Two financial giants, Goldman Sachs and BNY Mellon, have just reached a pivotal milestone: offering institutions direct access to tokenized money market funds. This announcement reveals a step further towards the disintermediation of financial markets, and especially a strategic turning point for Wall Street.
In practical terms? Institutional clients will soon be able to invest in money market funds with ownership directly recorded on Goldman’s private blockchain. Yes, we are talking about real-time settlement, 24/7, without having to wait for market opening hours.
BNY Mellon, the world’s largest custodian bank, sums up the stakes: “Tomorrow’s finance will be real-time, digital, and transparent.” The message is clear. The time has come for tokenization, even for traditional financial behemoths.
Tokenisation + Yield = Winning Combo
These next-gen money market funds are more than just a technological gimmick. They address a gap left wide open by regulation.
Since the adoption of the GENIUS Act in the United States, which prohibits interest-bearing stablecoins, institutional investors have been searching for alternatives. Tokenized funds arrive at the right time: they offer a yield, while being backed by safe assets like Treasury bonds.
Result: hedge funds, pension funds, and large corporations see an unprecedented opportunity to put their cash to work… without exposing themselves to the volatility of traditional cryptos.
$5.7 Billion Tokenized Already, and It’s Just the Beginning
Moody’s declares: since 2021, tokenized money market funds have already reached $5.7 billion in assets under management. This growth is driven by a new set of players: asset managers, insurers, brokers… All aiming to connect traditional markets to crypto infrastructure.
As a result: native splitting of shares, transparency of movements, instant settlement. Benefits impossible to obtain via traditional banking channels.
A Silent War Against the NYSE
Goldman and BNY are not alone in this rush towards tokenization. Robinhood is preparing its own “Robinhood Chain” on Arbitrum and is already planning to enable trading in stock derivatives… directly on the blockchain.
Galaxy Digital says it plainly: initiatives like these directly threaten the hegemony of major stock exchanges like the New York Stock Exchange. By making markets continuously accessible through decentralized liquidity, these tech-financial giants are slowly but surely disrupting the old monopolies.
Finance No Longer Waits for Market Opening
This shift by Goldman Sachs and BNY Mellon is not trivial. It is a statement of intent. That of a system that self-tokenizes to survive.
The future of markets? It may be written without counters, without hours, and most importantly… without barriers between TradFi and DeFi.
