The Rollup How Institutions Are Being Forced to Tokenize with Theo Golden
Mar 31, 2026
Theo Golden, Tokenization Lead and bond portfolio manager at Baillie Gifford — building native tokenized funds and marrying DeFi infrastructure with regulated products. He explains why direct tokenization outperforms wrapped models. Short takes cover on on-chain vs off-chain risk, on-chain books of record, which intermediaries face collapse, and which crypto-native teams and banks stand to win.
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Build RegCompliant DeFi Native Funds
- Build tokenized funds that are DeFi native while remaining regulatory compliant for incumbents to adopt.
- Focus on operating stacks (custody, transfer agents) that let traditional clients see clear utility and low friction migration paths.
Same But Better Is The Institutional Threshold
- Tokenized products must be "same but better" to win institutional adoption.
- Baillie Gifford requires identical legal rights plus on-chain utility like collateral, composability, speed, or cost savings to justify migration.
Direct Issuance Beats Wrapped For Institutions
- Direct issuance gives institutions recourse and removes SPV counterparty layers that wrapped models introduce.
- Institutions with fiduciary and regulatory mandates prefer direct tokens with on-chain legal source of truth over wrapped SPV structures.