Follow-Up Brief: What “Retail-Safe Tokenization Really Requires

Editor’s Note: Quotes have been lightly edited for clarity, but retain original meaning as stated in the interview.

On December 18, 2025, Jason Jiang, Chief Business Officer at CertiK, appeared on MoneyFM Wealth Tracker to discuss recent developments in tokenized funds and what is needed for tokenized deposits to become retail-ready. In light of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS)’s recent approval of a tokenized fund that will be available to the general public, many retail investors are wondering what this means for the future of everyday participation in the cryptocurrency markets.

“This is quite significant on two fronts,” Jiang noted about MAS’s progress in this space. “One is from the regulatory front. This is really solidifying this organization in trying to set Singapore as the digital asset hub of Asia.” The second important point is that, from the retailer’s side, this regulated structure allows for greater liquidity, fractional ownership, and also potentially lower fees compared to those in traditional finance. If more and more retail users continue to enter the space, this incentivizes fund managers to open up funds in Singapore due to higher demand for digital assets, and will likely allow the overall cryptocurrency market to continue to grow.

As host Hongbin Jeong stated, new investment opportunities can also bring new risks, so it is important to educate users on how to best protect themselves. “There are many new vectors of risk. First, there is smart contract risk. Smart contracts are fundamental to blockchains. All blockchain applications are written in smart contract form. If the smart contracts have bugs, this could create dramatic financial losses,” said Jiang.

Custodian risk is another attack vector in blockchain. “Because tokens are held in centralized wallets or held by a third-party custodian, there are risks of being hacked,” Jiang explained. He referenced the Bybit hack, which occurred in February 2025 and led to approximately $1.4 billion in losses.

Next, Jeong and Jiang discussed the potential in Singapore’s market for digital assets to grow. “I think Singapore hit it right on the target,” said Jiang. “If we look around the world, the U.S. is really concentrating on stablecoin policies because they want to solidify the U.S. dollar as the go-to currency for business transactions. But if we look at where Singapore is positioned, it’s the hub for all the merchant interactions, and having the tokenized fund available to retail users really gives a lot of confidence for all the other countries in Asia.”

They concluded with a brief discussion about what investors should be looking for when evaluating a tokenized fund for a potential investment. Jiang stated that investors should look for sound wallet management practices, on-chain monitoring transparency, and an incident response program.