When Crypto Makes Sense (III): Accessing High-Barrier Investments
This article is the third in a monthly four-part series.
Paz Gómez holds an MS in digital currency and blockchain, and she is available for one-on-one consultations to assist with cryptocurrency use. Reserve your appointment here.
Picture this: one investor with a portfolio in hand walks into a glass-walled office to meet a mortgage advisor who will ask for six-figure commitments, a multi-year lockup, and a credit-score audit.
Another investor, sitting at home with a smartphone and US$1,000 in stablecoins, accesses a fractional stake in a luxury property in Miami, a startup fintech in São Paulo, or a tokenized gold vault in Zurich. He can purchase any of them on the same platform in minutes.
About 2 percent of the global population has access to high-barrier investments like commercial real estate, early-stage equity, or hard commodities. The rest struggle to overcome capital requirements, exclusive networks, and paperwork-heavy processes. You might need a hundred thousand dollars, lawyers, and time.
In the case of the United States, accredited investors are a small fraction of the population. They need to earn more than $200,000 annually, have a net worth of more than $1 million (over and above a primary residence), or hold a financial license such as the Series 65.
However, tokenization is flipping the script. In 2023, the global market for tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) surpassed $3.2 billion. Analysts expect token recategorization to balloon to the trillions by 2030. Mckinsey specifically projects $1.9 trillion, and that is on the low end of estimates.
Tokenization transforms illiquid, high-barrier assets into fractional, tradable digital tokens. If you are an investor looking for diversification, easier access, and early exposure to the future of capital markets, this shift is in your favor.
How Does Tokenization Work?
