Tokenization in the crypto space is set to grow rapidly. It’s not just about individual stocks, bonds, or funds anymore. Experts believe that entire investment fund systems will soon be tokenized. This means more traditional financial assets will be available as digital tokens on blockchains like Ethereum.

According to recent data, the total value locked (TVL) in the Ethereum network could grow 10 times by 2026. This growth is expected as more industries adopt blockchain technology and institutional investors increase their crypto exposure. Joseph Chalom, co-CEO of Sharplink Gaming, shared this prediction in a recent social media post.

Sharplink Gaming is currently the second-largest public holder of Ethereum, with nearly 798,000 ETH valued at around $2.33 billion. This large holding places them among the top companies investing heavily in Ethereum.

Chalom also pointed to the growing stablecoin market. Right now, it’s worth about $308 billion. By next year, it could rise to $500 billion—a 62% increase. Since Ethereum handles more than half of all stablecoin transactions (about 54%), this surge could significantly boost its ecosystem and TVL.

Another major area of growth is tokenized real-world assets. These are traditional investments like real estate or art represented as digital tokens. Chalom predicts this market will reach $300 billion by 2026.

He also expects a huge jump in the value of tokenized assets under management, predicting a tenfold increase within the next year. Instead of just tokenizing simple assets like stocks or bonds, more complex funds will start using blockchain technology.

This expansion is being driven by increased interest from large financial institutions like JPMorgan, Franklin Templeton, and BlackRock. These firms have been steadily increasing their involvement in blockchain over the past year.

When total value locked in a network rises, it usually shows growing confidence and interest. However, despite Ethereum’s current TVL sitting at $68.2 billion, some analysts remain cautious. For example, analyst Benjamin Cowen has warned that Ethereum may struggle to hit new price highs next year, especially with Bitcoin facing challenges of its own.

Right now, Ethereum (ETH) is trading at about $2,924, down around 3% over the last month according to CoinMarketCap.

Chalom believes that sovereign wealth funds—government-run investment funds—will start holding and using Ethereum much more over the next year. He expects their activity in ETH and tokenization to grow five to ten times.

He also predicts that on-chain AI agents and blockchain-based prediction markets will become mainstream soon. These technologies could add major value and drive more activity on Ethereum.

Meanwhile, Ethereum developers are focusing on future upgrades to improve network performance. The upcoming 2026 “Glamsterdam” upgrade is one of the most anticipated changes after the recent “Fusaka” upgrade raised block gas limits to 60 million.

Glamsterdam will introduce key improvements like Proposer-Builder Separation, which helps make the network more secure by spreading out control among validators. Another upgrade feature is block-level access lists, which reduce transaction costs and allow faster processing by handling multiple actions at once.

These upgrades aim to scale Ethereum’s Layer 1 network without sacrificing decentralization. Some community members believe gas limits could rise to 200 million in the near future, greatly boosting network capacity.

Following Glamsterdam will be the Hegota fork, which will introduce Verkle Trees—an advanced solution designed to reduce Ethereum’s growing data storage problem by shrinking how much data validators need to store.

Overall, Ethereum is on track for massive growth in value locked, tokenization of real-world assets, stablecoin activity, and network scalability—all driven by increasing interest from big players in traditional finance and technology.