Tiger Research: Asian Institutions Adopt Tokenized Assets

The report, titled "Internet Capital Markets 2026: Structural Shifts in the US and Strategic Direction for Asian Institutions," frames the shift as an architectural one rather than a product cycle. Traditional capital markets operate on pre-internet clearing infrastructure requiring multi-day settlement through intermediaries such as clearinghouses and depositories. Internet Capital Markets, as Tiger Research defines the category, consolidate issuance, trading, and settlement onto a single public blockchain with near-instantaneous finality. The firm identifies Solana as the primary network where this consolidation is occurring at institutional scale.

The U.S. regulatory backdrop gives the report its immediate context. The New York Stock Exchange announced its tokenized securities platform on January 19, 2026, and received SEC approval for rule change SR-NYSE-2026-17 on April 17, 2026, clearing the way for 24-hour, seven-day trading of U.S.-listed equities with near-instant settlement and stablecoin-based funding. Nasdaq received SEC approval on March 18, 2026 to enable tokenized trading of Russell 1000 stocks and major index ETFs. Tokenized and traditional shares trade on the same order books with identical investor rights. The Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation received regulatory clearance in late 2025 to offer tokenization services for DTCC-custodied assets, with a three-year pilot program launching in July 2026 for limited production trades and a full commercial launch scheduled for October 2026, covering stocks, ETFs, and U.S. Treasuries. Tiger Research's report treats these approvals collectively as evidence that the U.S. market structure has already moved, not that it is preparing to.

On January 28, 2026, SEC staff from the Division of Corporation Finance, the Division of Investment Management, and the Division of Trading and Markets issued a joint statement on tokenized securities, establishing that regulatory treatment turns on economic substance rather than technical form. The statement made explicit that tokenizing an existing security does not alter core securities law obligations for issuers, sponsors, or intermediaries. Chapman and Cutler's analysis of the SEC joint statement noted that the guidance builds on Commissioner Peirce's July 2025 remarks and frames tokenization as a process of regulated evolution rather than a regulatory carve-out.

Tiger Research attributed Solana's institutional traction to average transaction fees of $0.0013, finality of approximately 0.4 seconds, and programmable compliance features. The report also cited the network's participation in Project Open, a proposal submitted to the SEC; the report does not specify whether the SEC has accepted, approved, or is still reviewing that submission, and no public SEC disposition of Project Open was available as of the report's publication date. Named institutional participants on Solana cited by Tiger Research include JPMorgan, State Street, Citi, Franklin Templeton, Visa, PayPal, and Western Union. The RWA tokenization market grew 257% over 15 months, from $5.4 billion in early 2025 to $19.3 billion by March 2026, with tokenized U.S. Treasuries and money market funds leading that expansion.

The OSL Group–Solana Foundation collaboration, announced on October 1, 2025 at the Solana APEX Summit in Hong Kong, provides a concrete institutional example of the infrastructure Tiger Research describes. OSL Group's collaboration with the Solana Foundation was framed around compliant RWA tokenization for institutional clients including asset managers, brokerages, and funds, delivered through OSL's Tokenworks platform. OSL HK had become the first licensed digital asset platform in Hong Kong to offer Solana to retail investors on August 1, 2025, launching SOL/USD and SOL/HKD trading pairs ahead of the broader institutional initiative.

Tiger Research's report identifies Singapore's Monetary Authority of Singapore framework as providing the clearest compliance pathway for Asian institutions. The report characterizes Abu Dhabi as a secondary regulated venue. It attributes the shift in Asian institutional behavior to regulatory clarity from the GENIUS Act and SEC/CFTC asset classifications in the United States, which the report argues have reduced the compliance ambiguity that previously constrained institutional deployment in Asia. The report attributes this behavioral characterization to its own analysis of capital flows and regulatory filings; it does not name a specific Asian institution or fund that has completed a deployment on either venue.

Key Disclosures Absent from the Report

The Tiger Research report does not identify a specific Asian institution that has completed a tokenized asset deployment on Solana as of its publication date. It does not disclose the methodology or data sources underlying the 257% RWA market growth figure or the $5.4 billion and $19.3 billion reference points. The report does not specify the current regulatory status of Project Open with the SEC — whether the submission is pending review, has received a response, or remains in draft form. It does not provide deal terms, asset under management figures, or client counts for any of the named institutional participants on Solana. The OSL Group–Solana Foundation collaboration, cited as supporting context, did not disclose commercial terms, revenue-sharing arrangements, or a timeline for specific tokenized product launches at the time of its October 2025 announcement.

The immediate effect of the Tiger Research report is to document, as of June 18, 2026, the regulatory approvals and network-level metrics that the firm argues are driving Asian institutional interest in Solana-based tokenization infrastructure. The report does not establish that any named Asian institution has committed capital, launched a product, or completed a regulatory filing on the basis of the structural changes it describes.