Tokenization is the new ETF boom — and AI agents are next!

Ondo Finance's newly appointed head of portfolio products, John Hoffman, says tokenization is tracking the same trajectory as exchange-traded funds did two decades ago — and that the real demand surge hasn't even arrived yet. Speaking to CoinDesk, the former Invesco and Grayscale executive drew a direct line between the early ETF market, which held roughly $200 billion when he joined in the early 2000s and has since grown into a nearly $20 trillion global asset class, and the tokenized asset market, which has already surpassed $33 billion and tripled over the past year alone.

Why it matters

Hoffman's thesis isn't just about digitizing existing assets — it's about what comes after. He argues that AI agents will become active market participants, autonomously buying, selling and allocating capital through tokenized investment products on blockchain rails. That requires three things the industry is still building: tokenized assets, onchain prime-brokerage infrastructure, and asset-management strategies executable natively on-chain. Ondo already offers tokenized U.S. Treasury products and plans to expand into stocks, ETFs and perpetual futures through its tokenized marketplace. The broader industry context is striking: Citi estimates the tokenized asset sector could reach $5.5 trillion by 2030, while Boston Consulting Group and Ripple put the opportunity at $18.9 trillion by 2033.

Market impact

For investors tracking both crypto and traditional finance convergence, this is a structural signal rather than a cyclical one. Hoffman's framing — "every market that digitizes gets larger" — positions tokenization not as a niche blockchain experiment but as the foundational layer for the next generation of capital markets.