SmartCon Insights | Asset Management Giants: The Popularization of Digital Identity and Wallets, along with Clear Regulations, Become Key to On-Chain Asset Management

Odaily News Chainlink's annual flagship conference SmartCon opened yesterday, gathering many senior representatives from traditional finance and top DeFi protocols in New York. Among them, several executives from Wellington, Fidelity, WisdomTree, and Invesco discussed “Next-Generation Asset Management: Reshaping Infrastructure for the On-Chain Economy.” Mark Garabedian, head of digital assets and tokenization at Wellington, stated that the biggest challenge facing institutions is “technical debt,” or how to integrate a brand new on-chain tech stack with deeply reliant traditional systems. Will Peck, head of digital assets at WisdomTree, pointed out that the key value of tokenized assets also includes improving user experience, rather than just reducing costs. His company currently manages nearly $700 million in RWA and is extremely optimistic about the prospects for tokenized money market funds, expecting such products to become one of WisdomTree's largest funds within three years. Kathleen Wrynn, global head of digital assets at Invesco, stated that the growth of stablecoins and tokenized funds, the maturity of institutional-grade blockchain infrastructure, and regulatory clarity are the three main driving forces behind industry development. She noted that cross-institutional collaboration and establishing unified standards will be a focus in the next phase. Matthew Horne, head of the Fidelity Digital Asset Management team, believes that stablecoins and tokenized money market tokens will play a core role in the on-chain financial system. Fidelity has already launched its own digital yield tokens and is optimistic about market expansion over the next five years. Participants generally believe that blockchain fragmentation is no longer the main bottleneck, and that the next phase of innovative funding should shift from public chains to focus on building custody, wallets, and digital identity frameworks, to ensure complete asset composability while meeting regulatory requirements. The industry needs to accelerate regulatory clarity, especially regarding the classification of crypto assets and trading compliance, so that asset management institutions can more broadly participate in the construction of the on-chain economy.