, CFOs are effectively paying for an inefficiency that is not yet visible.

How Tokenization Changes the Game

Tokenization changes this dynamic because a tokenized Treasury bill or money market fund share is not simply a digital wrapper. It is an asset that can be priced continuously, posted as collateral automatically, and transferred between positions without the settlement delays that plague current workflows.

This shift will ultimately affect corporate treasury departments, but it may not start there. Instead, it may arrive through banks, custodians, and counterparties who are already preparing for collateral that moves faster, settles more quickly, and reduces their own exposure.

JPMorgan's tokenized collateral networkhas already converted money market fund shares into collateral that can move in seconds. BlackRock's BUIDL fund is being used as institutional collateral in over-the-counter workflows. Nasdaq's proposal would allow trading of tokenized securities while keeping settlement within the DTC system. And DTC's 2026 authorization brings tokenization into the core of U.S. securities settlement.

When counterparties begin operating this way, they will expect the same from the corporates they transact with. At that point, CFOs will no longer be asked whether they want tokenized collateral—only whether they are prepared for the new settlement expectations.

Direct Impact on Treasury Management

For treasury management, the impact is direct. When assets are no longer idle because transferring them is too slow or costly, capital efficiency will improve. Short-term Treasury positions can simultaneously serve as working capital and be posted as margin for hedging positions, without liquidation or redundant buffers. In turn, portfolios will become more liquid, and yield will emerge as a result of more efficient collateral use.

Settlement risk will also shrink, because the time gap between trade execution and final settlement creates counterparty exposure, and near-real-time settlement of tokenized assets can reduce this window from days to minutes.

This reduction is critical for risk management, for capital requirements tied to settlement exposure, and for the size of liquidity reserves that must be held "just in case." Finally, treasury visibility will become real-time rather than retrospective.

When assets exist as tokens with continuous pricing, dashboards will no longer be snapshots but real-time views of liquidity, exposure, and collateralization levels. Automated rebalancing and dynamic collateral ratios will become possible, without the manual reconciliation that currently consumes treasury operations.

CFOs Don't Need to Become Blockchain Experts

All of this may seem complex to some, but the good news is: it does not require CFOs to become blockchain experts. Instead, it only requires them to stress-test their infrastructure.

Custody arrangements need to support tokenized assets. ERP and treasury systems need to receive real-time data. Counterparty expectations need to be understood before problems arise, not after. CFOs need to assess how much capital is currently idle due to slow transfers, and how that will change when settlement suddenly becomes near-real-time.

The key takeaway for CFOs may be this: these questions do not need to be answered in the next decade—they need to be answered in the next budget cycle.

Conclusion: From Information Acceleration to Collateral Acceleration

Larry Fink has compared tokenization to the internet in 1996. While his analogy is close, it is not entirely accurate. The early internet was about information moving faster; tokenization is about collateral moving faster.

Most capital sits idle because transferring it is expensive and slow. When that changes, CFOs will gain a new category of productive capital—assets that generate yield while being pledged, and collateral that works while waiting.

Organizations that prepare for this shift now will face 2026 with a balance sheet advantage. Those that hesitate may have no choice—counterparties, banks, and the market will set new expectations for them.