The International Monetary Fund warned that tokenized finance could spread faster than central banks’ response to the financial crisis, even as it pledged to cut spending and end settlement delays. The report was published on Thursday..
The report, authored by Tobias Adrian, the IMF’s financial adviser, argued that tokenization is a “structural change in the financial architecture” rather than a marginal efficiency gain. It is among the most detailed policy assessments of the systemic risks of tokenization published to date.
Adrian’s central concern is that failures tokenization is actually intended to act as a shock absorber. Traditional two-day settlement windows give central banks time to mobilize liquidity, net exposure and intervene before settlement is final. Tokenized systems remove these buffers by design.
Automated margin calls and algorithmic feedback loops reduce the time available for intervention, the report said. Central bank emergency lending facilities were designed for business day cycles, not 24/7 automated environments.
Adrian compares stablecoins to money market funds as having a structural weak point: active in calm conditions but vulnerable to runs when confidence breaks. Even fully backed stablecoins depend on the operational capacity of issuers to meet redemptions and the liquidity of the underlying government securities markets, he wrote.
“Stable coins without access to central bank reserves require additional security measures at the infrastructure level, including high liquidity buffers and conservative margining, to compensate for settlement asset risk,” Adrian wrote in the report.
The report also noted that tokenized lending “has not expanded meaningfully to date,” largely due to blockchain cryptography, which limits credit evaluation and forces lenders to rely on overcollateralization. Borrowers prefer the flexibility to interact with lenders rather than face the implementation of an automated smart contract, Adrian added.
Adrian directly challenged the crypto-local principle that “code is law”, arguing that in systemically important institutions, legal mandates for stability should prevail over automated implementation. He called for smart contracts in critical-level infrastructure to include pre-defined override mechanisms for emergency situations.
“When assets exist as tokens on a distributed ledger, questions arise about applicable law, asset location, and enforcement of bankruptcy claims,” Adrian wrote about the legal uncertainty surrounding tokenized assets.
The report presents three scenarios for how tokenized finance could evolve: a unified system anchored by wholesale central bank digital currencies, a fragmented patchwork of incompatible national platforms, or a world dominated by private stablecoins where public backstops are weak.
The five-pillar policy roadmap emphasizes settlement in safe money, consistent regulation for equivalent activities, legal certainty for tokenized assets, interoperability standards, and adaptation of central bank instruments for a continuous operation environment.
The IMF’s caution comes as the US exchange rate moves aggressively. The NYSE tapped Securitize in March to build a 24/7 tokenized securities platform, while NYSE parent ICE invested in OKX at a $25 billion valuation to explore tokenized stock trading. Nasdaq filed with the SEC to trade tokenized shares on the same order book as traditional equities, and DTCC received a no-action letter in December to tokenize certain custody assets.
SEC Chair Paul Atkins has openly supported this trend. The House Financial Services Committee held a hearing on tokenization in late March prior to the publication of the report.
A separate IMF report in December warned that dollar-backed stablecoins could accelerate currency substitution in countries with weak financial systems, a theme Adrian expanded on in the new paper. Emerging economies are “particularly exposed” if privately issued global stablecoins gain traction in markets with weaker currencies, he wrote.
Tokenized real-world assets have reached approximately $27.7 billion in distributed onchain value. RWA.xyz dataAt the beginning of 2025, there is more than about 5.5 billion dollars. The total stablecoin market capitalization is close to $300 billion.
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