It started with treasuries. Then real estate. Then funds, equities, commodities.

Seems slow?

Yeah, well... so does lava.

Tokenization isn’t coming fast.

It’s coming all at once.

As Sergey Nazarov put it recently: “Half the institutions are already here. The other half are on their way. We won.”

Chainlink—the crypto network Sergey co-founded—isn’t just a token, it’s the plumbing. The thing that quietly pipes real-world data into blockchain systems so they can actually function.

Chainlink, you see, specializes in a little thing called “oracles.” Without them, smart contracts are just dumb contracts with buzzwords.

But this isn’t just a story about hoity-toity futuristic infrastructure.

It’s about a reset. It’s about a financial jailbreak. It’s about a change in the underlying logic of finance.

It’s about transforming how value moves—not just where.

Let’s zoom out.

America’s Secret Weapon

Sergey lays it out: America didn’t dominate global finance because of Wall Street alone.

It dominated because it’s the archetypal pioneer—it hasn’t been afraid to rip and replace.

When the world moved from paper to servers in the 70s and 80s, the U.S. had the best infrastructure. The biggest legal sandbox. The deepest domestic market.

“It was 5 years ahead of Europe,” says Sergey. “10+ years ahead of Asia.”

From that edge, came E*TRADE, Interactive Brokers, iShares—an explosion of financial products.

Fast-forward to now: a new backend is here. The internet’s aging infrastructure is getting a makeover.

And who’s winning that backend battle?

The rails. The data bridges. Chainlink.

3 Things to Watch

When the internet began, everyone thought it was just for email. Now? It runs everything.

Crypto’s going through the same phase.

“Right now, most people still think crypto is just tokens or DeFi,” Sergey says. “But we’re just in the email stage.”

What’s coming next? Full-scale financial reformatting.

Tokenized assets. Real-time audits. Smart compliance.

All of it composable. All of it programmable. All of it global by default.

Sergey isn’t shooting from the hip. He’s been spending a lot of time in Washington. Not to beg for permission—but to help policymakers understand the inevitable.

“You can only get two or three things through Congress at a time,” he says.

Right now those are:

• Stablecoin legislation

• Market structure reform

• Proof-of-reserves frameworks (Chainlink’s bread and butter)

For the first time, U.S. lawmakers aren’t trying to kill crypto. They’re asking how to regulate it without choking innovation.

Trump just signed a bill that protects DeFi developers from having to report users to the IRS.

“It’s not a 90-degree turn,” Sergey says. “It’s a full 180.”

Tokenization is a Land Grab.

Everyone wants to do it here in the US. They just can’t.

YET.

But big boys like JP Morgan and UBS aren’t waiting.

They’re already rearing up for the tokenization wave—from treasuries to real estate—in Singapore and Hong Kong.

JP Morgan has been running tokenized asset pilots for years through Project Guardian, a Singapore initiative led by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).

In 2022, JP Morgan executed its first live DeFi trade on a public blockchain, using tokenized Singaporean dollars (SGD) and Japanese yen.

UBS launched a tokenized variable rate note worth $50 million on Ethereum, via the Hong Kong Monetary Authority’s pilot. They also completed tokenized real estate deals through private placement platforms in Asia.

It’s not a tech problem. It’s a compliance problem.

Deglobalization Makes Crypto More Valuable

The U.S.–China trade war escalated tariffs to record levels. Then came the weaponization of SWIFT against Russia. Iran got cut off too.

And now? Even allies like France are talking about moving away from U.S.-centric financial rails.

Cross-border payment systems are being replaced:

• China launched CIPS to bypass SWIFT.

• Russia launched SPFS.

• BRICS is building its own settlement layer.

• India is onboarding nations to its UPI system.

• Crypto, especially stablecoins, is being tested in all of them.

As dollar liquidity dries up abroad, emerging markets are bypassing banks entirely. Instead of asking for access to U.S. dollars through correspondent banks, they’re now grabbing stablecoins.

The fewer bridges between nations, the more valuable neutral protocols become. Crypto is no longer an “alternative.”

It’s the last remaining global system.

That’s why the institutions are here.

And that’s why we say:

Tokenize the bastards.

It’s going to happen with or without us.

[Full-disclosure: As members of Early Stage Crypto Investor know, James and I are putting $10,000 into four cryptos this week. Chainlink is one of them.]