Back to Markets
Crypto▼ Bearish
Why Tokenization's Next Fight Is With Back-Office Software
Ophelia Snyder says tokenization's real bottleneck is not trading but the back-office systems banks rely on. Two paths exist: build new or retrofit old.
Continue with
Ophelia Snyder, a former 21Shares co-founder, says the conversation around tokenization misses the real problem. The technology works. The hard part is making it fit inside the systems banks and asset managers already use.
Speaking on CoinDesk's Public Keys podcast, Snyder argued that most tokenization pilots focus on trading. They ignore what happens after a trade executes but before settlement finishes. That gap, she said, is where the bottlenecks live.
Blockchain-based assets can move 24/7. Traditional books-and-records systems, compliance checks, and risk controls are built for T+1 or T+2 settlement windows. A tokenized bond that settles in minutes forces a bank to reconcile positions faster than its software was designed to handle. Third-party providers whose platforms underpin custody and accounting are not yet blockchain-native either.
Snyder laid out two paths forward. Financial firms can build entirely new software from scratch, or existing technology vendors can retrofit their platforms to accommodate tokenized assets. Both routes require years of investment at a time when many institutions are still deep in cloud-migration projects.
She pointed out that even a $1 billion tokenization project is a rounding error in traditional capital markets. Scaling to handle the volume and complexity of mainstream finance is a different game from running a pilot. Managing digital bearer assets at scale demands stronger governance and operational controls than conventional book-entry systems require.
The next stage of adoption, Snyder said, will test whether blockchain infrastructure can function inside the critical operations of major financial firms. If momentum holds, meaningful implementation should accelerate over the coming years.
For traders, the takeaway is not about any single token launch. It is about watching which custody and back-office software providers announce blockchain integrations. Those announcements will signal whether the infrastructure gap is closing.