Real Finance partners with Anchorage Digital to build institutional infrastructure for tokenized assets

The race to tokenize real-world assets is accelerating. The infrastructure needed to support them is still catching up.

Financial institutions have shown growing interest in bringing assets such as private credit, real estate, and investment funds onto blockchain networks. Yet many projects remain stuck in pilot mode as firms wrestle with custody, settlement, servicing, compliance, and liquidity challenges.

That disconnect has created an opening for companies building the financial plumbing behind tokenized markets.

Real Finance and Anchorage Digital are betting they can help fill that gap.

Today, the two companies announced a strategic partnership to support the full lifecycle of tokenized assets, spanning issuance, custody, settlement, servicing, and secondary-market liquidity.

The deal brings together Real Finance’s Layer 1 blockchain infrastructure for real-world assets with Anchorage Digital‘s regulated custody, treasury management, settlement services, and institutional security platform.

The partnership arrives as interest in tokenized real-world assets continues to grow across private credit, real estate, investment funds, and other traditionally illiquid markets. Industry advocates argue that tokenization can reduce settlement times, increase transparency, and open access to assets that have historically been difficult to trade.

Yet infrastructure remains a major hurdle.

The infrastructure gap holding back tokenized assets

Many tokenized asset initiatives operate across disconnected providers handling issuance, custody, compliance, servicing, and liquidity. Financial institutions have frequently cited operational risk and fragmented workflows as obstacles to broader adoption.

Real Finance and Anchorage Digital say their collaboration is intended to address those concerns by connecting several of those functions within a single framework.

Under the agreement, Anchorage Digital will provide custody and treasury infrastructure for the Real Finance ecosystem and its native $ASSET token. The company will also serve as a custody layer for tokenized financial instruments launched on the Real Finance blockchain, giving institutional participants access to regulated asset storage and settlement capabilities.

Beyond tokenization: Building the infrastructure institutions trust

The companies plan to support each other’s institutional client pipelines as demand for tokenized assets grows.

Ivo Grigorov, CEO of Real Finance, framed the partnership as part of a larger effort to move tokenization beyond experimentation.

“Real Finance and Anchorage Digital are collaboratively building the institutional infrastructure for the next generation of tokenized financial markets. Tokenization alone is not enough. Institutions need trusted, regulated layers that integrate custody, servicing, settlement, and lifecycle management. Together, we are moving the industry from experimentation toward functional on-chain capital markets and delivering the unified experience institutions demand.”

Anchorage Digital co-founder and CEO Nathan McCauley pointed to the industry’s need for trusted infrastructure around tokenized assets.

“RWAs are one of the clearest examples of how blockchain can modernize capital markets, but institutions need more than tokenization rails alone. They need regulated, secure infrastructure that can support custody, settlement, and lifecycle connectivity at scale. Our partnership with Real Finance brings together the core building blocks institutions need to move from isolated pilots to real onchain capital markets.”

The announcement reflects a broader shift taking place across the digital asset industry. Attention is moving away from speculative crypto use cases and toward tokenized versions of traditional financial products. Large financial institutions, asset managers, and banks have increasingly explored blockchain-based versions of bonds, private credit, money market funds, and real estate investments.

Whether tokenized assets become a meaningful part of global capital markets will depend on more than blockchain technology. It will require the financial plumbing that institutions rely on every day. Real Finance and Anchorage Digital are positioning themselves to provide part of that foundation.