Enterprise-grade blockchain platform Fireblocks has announced its acquisition of smart contract development and consulting firm, BlockFold. BlockFold specializes in advanced tokenization projects for financial institutions.
Through the acquisition, Fireblocks will be equipped with better tokenization abilities to offer clients a more complete suite of services, including advisory, token customization, orchestration, and distribution through the Fireblocks Network.
It is projected that blockchain tokenization of financial assets will grow into a $16 trillion market by 2030 and will represent 10% of all financial assets. Fireblocks confirms this as it has seen a rapid increase in customer demands with a 350% increase in tokenization projects between 2022 and 2023, and 75% of tier-1 financial institutions exploring tokenization via its platform.
With the critical role that tokenization is playing in strengthening old banking and financial market infrastructure and bringing about healthy competition, Fireblocks intends to continue working with its partners to create an open tokenization market that will meet the specific needs of its customers.
“BlockFold’s expertise fills an important gap in the market, tailoring bespoke solutions for some of our most sophisticated customers and prospects in the banking and financial institutions space,” said Michael Shaulov, Co-founder & CEO at Fireblocks.
“We already speak a common language in understanding these customers’ requirements at an architectural level. Bringing BlockFold’s expertise in-house means that we can better serve tier-1 financial institutions to quickly and seamlessly bring tokenization projects into production and new assets onto the blockchain. In addition, we can continue to innovate and expand our offerings and tailor our approaches as the market continues to mature and evolve,” he added.
Fireblocks released its first bank-issued stablecoin in March 2022. Since then, the company has delivered more than 10 stablecoin projects and is in active conversations with more than 25 banks globally, who are exploring the creation of bank-issued stablecoins or tokenized deposits.
With such huge demands, Fireblocks expects the value of tokenized money on the blockchain to reach $450 billion within the next three years.
Bridging the Gap Between DeFi and CeFi
Tokenization is gradually becoming more appreciated across industries, including in traditional markets. Just in May this year, Fireblocks enabled the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and the Israeli Ministry of Finance to tokenize and settle a government bond following a live auction with 5 domestic and 7 global banks.
The project has empowered the Israeli government to tokenize Israel’s government debt market in the future, which is worth $15 billion annually.
According to Head of Clearing at the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, Orly Grinfeld, this tokenization technology will effectively bridge the gap between DeFi and CeFi.
“Fireblocks’ acquisition of BlockFold stands to strengthen its tokenization capabilities and bridge the gap between CeFi and DeFi by allowing financial institutions like TASE to build robust and scalable infrastructures and support well-governed digital asset ecosystems,” he said.
Doing More
Fireblocks is doing more than just tokenization in the blockchain space. In May, it partnered with Notabene, a pre-transaction decision-making platform to bring streamlined compliance experience for institutions.
By integrating its pre-transaction decision-making solution to the Fireblocks platform, Notabene helps to create a seamless experience for its institutional customers looking to comply with their local crypto Travel Rule requirements.
Fireblocks intends to continue playing the critical role it is playing to help widen the scope of blockchain technology adoption across the world.
