Panelists explore liquidity fragmentation, stablecoin adoption barriers
Industry leaders gathered at Cointelegraph’s Singapore CONNECT event on October 9, 2026, to discuss structural challenges in tokenized asset markets, stablecoin payments adoption, and venture capital exit pathways in crypto.
The tokenized asset market has attracted significant capital formation interest from issuers, but supply vastly outpaces demand. “Specifically on RWAs, and fully tokenized assets, there’s a supply and demand inbalance. There’s a ton of supply. Every asset manager issuer wants to do capital formation onchain,” said Alex Taaffe, Chief Revenue Officer at GSR.
Liquidity fragmentation emerged as a critical infrastructure problem. Multiple issuers tokenize the same underlying asset but create separate liquidity pools, fragmenting trading activity across blockchains. Austin Federa, Co-founder of DoubleZero, characterized the issue as deeper than execution: “fragmentation is not just an execution problem, it’s like a data problem. It’s actually very hard to figure out how much liquidity truly exists onchain.”
Miguel Morel, Founder and CEO of Arkham Intelligence, highlighted how transparency into counterparty identity can improve market efficiency. “If you know who’s on the other side and you’re taking less risk, you can offer a tighter spread,” Morel said. He added that onchain data can reveal deposit origins without requiring personal identification: “Without needing to ask for a passport, you can know where those deposits are coming in from.”
Stablecoin adoption remains constrained by integration gaps with everyday financial life. The stablecoin market capitalization stood at $306 billion at the time of the event, reflecting 74% growth over the preceding 12 months but only 2% year-over-year growth. Mike Silagadze, Founder and CEO of ether.fi, identified a fundamental adoption barrier: “The reason no one uses stablecoins in many parts of the world is because it just doesn’t plug into your day-to-day life.”
Yvonne Chia, Head of Communications at USDD, described the user experience imperative. “the most important thing for you is the user experience,” Chia said. She outlined the vision for seamless stablecoin integration: “That’s the kind of direction that we want to move in, to make it as easy as possible for the user to have stablecoins, use stablecoins, to the point where it doesn’t cross their mind that they are using a stablecoin. It’s just a regular part of their lives.”
Ashna Vaghela, Chief Customer Officer at Mercuryo, reinforced the invisibility principle: “I think that’s the whole point, to be invisible.”
Venture capital exits in the crypto sector remain difficult for altcoin-focused investors. Pulkit Gupta of Nomad Capital stated: “For me, on the altcoins, it has been really tough for us to get an exit.” Sonia Shaw, CEO of OneAsset, pushed back on the characterization of the broader market: “I don’t think the market’s like that anymore.”
Aleksandr Nechaev, Partner at Funders VC, emphasized founder quality as a differentiator in investment decisions amid rapid market change. “The rapid pace of change makes founders’ expertise and ability central to investment decisions,” Nechaev said.
Regulatory fragmentation across jurisdictions continues to complicate infrastructure design. Providers must adapt systems to comply with different requirements, even as stablecoins have simplified cross-border money movement. Consumers in some markets, such as Singapore, may hold USDC but still require local currency to settle bills, creating a friction point for everyday adoption.
