$39 billion. That is the value of tokenised real-world assets now distributed on-chain, according to RWA.xyz, up roughly 81% since the start of 2026. Whether that growth amounts to a market is a separate question.
Vishal Sacheendran, Vice President of Global Markets Strategy and Operations at Bitpanda, joins FinTech TV’s Raghda Ibraheem on Wall Street to MENA to separate what is real in tokenisation from what is still a pitch deck. Before moving into digital assets, he spent seven years in capital markets authorisation at the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Abu Dhabi Global Market.
His verdict: the direction is real, the scale is not there yet. Tokenisation changes the plumbing of capital markets, so that transfer of ownership, settlement and recording happen at the same moment rather than in sequence.
On what is being tokenised today, he points to government bonds, money market funds, gold, private credit and real estate. But a token is a wrapper. It does not create demand, and illiquid assets such as art will not find buyers faster simply because they sit on a blockchain.
On what MENA needs before tokenised assets trade at scale, he sets out three layers: legal clarity that owning a token is enforceable in court, regulated custodians and a digitised settlement layer, and digitised cash, through CBDCs or stablecoins, for trades to settle against. Without the cash leg, tokenisation solves only half the problem.
On regulation, he sees no shortage of movement. ADGM, VARA, Qatar and Bahrain are all building frameworks. The gap is interoperability: a token issued in Bahrain, held with a VARA-regulated custodian and settled in ADGM only works if those frameworks connect.
Topics discussed: tokenisation hype versus reality, tokenised bonds, funds, gold, private credit and real estate, liquidity and demand, legal enforceability of token ownership, custody and settlement infrastructure, CBDCs and stablecoins as the cash leg, regulatory interoperability across ADGM, VARA, Qatar and Bahrain.
Guest: Vishal Sacheendran, Vice President, Global Markets Strategy and Operations, Bitpanda
Interviewer: Raghda Ibraheem, FinTech TV, Wall Street to MENA
