Why Public Markets Are About to Move Onchain | Michael Tannenbaum

Figure CEO Michael Tannenbaum explains how tokenization can rebuild capital-markets rails—starting with mortgages and tokenized equity—while offering practical adoption strategies.

Key Takeaways

Tokenization must solve real-world liquidity problems—target homogeneous, demand-backed assets (mortgages, home equity); indiscriminate tokenization equals meme-coin thinking.
Figure built Provenance (a public Layer-1) and processes >$1B/month in blockchain mortgages; they seeded tokenized equity with their own shares to prove mechanics and reduce friction.
Adoption follows urgent pain: target firms facing trading or credit crises, IPO retail allocation needs, or clear cost savings; emphasize benefits, avoid heavy blockchain jargon.
Tokenization can remove middlemen, create clean shareholder registers, enable direct issuer-investor communication, and unlock new tools like share lending and wallet allocations.
Stablecoins serve as capital-markets 'oil'—enabling atomic settlement, cross-chain liquidity bridges, and DeFi-native financing to support tokenized markets.
Build through cycles and prioritize marketplace economics over commoditized software; leaders should learn operations end-to-end and be willing to do every role to run the business.

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