The United States Federal Reserve has announced plans to host a payments innovation conference centered on tokenization, coinciding with a record-breaking week for real-world asset (RWA) markets.

According to a statement released Wednesday, the Federal Reserve Board will hold the event on October 21, bringing together industry leaders, policymakers, and technologists to explore how to strengthen and modernize the U.S. payments system.

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The agenda will include panel discussions on a wide range of emerging topics, such as the tokenization of financial products and services, the convergence of traditional finance with decentralized finance (DeFi), new use cases and business models for stablecoins, and how artificial intelligence could reshape the payments landscape.

Fed Governor Christopher Waller highlighted the importance of the conference, saying, “I look forward to examining the opportunities and challenges of new technologies, bringing together ideas on how to improve the safety and efficiency of payments, and hearing from those helping to shape the future of payments.”

The announcement comes at a time when RWA tokenization is gaining significant traction. Wall Street’s growing interest has been reinforced by the passage of stablecoin legislation in July, while onchain tokenized assets recently reached an all-time high in value. Together, these developments are positioning tokenization as one of the most important trends shaping the future of finance.

RWA market surges to a new all-time high in onchain value.

The announcement also coincides with record growth in the onchain value of tokenized real-world assets, which has reached an all-time high of $27.8 billion, according to data from RWA.xyz. This represents a 223% increase since the start of the year, underscoring the pace at which tokenization is gaining traction in global markets.

The bulk of this value comes from tokenized private credit instruments and U.S. Treasury debt, both of which have emerged as the leading drivers of adoption. The surge highlights how investors are increasingly turning to blockchain-based versions of traditional assets as a way to access new liquidity, diversify exposure, and leverage the efficiencies of decentralized finance infrastructure.

Total RWA value is at an all-time high. Source: RWA.xyz

Ethereum continues to dominate as the leading blockchain for tokenized assets, holding a 56% market share when counting stablecoins. Its dominance grows even further to over 77% when layer-2 networks built on Ethereum are included.

New Ondo Finance platform brings tokenized US equities to blockchain.......................

This week also saw a major collaboration in the tokenization space as crypto oracle provider Chainlink announced a partnership with Ondo Finance for its newly launched Ondo Global Markets platform, which the company has described as “Wall Street 2.0.”

The initiative introduces more than 100 tokenized U.S. stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) to the blockchain, offering investors access to traditional financial assets in tokenized form. By bringing equities and ETFs onchain, Ondo aims to bridge the gap between conventional markets and decentralized finance, expanding the scope of real-world asset adoption.

Ondo Finance confirmed on Wednesday that the platform—first unveiled in February—is now officially live on Ethereum. At this stage, it is only available to non-U.S. investors due to regulatory restrictions, but the company says it represents a major step forward in making traditional financial markets more accessible through blockchain technology.