On October 8, 2026, the International Monetary Fund published findings from Chapter 3 of its October 2026 Global Financial Stability Report. The IMF’s study puts average daily tokenized repo volume at $300 billion to $350 billion, then finds a market that remains small, fragmented and relatively illiquid.
The report separates tokenized repurchase agreements from trading in tokenized credit, money market funds, equities and other assets. Those assets add another $65 billion in daily transaction volume. The activity is material in isolation, but the IMF compares it with about $13 trillion in daily US repo volume and $300 trillion of assets in global capital markets.
What the trading data shows
The study identifies demand for two features that conventional exchanges do not always provide. The IMF found that more than half of the trading it observed occurred outside traditional market hours. In its sample, around 80 percent of the tokenized-equity trades were smaller than one share. Continuous access and fractional ownership are therefore already common uses, rather than features waiting for a larger market.
The IMF also found a connection between tokenized and conventional price discovery. Overnight tokenized-equity returns appeared in traditional equity prices shortly after the market opened. Its interpretation is that both markets respond to similar information. That finding gives tokenized venues a role during hours when conventional exchanges are closed, even though their liquidity remains limited.
The limits are pronounced. Issuance is concentrated in the United States and a few major offshore jurisdictions. Trading is split across platforms, networks and settlement arrangements. The IMF says tokenized markets remain relatively illiquid and more volatile than their traditional counterparts. Fragmentation weakens liquidity, obstructs efficient price formation and contributes to price deviations.
The figures also show how different parts of the market have developed at different speeds. Repos account for the bulk of tokenized activity, while credit, money market funds, equities and other traded assets form the smaller group measured by the IMF. The comparison with conventional markets leaves a wide gap in scale. Tokenized repo volume sits against a much larger US repo market, and all measured tokenized asset trading sits within global capital markets that the IMF values in the hundreds of trillions of dollars.
This mix matters for liquidity analysis. A large flow in one institutional instrument does not establish deep secondary markets for every tokenized asset. The IMF’s venue-level findings point in the other direction: issuance is concentrated, trading is fragmented and prices can diverge. Users must therefore evaluate the market for the specific asset and settlement route they plan to use. Aggregate tokenized volume does not show whether a particular position can be entered or exited without a material price deviation.
For traders, the distinction between extended access and dependable execution matters. A venue can offer round-the-clock trading and fractional positions while still producing wider price differences when liquidity is divided among incompatible networks. An overnight tokenized-equity price may carry information into the conventional open, but that does not make the tokenized venue as deep as the market whose shares it represents.
The conditions for scale
The IMF identifies four constraints on faster growth. Investors need legal certainty that a tokenized asset represents enforceable rights. Regulators need to explain how existing rules apply to new ledgers and market functions. Platforms need interoperability instead of isolated liquidity pools. Settlement must use safe, widely accepted forms of money.
These conditions affect how protocol teams choose assets and counterparties. A token that tracks a share is not sufficient if holders cannot establish the right it conveys. A venue that settles quickly can still strand liquidity if it cannot interact with other platforms or traditional financial systems. Operators also need to assess the settlement asset itself, because the IMF treats safe and widely accepted money as part of the market structure rather than a detail outside it.
The report describes the possible efficiency gain as a reorganization of issuance, trading, settlement and servicing on programmable ledgers. Combining functions now handled by separate institutions could compress sequential processes. The IMF’s warning is that those existing steps also provide buffers, safety checks and time for liquidity management. Removing the friction can also remove the interval in which a participant raises cash, reconciles a position or contains an operational problem.
That trade-off becomes more important as networks connect. The IMF says an ecosystem’s value depends on the assets, investors and settlement instruments connected to it. Growth and consolidation can improve liquidity, efficiency and composability. The same interconnectedness and leverage can transmit fire sales, liquidity runs and contagion across the system.
What users and operators need to watch
For users, legal rights and redemption mechanics deserve the same scrutiny as the token contract. The IMF’s findings place the enforceability of the represented asset alongside market liquidity and settlement quality. Continuous trading does not resolve uncertainty over ownership claims, nor does fractional access guarantee an exit at a close reference price.
For operators, interoperability is both a growth requirement and a risk surface. Connections can combine liquidity and let smart contracts interact, but they can also carry stress between assets, venues and settlement instruments. The IMF recommends technology-neutral rules, consistent regulation for similar activities, clearer legal rights and links between tokenized platforms and traditional financial systems. It also calls for continued monitoring of interconnectedness, leverage and liquidity risk as the market scales.
The unresolved issue is whether those connections can deepen liquidity without recreating the contagion channels that current market separations and settlement delays partly contain. The IMF’s figures show demand for continuous, fractional trading. Its risk analysis makes the design of legal claims, settlement assets and cross-platform links the next test for that demand.
