Welcome to the first edition of Convergence, our new institutional product for sophisticated investors, in a joint venture between StrataMedia's Token Relations product & Talking Tokens podcast alongside The Rollup, and is presented by WisdomTree. 

For the first episode of Convergence, we sat down with Will Peck, head of digital assets at WisdomTree, to talk about how tokenized funds complement stablecoins, and how the private-markets tokenization thesis, and how the firm received SEC exemptive relief to trade a tokenized money market fund via a broker dealer.

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WisdomTree, which began operating in the digital asset space in 2018, today manages roughly $170 billion in assets as an ETF sponsor. Its onchain fund business has grown from about $130 million in March 2025 to $1.27 billion today.

Most of that growth has come from Treasuries and money market funds, Peck said. "It is mainly institutional today, but we've built this all in a way that can be retail accessible. Money market funds as a yield-bearing, stable-value complement to stablecoins, and also a reserve asset for stablecoins, was the biggest thing."

Peck says three use cases account for most of that value: Stablecoin issuers holding the fund as a reserve asset; businesses that use stablecoins for payments parking idle balances; and larger investors posting treasury funds as yield-bearing collateral.

Peck sees tokenization as a way to reach people who can't or won't use a conventional brokerage account. "We don't view this in any sense as we're trying to save a few basis points on costs," he said. "This is about who we can provide access to, or how we can serve people who want to be served in a different way."

That insight pushed WisdomTree to seek exemptive relief from the SEC, to allow its tokenized money market fund to trade 24/7 through a broker-dealer. Exemptive relief is an order that excused the fund from having to transact once a day at its next-calculated NAV. "[It] actually allows you to swap it for a stablecoin at 2 a.m. on a Sunday and go make your payment," he said. "[This] makes it more composable and workable within DeFi, and onchain workflows."

The firm has grown alongside the broader tokenization market, which today has roughly 40 firms, including JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Invesco and Citadel, running DTCC pilots to simulate trading of tokenized equities. Peck reads that as the space moves out of experimentation, with firms engaging at varying depths depending on their model and capacity, saying anything that can be housed in a traditional ETF can be held onchain. 

Peck said the firm's goal is for its share of tokenized products to exceed its share of the ETF market.

“When we win business, we think it's a combination of doing things within the U.S. regulatory perimeter and also adding really good functionality around it," Peck said.

This is an article based on a Convergence interview. To watch the full episode, subscribe to our newsletter, check it out below or on our website, as well as Spotify, Apple Podcasts or YouTube.

The inaugural Convergence episode featured Will Peck, the Head of Digital Assets at WisdomTree, a global asset manager and ETF sponsor with roughly $170 billion in assets under management.

In the episode we discuss how WisdomTree's onchain assets went from $30 million to over $1 billion, and Will Peck says money market funds did the heavy lifting. On episode one of Convergence, Will explains why tokenized funds complement stablecoins rather than compete with them, and how WisdomTree got SEC exemptive relief to let a tokenized money market fund trade 24/7 through a broker dealer. He also pushes back on the private-markets tokenization thesis, arguing illiquidity isn't a record-keeping problem. 

Convergence is powered by The Rollup and StrataMedia, covering the convergence of legacy finance and onchain finance.

TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 Intro

02:52 What Convergence Actually Means

04:30 Why WisdomTree Started In 2018

05:38 Exporting US Capital Markets

08:56 Institutional Versus Retail Distribution

10:32 The Innovation Exemption Explained

13:14 DTCC's Forty Firm Pilot

16:00 Three Models Of Tokenization

19:35 Why WisdomTree Chose Issuer-Led

21:10 Thirty Million To One Billion

22:45 What Drives The Next Era

25:05 Why Private Markets Aren't It

28:05 Who Wins The Tokenization Wave

30:14 The Perfect Storm For Adoption

33:08 WisdomTree's North Star

𝗗𝗜𝗦𝗖𝗟𝗔𝗜𝗠𝗘𝗥: 𝘐𝘯𝘷𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯 𝘤𝘳𝘺𝘱𝘵𝘰𝘤𝘶𝘳𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘺 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘋𝘦𝘍𝘪 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘴 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘴 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘪𝘯𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘬𝘴 𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘭𝘶𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘦𝘤𝘩𝘯𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘬, 𝘩𝘶𝘮𝘢𝘯 𝘦𝘳𝘳𝘰𝘳, 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮 𝘧𝘢𝘪𝘭𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦. 𝘈𝘵 𝘤𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘱𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘦𝘭, 𝘸𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘺 𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘯 𝘢 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘳 𝘧𝘦𝘦 𝘢𝘴 𝘢 𝘴𝘱𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘰𝘳𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘱, 𝘪𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘢𝘴𝘦 𝘸𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘢𝘭𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘤𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘳. 𝘞𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘵𝘭𝘺 𝘢𝘯 𝘦𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮, 𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘦 𝘰𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘳 𝘪𝘴 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘭 𝘢𝘥𝘷𝘪𝘤𝘦. 𝘞𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘧𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘴 𝘰𝘳 𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘥𝘷𝘪𝘴𝘰𝘳𝘴.

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