We’ve made it to Friday! Though Permissionless IV is over, Ben recaps some of the conference talk around tokenization — and a regulatory win for a tokenized stock platform.

Casey has an update on today’s PCE report and other data tidbits you might’ve missed.

‘Tokenization is the new ETF’

A major topic at Permissionless was stablecoins and broader tokenization. It was, in fact, one of the main themes of the “Rebooting the Global Financial System” panel I moderated yesterday.

“Rebooting” could have been replaced with “rebuilding,” a couple panelists agreed. 

But first, from an off-stage chat with CoinFund president Christopher Perkins: He told me “stablecoin summer” is going to unlock “DeFi fall.” 

“Tokenization is the new ETF,” he explained. “It’s a new wrapper with superpowers — of instant settlement … and 24/7 access to capital formation.”

Those using stablecoins will want yield, and will seek that out on-chain via money market funds, alternatives, etc.  

“So you’re going to see those dollars coming [on-chain] translate to second- and third-order implications for DeFi,” he said.

Tokenized public equities are particularly exciting, Perkins added, as it unlocks constant access to those companies for anyone with internet access. 

That sentiment was elaborated on by Inversion founder (and Empire podcast host) Santiago Santos, who took the Day 3 main stage with Blockworks founders Jason Yanowitz and Michael Ippolito.

Crypto has historically tapped into “trapped pools of capital” around the world in part because of the lack of access to the US stock market, he argued. A Chinese investor with such limitations, for example, might resort to holding ETH to express a long position in technology.

“What happens when you now have tokenized stocks on-chain?” Santos posed. Capital that previously flowed to layer-1s or memecoins could migrate, he noted.

While we’re on the tokenized stocks subject, Dinari said yesterday it secured FINRA broker-dealer approval for its Dinari Securities subsidiary.

Why is this significant? Dinari believes it’s the first company tokenizing publicly traded shares outside the US with an affiliated company now licensed to do the same for American customers, Chief Business Officer Anna Wroblewska told me.

Dinari Securities expects to start offering tokenized stocks to US users in Q3. As this begins, Dinari plans to test a blockchain ledger system for brokerage clients as it continues talking with the SEC about a tokenization framework, Wroblewska explained.

During the aforementioned panel, Ondo Finance CEO Nathan Allman noted the firm’s plans next month to launch a tokenization platform offering exposure to public US stocks, bonds and ETFs. (He called these highly liquid securities the “low-hanging fruit” in my latest interview with him.)

Sitting beside Allman, Apollo Global Management’s Christine Moy noted efforts to tokenize the more illiquid private markets (the firm brought its Diversified Credit Fund on-chain in January). 

On the segment growth evolution front, an S&P Global report published this week addressed tokenization use cases expanding in three phases.

The first (from 2025-2028) centers around cross-border payments and collateral operations. The ability to instantly swap an asset for a cash payment offers tangible commercial benefits to institutions involved with repo transactions and intraday liquidity management, the report notes.

Phase two (2027-2033) would include credit expansion as tokenization connects borrowers to lenders. Corporations using tokenization for cross-border payments will also seek on-chain loans, the analysts wrote.

In a third phase (2031-2035), blockchains could support transactions between wallets controlled by AI agents, for example.

The S&P Global analysts conclude: “If the adoption of tokenization increases as expected, it will intersect with other megatrends — such as the growth of private credit and AI — to significantly disrupt the future of capital markets over the next five to 10 years.”

Gradually, then suddenly. 

— Ben Strack

Happy Friday. Though the headline economic event of the week was today’s PCE report, there were some other interesting data points as well. Markets still expect the FOMC to hold interest rates come July, but odds of a 25bps cut are increasing — now sitting at 20.7%, versus 14.5% a week ago. 

A quick recap:

• In an encouraging sign for the labor market, initial jobless claims for the week of June 21 came in at 236,000 — a decrease of 10,000 from the week prior and the lowest level in more than a month. Continuing claims for the week ended June 7 also ticked lower to around 1.8 million. This is still higher than the same week in 2024 (around 1.7 million), showing once again that while there may not be widespread layoffs, it’s still challenging for workers to find employment. 

• Core PCE rose 0.2% over the month and 2.7% annually — compared with projections of 0.1% and 2.6%, respectively. Headline PCE increased 0.1% over the month, putting annual inflation at 2.3%. This report is the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge. While the print did come in slightly higher than expected, Fed Chair Powell has signaled it will take an especially hot report to get central bankers to cut rates immediately. 

— Casey Wagner