Chung Hei Sing

Chung Hei Sing

I work at the intersection of institutional capital allocation, governance, and financial infrastructure, with a focus on real-world assets and long-term investment decision-making.

From Concept to On-Chain

An Institutional Playbook for Tokenization Structuring, Governance, and Lifecycle Management

Abstract

This paper examines the tokenization of real-world assets (RWAs) through an institutional lens, arguing that the primary constraints on adoption are structural rather than technological. While distributed ledger technology (DLT) has made it feasible to represent ownership, transfer value, and automate execution on-chain, institutional viability is determined by legal enforceability, governance design, lifecycle management, and integration with existing financial systems.

The analysis is organized as a lifecycle playbook, covering asset selection, legal structuring, governance design, issuance, servicing, and secondary market behavior. Across each stage, the paper identifies recurring failure modes that prevent tokenization initiatives from moving beyond pilot environments, including weak legal anchoring, undefined authority structures, insufficient servicing infrastructure, and misaligned liquidity assumptions.

Drawing on examples from tokenized funds, private credit, and infrastructure, as well as regulatory developments in Singapore, United States, Hong Kong, and Abu Dhabi, the paper shows that institutional adoption is converging toward models that embed tokenization within existing legal and regulatory frameworks rather than replacing them.

The central conclusion is that tokenization should be understood not as a technological innovation, but as an extension of financial market infrastructure. Systems that prioritize governance, enforceability, and lifecycle management are more likely to achieve institutional scale, while those that focus primarily on on-chain execution remain confined to experimental use cases.

Key Implications

  • Tokenization is not a technology problem—it is an institutional implementation problem.
  • Governance, not execution, is the binding constraint on institutional adoption.
  • Asset selection determines viability; most assets are not suitable for tokenization.
  • Issuance is a translation layer; it cannot compensate for weak legal or governance design.
  • Servicing is the missing layer that determines whether tokenized assets can scale.
  • Liquidity is a function of market structure, not technology.
  • Institutional tokenization is converging across jurisdictions toward shared design principles.
  • Tokenization succeeds when it behaves as financial infrastructure, not as an alternative to it.

Keywords

Tokenization; real world assets (RWA); institutional finance; financial market infrastructure; governance; distributed ledger technology (DLT); digital assets; asset management; capital markets; regulatory frameworks

Recommended citation: Sing, C. H. (2025). From concept to on-chain: An institutional playbook for tokenization structuring, governance, and lifecycle management. Working paper.
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