Maple Finance CEO says tokenization will follow S-curve

As Wall Street increasingly flirts with blockchain rails, tokenization of real-world assets (RWAs) has turned out to be the dominant crypto narrative.

In simple words, tokenization is the process of using blockchain technology to digitally represent assets like stocks, bonds, Treasury bills, etc., to offer fractional ownership to prospective investors.

Related: What is tokenization? Explained

The excitement around tokenization has led prominent leaders like the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Paul Atkins to make bullish predictions and suggest that the entire financial system will move on-chain within just a few years.

But Maple Finance co-founder and CEO Sidney Powell thinks such expectations are overblown.

Speaking with TheStreet Roundtable host Scott Melker, Powell pushed back on recent claims that tokenization will happen almost overnight.

“I see takes like ‘everything’s going to be on-chain in two years,’” Powell said.

“And I think of it like an S-curve, where it’s actually slower than you expect at the start. But then probably after 5-6 years, we’ll have way more on-chain than we expect, and then it kind of peters out again.”

As per Powell, tokenization will follow an S-curve where it will take longer than expected in the early years, then expand faster than most people anticipate, before eventually leveling off as tokenization becomes standard financial infrastructure.

While Powell agrees that tokenization is inevitable, he emphasized that technology adoption tends to unfold over decades, not a few years.

“Two years seems early,” he said. On the other hand, a target of 5 or 10 years is more understandable, he added.

The internet was still growing at a ripping pace in the mid-1990s, and crypto is still going to be growing at a phenomenal pace 15-20 years from now, he remarked.

As per Powell, tokenization may feel like it’s suddenly everywhere, but the underlying shift in financial plumbing will take far longer than a few years.

Related: What are tokenized stocks? Explained

The renewed urgency around tokenization comes as major financial infrastructure players make concrete moves.

The duo also discussed how the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), which settles trillions of dollars in securities transactions, recently announced its plans to tokenize the Depository Trust Co. (DTC)-custodied U.S. Treasury securities. The DTC is a subsidiary of the DTCC.

The enterprise will leverage the Canton Network, a privacy-focused blockchain designed specifically for regulated financial institutions.

Powell underlined that Canton has been incubated by trading giant DRW and its crypto subsidiary Cumberland, attracting investment from leading market players such as Citadel Securities.

“They (Canton) are definitely making a play there. Apparently, the key differentiator is the privacy aspect that they think is going to be favored by institutional players,” Powell said.

The rise of Canton Network has raised eyebrows among Ethereum and Solana maximalists, many of whom expected tokenized assets to arrive primarily at established public blockchains.

After all, Wall Street giants like BlackRock have earlier opted for such established chains for their tokenization projects.

Powell acknowledged the surprise but argued that liquidity remains the deciding factor.

“The key in adoption is where the liquidity is going.” 

Canton, he noted, is purpose-built for high-frequency traders, market makers, and regulated participants, a very specific section of the market.

The crypto entrepreneur highlighted that the larger established chains like Ethereum and Solana still act like gravity sinks for new business, and it’s not going to be easy to disrupt that just because some institutions choose a single new chain.

Powell remains skeptic about tokenization necessarily driving value to tokens powering layer-1 (L-1) blockchains.

“I do think that value actually accrues to the applications themselves rather than the protocols.”

He said that L-1 blockchains no longer command the same valuations they once did and there are questions over their ability to generate revenues that drive “meaningful valuation growth.”

Related: Maple CEO wants to turn Bitcoin into the new backbone of global lending

This story was originally published by TheStreet on Dec 19, 2025, where it first appeared in the Innovation section. Add TheStreet as a Preferred Source by clicking here.