The End of ETFs – Why Tokenization Will Transform Everything by 2030

By Ric Edelman | Founder, Digital Assets Council of Financial Professionals
May 22, 2025

Hope you’re enjoying your ETFs. Soon, they’ll be gone.

ETFs replaced mutual funds as the most popular investment platform. Technological innovation made ETFs possible, and what innovation giveth, innovation will taketh away.

The innovation that’s coming? Tokenization, an advent of blockchain technology. It was invented 15 years ago and is only now entering mainstream engagement within the financial services industry. Just as ETFs proved cheaper, more liquid and more transparent than mutual funds, tokenized securities will be cheaper, more liquid and more transparent than ETFs.

The development and deployment of tokenization is coming swiftly; it will be routine by 2030 and probably sooner, and offered by all asset managers. This is wonderful news for everyone. Investors will enjoy lower costs, access to more asset classes and T-zero (instantaneous) settlements; advisors will be able to provide clients with far more sophisticated and diversified portfolios than ever before (and make themselves more essential than ever as their clients will need more help than ever in figuring all this out and managing it all); and asset managers will be able to expand their offerings in unprecedented ways, attracting more assets than ever.

New markets will be invented and old ones reinvented, with thousands of new asset classes created, and the financial markets globally will skyrocket. Distribution will remain key, meaning the wirehouses and custodians will remain vital and hugely prosperous.

Along the way, more people will enjoy more wealth than ever before, and poverty – already on a global downtrend – will continue to diminish.

Everyone in the asset and wealth management fields must start now. Become fluent in tokenization so you can create the strategy that lets you and your firm remain relevant and valuable. The time is now for you to get prepared for the massive evolutionary impact that tokenization will deliver.