The tokenisation of real-world assets — the representation of ownership interests in physical and financial assets as tokens on a blockchain — has moved from theoretical to operational. More than $26 billion in real-world assets are currently tokenised on public and permissioned blockchains. Industry projections from BlackRock, BCG, and Citi estimate the total tokenised asset market will reach between $16 trillion and $18.9 trillion by 2030. For family offices managing multi-generational wealth, the implications are material and immediate. The question is no longer whether to engage with tokenisation, but how to do so with the governance and custody infrastructure the opportunity requires.

What Tokenisation Actually Is

Asset tokenisation converts ownership rights in a real-world asset into a digital token that can be transferred, traded, and settled on a blockchain network. The underlying asset might be a commercial property, a private credit instrument, a commodity, a fund unit, or a government bond. The token does not replace the legal ownership structure — it provides a digital representation of that structure, with the transfer and custody of the token recording changes in beneficial ownership.

The meaningful distinction is between tokenisation that simply adds a digital layer to an existing legal structure, and tokenisation that actually changes the underlying mechanics of ownership, transfer, and settlement. The latter is more complex and more consequential. When tokenised securities can settle in seconds rather than days, when fractional ownership of illiquid assets becomes practically tradeable, and when programmable transfer restrictions replace paper-based compliance mechanisms, the operating model of institutional investment management changes in ways that cannot be addressed with minor adjustments to existing workflows.

Why Family Offices Are at the Frontier

Institutional asset managers face a paradox with tokenisation: the potential benefits are significant, but the early-stage infrastructure risk is incompatible with the fiduciary duties and regulatory constraints they operate under. Family offices face the same infrastructure uncertainty but with greater ability to move ahead of the regulatory and operational herd. Their investment decisions are made on longer time horizons, with higher appetite for illiquid and early-stage exposures, and without the quarterly performance constraints that shape the behaviour of institutional asset managers.

The 74% of single-family offices that have invested in or are actively exploring digital assets are, in aggregate, developing the operational knowledge and governance infrastructure for digital asset management years before that infrastructure becomes standard practice in the institutional market. The families that build that capability now will have durable advantages in accessing, managing, and exiting tokenised asset exposures as the market matures.

The Asset Classes Being Tokenised

Private credit is the most developed segment of the tokenised asset market, with firms like BlackRock (BUIDL), Franklin Templeton, and Ondo Finance tokenising money market funds and short-duration credit instruments. Tokenised Treasuries alone represent over $5 billion in assets under management at the time of writing. For family offices with allocations to private credit, tokenised instruments offer improved liquidity, lower minimum investment sizes, and faster settlement at comparable risk profiles.

Real estate tokenisation enables fractional ownership of institutional-quality properties — commercial office, industrial, logistics, and multi-family residential assets — that have historically been accessible only to institutional buyers. Fractional ownership reduces minimum investment sizes, potentially improves liquidity, and simplifies the management of diversified property exposures across multiple jurisdictions. Several Australian platforms are now offering tokenised property investments under the new Digital Assets Framework.

Private equity and venture capital fund interests are increasingly being tokenised to improve secondary market liquidity, simplify transfer mechanics, and reduce the administrative overhead of investor management. For family offices with large, illiquid private equity portfolios, secondary liquidity for tokenised fund interests addresses one of the most persistent friction points in private market investing.

Commodities and precious metals — gold in particular — have a well-developed tokenisation infrastructure through platforms like Paxos (PAXG) and the Perth Mint’s digital gold offering. Tokenised gold provides allocated exposure with the transfer and settlement efficiency of a digital asset, eliminating the logistics and custodial friction associated with physical precious metal holdings.

The Custody Imperative

Tokenised assets present custody challenges that combine the complexity of traditional financial instruments with the cryptographic requirements of digital assets. A tokenised property fund unit is simultaneously a legal ownership interest in a traditional structure and a digital token that requires private key management. The custody infrastructure must handle both dimensions competently.

This creates a due diligence obligation that neither a traditional custodian nor a purely digital asset custodian necessarily satisfies in full. Traditional custodians — global banks, prime brokers — understand the legal structure side but are frequently early in developing the technical infrastructure for managing digital tokens. Digital asset custodians understand the key management side but may not have the legal and compliance infrastructure required for regulated securities tokens.

The answer for family offices is custody infrastructure that integrates both: digital asset key management with institutional-grade security, combined with legal and compliance frameworks that handle the specific characteristics of tokenised securities, commodities, and real estate across multiple jurisdictions.

Regulatory Clarity Is Creating the Window

Australia’s Digital Assets Framework Act (April 2026), the EU’s MiCA Regulation, Singapore’s MAS framework for digital payment tokens and capital markets, and the UAE’s ADGM and VARA frameworks are collectively creating a regulatory map for compliant tokenisation activity. The convergence of regulatory frameworks across major financial jurisdictions matters for family offices with global asset exposures: it creates a defined set of rules within which cross-border tokenised investments can be structured, rather than a patchwork of conflicting or absent regulation.

Australia’s framework explicitly supports the tokenisation of real-world assets through its new “tokenised custody platform” category, creating a licensed pathway for entities holding real-world assets and issuing corresponding digital tokens. This regulatory clarity makes Australia a viable domicile for tokenisation structures servicing Asia-Pacific family office clients — and creates a first-mover advantage for families that engage with compliant tokenisation infrastructure before it becomes widely adopted.

The Family Office Action Plan

For family offices approaching tokenisation as an investment and operational opportunity, the practical starting points are:

Governance framework. Update the investment policy statement to address digital asset and tokenised asset exposure explicitly. Define risk parameters, approved asset classes, custody requirements, and reporting standards before committing capital.

Custody infrastructure. Ensure the family office’s digital asset custody infrastructure is adequate for the specific tokenised assets being considered. Tokenised securities, tokenised real estate, and tokenised commodities each have custody requirements that may differ from pure cryptocurrency holdings.

Legal and tax structuring. Tokenised assets may interact with existing trust, corporate, and superannuation structures in ways that require specific advice. The CGT treatment of tokenised securities and real estate in Australia has specific characteristics that differ from direct asset holdings. Structure before you acquire.

Operational due diligence. The platforms tokenising real-world assets range from highly credible institutions (BlackRock, Franklin Templeton) to early-stage ventures with uncertain longevity. The due diligence framework for tokenised investments should reflect the counterparty and platform risk specific to each instrument, in addition to the underlying asset risk.

The window to build this capability before the market matures is open. The $18.9 trillion projection is not a distant horizon — it is the cumulative result of decisions being made by institutional investors today. Family offices that engage now are making those decisions from a position of informed leadership rather than reactive adoption.