DTCC's Nadine Chakar predicts treasuries will dominate tokenization in 2026

Tokenization had a breakout year in 2025. Stablecoins, tokenized equities, and even tokenized commodities like gold and oil made headlines.

Nadine Chakar, Global Head of Digital Assets at DTCC, believes the story is just getting started, and believes that the next stage of tokenization will focus on treasuries.

"I still think treasuries will continue to dominate the space for two reasons," Chakar told TheStreet Roundtable in a recent interview.

Related: "Tokenization is going to do to ETFs what ETFs did to mutual funds," says Franklin Templeton's Sandy Kaul

Tokenization tailwinds

The first is stablecoin backing. Tokenized treasuries strengthen the assets sitting behind stablecoins.

The second is collateral. Bringing more treasuries on-chain unlocks capital efficiency across the system.

Chakar also expects an uptick in private market tokenization, a category that has long been talked about but slow to scale. She cautioned, however, that investors shouldn't confuse tokenization with instant liquidity.

"Tokenization itself doesn't create liquidity," she said. "The efficiencies you'd get from an operational perspective are worth looking at."

24/7 markets are coming in hot

One catalyst she pointed to is the round-the-clock nature of risk.

When tensions flared over the weekend with the war in Iran, oil contracts traded on decentralized finance (DeFi) venues while traditional markets were closed.

"Sometimes risk happens on the weekend when the markets are closed," Chakar said. "That's why you need the means to be able to tokenize and manage risk 24/7."

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The bigger structural question is settlement.

Atomic settlement, where cash and assets change hands simultaneously, is often pitched as tokenization's killer feature. 

The current system relies on end-of-day netting, which Chakar said is remarkably efficient.

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"We trade $10, $12 trillion in assets. You net them down and the netting is pretty effective," she said. "We can net up to about 95% of that."

That's why moving to atomic settlement isn't as simple as flipping a switch. Netting lowers the amount of capital that must move each day, and eliminating it could introduce friction elsewhere in the system.

"The worst thing you want is for us to do something and then create a whole bunch of unintended consequences," Chakar said.

For 2026, the tokenization roadmap seems to be: more treasuries, more private markets, and more 24/7 infrastructure. 

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