Inside PH’s $60B blockchain play

For years, blockchain has struggled with a perception problem. Outside crypto-native circles, it has often been dismissed as speculative, abstract, or disconnected from everyday life. But at a recent conference in Manila marking the launch of Project Bayani, a different narrative took center stage, one where blockchain quietly underpins practical financial tools already used by millions of Filipinos.

• Mobile wallets driving blockchain adoption
• From crypto to capital markets
• Blockchain enters everyday utility
• Bringing old assets on-chain
• Practical blockchain for emerging markets

The announcement of a potential $60 billion asset tokenization market by 2030 was striking. More notable, however, was how that opportunity is expected to materialize: not through complex trading terminals or institutional-only platforms, but through familiar mobile wallets already sitting on people’s phones.

From payments to investments: Blockchain in daily use

Unlike many markets where tokenization starts with sophisticated investors, the Philippines is approaching blockchain from the ground up. Mobile wallets such as GCash, Maya, PDAX, and Coins.ph have become everyday financial interfaces, used for payments, remittances, bills, and savings. Embedded within many of these wallets are blockchain-enabled rails that already support cryptocurrencies and tokenized assets.

That broad reach fundamentally changes the use case for blockchain. As Kate Wang of Onigiri Capital by Saison Capital explained during the conference, technology alone is not the breakthrough; distribution is.

“Distribution matters more than the technology itself. So accessibility is actually the real infrastructure,” Wang said.

In the Philippine context, that infrastructure already exists. With tens of millions of users onboarded to mobile wallets, tokenization does not require reinventing financial habits. It simply extends them.

Tokenization as a tool for inclusion

The Project Bayani report highlights a striking paradox: around 14% of Filipinos already own cryptocurrencies, while fewer than 5% participate in traditional investment products such as stocks, bonds, or mutual funds. Rather than seeing this as a risk, the report reframes it as an opportunity.

Tokenization allows traditional assets—government bonds, equities, mutual funds—to be broken into smaller, more affordable units and distributed digitally. In practical terms, this has already happened. Tokenized government bonds distributed via PDAX and GCash lowered minimum investments to as little as ₱500 ($8), opening access to first-time investors nationwide.

Wang emphasized that this dynamic makes the Philippines different from other tokenization pilots globally, saying, “Unlike markets where tokenization begins with institutional traders, the Philippines begins with inclusion.”

Here, blockchain is not optimizing high-frequency trading. It is expanding ownership.

Real use cases, already live

Perhaps the clearest indicator that blockchain has crossed into real-world utility is that many of its most impactful use cases are already operational. Chief Business Development Officer of PDAX, Kenneth Chua, outlined how blockchain wallets have quietly become a foundational financial layer in the country: “There is a blockchain-enabled wallet on every smartphone in the Philippines through GCash, PDAX, Maya, and Coins.ph, among others. This serves as a financial infrastructure that is now at the hands of every Filipino.”

This infrastructure supports multiple real-world applications:

• Tokenized government bonds, issued in partnership with the Bureau of the Treasury, now account for nearly half of all bondholders.
• Stablecoins for remittances, enabling faster and cheaper cross-border transfers—a critical use case in a country heavily reliant on overseas workers.
• Digital distribution of regulated assets, allowing bonds, funds, and potentially equities to be accessed through the same apps people use daily.

In one example shared at the event, a PayPal (NASDAQ: PYPL) user in the United States can convert dollars into a stablecoin, send it to a relative’s wallet in the Philippines, convert it to pesos, and spend it locally, all without touching traditional correspondent banking rails.

Wallets as the new investment on-ramp

A recurring theme throughout the conference was that tokenization is not about creating new asset classes. It is about repackaging existing, regulated assets in a way that aligns with modern user behavior.

Project Bayani identifies four asset classes with the strongest tokenization potential: government bonds, public equities, mutual funds, and other real-world assets such as money market funds and fractional real estate. Together, these could form a $60 billion market by the end of the decade.

What enables this scale is not speculative demand, but familiarity. Filipinos already trust wallets to store value, move money, and manage daily finances. Adding tokenized investments is an incremental step, not a leap.

A blueprint beyond the Philippines

While Project Bayani is focused on the Philippines, its implications extend further. The model, which leverages wallets, prioritizes inclusion, and works closely with regulators, offers a blueprint for other emerging markets facing similar gaps in investment access.

Blockchain’s promise has always been about removing friction. In the Philippines, that promise is being realized not in theory, but in practice through lower minimums, broader distribution, and real participation from everyday citizens.

As the Project Bayani initiative and its findings made clear, the future of blockchain may not be defined by the next token or protocol, but by whether it can quietly, reliably, and inclusively help people save, invest, and build wealth. In the Philippines, that future is already taking shape, from wallets to wealth.

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