Tokenization Was the Easy Part. Pricing It Is the Hard Part.
Putting an asset on-chain is no longer the hard problem. Anyone can mint a token. The harder problem, and the one the rest of the industry is now racing to solve, is telling the chain what that token is actually worth. The distinction gets lost in most tokenization coverage, and it is worth being precise about, because it is also the problem Tessera is working on. There are two separate data problems for any tokenized real-world asset, and they are not the same problem. The first is proving the asset exists. Does the token have something real behind it, and are the reserves backing it actually there? This is what Chainlink Proof of Reserve does. Tessera's Proof of Reserve feed is live on Solana mainnet, verifying on-chain that the reserves backing T-Tokens exist. That is the integrity layer, and it answers the question of whether the thing is real. The second problem is pricing the asset. What is it worth right now? What net asset value does a lending protocol use to compute a loan-to-value ratio? What number does a perpetual futures exchange reference to mark a position? This is a net asset value and price-feed problem, and it is a fundamentally different piece of infrastructure from Proof of Reserve. Proof of Reserve tells you the backing is there. It says nothing about what the asset is worth. Those are two different oracles answering two different questions, and conflating them is one of the most common mistakes in this space. For most of tokenization's history the industry has concentrated on the first problem, meaning issuance and backing. The last few weeks have made it clear that the frontier has moved to the second. In May, DTCC, the backbone of US securities settlement, said it would use Chainlink for a tokenized collateral platform that automates pricing, valuation and settlement, building on an earlier net asset value pilot run with JPMorgan and BNY Mellon. That is the plumbing of traditional finance treating on-chain valuation as a problem worth solving at scale. It is already in production elsewhere. VanEck and Securitize's tokenized Treasury fund became one of the first assets to qualify as collateral on a major decentralized finance lending market, using a verified net asset value feed to price it. A tokenized asset cannot be used as collateral until a protocol can trust what it is worth. The feed is the precondition: no feed, no collateral. That is the whole story in one line. The valuation layer is what turns a token from something a holder can keep into something a holder can use.
Originally published 1 June 2026. Republished in the Tessera archive; figures and market state are as of that date.
Putting an asset on-chain is no longer the hard problem. Anyone can mint a token. The harder problem, and the one the rest of the industry is now racing to solve, is telling the chain what that token is actually worth. The distinction gets lost in most tokenization coverage, and it is worth being precise about, because it is also the problem Tessera is working on.
There are two separate data problems for any tokenized real-world asset, and they are not the same problem.
The first is proving the asset exists. Does the token have something real behind it, and are the reserves backing it actually there? This is what Chainlink Proof of Reserve does. Tessera's Proof of Reserve feed is live on Solana mainnet, verifying on-chain that the reserves backing T-Tokens exist. That is the integrity layer, and it answers the question of whether the thing is real.
The second problem is pricing the asset. What is it worth right now? What net asset value does a lending protocol use to compute a loan-to-value ratio? What number does a perpetual futures exchange reference to mark a position? This is a net asset value and price-feed problem, and it is a fundamentally different piece of infrastructure from Proof of Reserve.
Proof of Reserve tells you the backing is there. It says nothing about what the asset is worth. Those are two different oracles answering two different questions, and conflating them is one of the most common mistakes in this space.
Why the Second Problem Is Suddenly Everywhere
For most of tokenization's history the industry has concentrated on the first problem, meaning issuance and backing. The last few weeks have made it clear that the frontier has moved to the second.
In May, DTCC, the backbone of US securities settlement, said it would use Chainlink for a tokenized collateral platform that automates pricing, valuation and settlement, building on an earlier net asset value pilot run with JPMorgan and BNY Mellon. That is the plumbing of traditional finance treating on-chain valuation as a problem worth solving at scale.
It is already in production elsewhere. VanEck and Securitize's tokenized Treasury fund became one of the first assets to qualify as collateral on a major decentralized finance lending market, using a verified net asset value feed to price it. A tokenized asset cannot be used as collateral until a protocol can trust what it is worth. The feed is the precondition: no feed, no collateral.
That is the whole story in one line. The valuation layer is what turns a token from something a holder can keep into something a holder can use.
Why This Matters for What Tessera Is Building
A loan participation right that sits in a wallet is useful. A loan participation right that a lending market will accept as collateral, or that a perpetual futures venue will list, is useful in a different category entirely. The difference between the two is not the token. It is the data infrastructure that prices it.
The integrity layer is live today. The valuation layer, meaning verified net asset value and price data robust enough for lending and derivatives composability, is the frontier that Tessera and, frankly, the entire tokenized-asset industry are working toward. Nobody has fully solved it for assets without a continuous public market price. That is the interesting problem right now, and it is where the next phase of this market gets decided.
Tokenization got easy. Pricing is where the real work is.
Sources: the DTCC tokenized collateral platform and the earlier net asset value pilot with JPMorgan and BNY Mellon are per CoinDesk, May 2026. The VanEck and Securitize tokenized Treasury fund qualifying as collateral is per Securitize and Bitget reporting; that status was flagged at the time of writing as requiring verification before being relied upon, and it has not been re-verified for this republication. Figures and market state are as of 1 June 2026 and have not been updated since.
This is market commentary, not investment advice. It is not a recommendation to acquire, hold or redeem any Tessera product, or to take or avoid exposure to any company mentioned.
T-Tokens are tokenized loan participation rights, not equity. High risk. DYOR. Not financial advice. Not available in the US or other restricted territories. tessera.pe/terms