Securitize, the blockchain infrastructure company powering BlackRock's tokenized money market fund, just filed to go public through a $1.25 billion SPAC merger. The deal positions the company to capitalize on a tokenization boom that's seen real-world asset values surge 135% to $35 billion over the past year. CEO Carlos Domingo sees this as the industry's consolidation moment.
Securitize just dropped the biggest news in blockchain infrastructure since Circle's IPO earlier this year. The company that powers BlackRock's tokenized money market fund filed Tuesday to go public through a special purpose acquisition company merger valued at $1.25 billion.
The deal with Cantor Equity Partners II comes at a pivotal moment for the tokenization industry. Real-world asset tokenization has exploded 135% over the past year to reach $35 billion in total value, according to RWA.xyz data. Tokenized U.S. Treasuries alone surged from roughly $3 billion to $8.6 billion - a staggering 200% jump that signals institutional appetite for blockchain-based financial products.
"Tokenization is what everybody's talking about, but there's nobody publicly traded that does it," CEO Carlos Domingo told CNBC in an exclusive interview. "We will do well in the public market because people want to index themselves to tokenization the same way that people are buying Circle because they want to index themselves to stablecoins."
Domingo isn't just making bold predictions - he's backing them with hard numbers. Securitize dominates 20% of the entire RWA tokenization market, having facilitated over $4 billion in tokenized assets through partnerships with financial giants including BlackRock, Apollo, Hamilton Lane, KKR and VanEck. The company's profitable in recent quarters, according to Domingo, positioning it perfectly for public market scrutiny.
The SPAC merger will generate $465 million in gross proceeds, split between $225 million from private investors like Borderless Capital and Hanwha Investment, plus $240 million from the SPAC's trust account. Trading under ticker symbol SECZ could begin as early as January 2025 on Nasdaq.
This timing isn't coincidental. The digital asset space is experiencing a consolidation wave that started with Circle's blockbuster $1.1 billion IPO on the New York Stock Exchange in June. Crypto exchanges Gemini and Bullish also went public this year, creating a new class of publicly traded digital asset companies competing for institutional capital.
"The crypto industry needs to consolidate," Domingo explained. "If you're publicly traded and you have access to stock capital markets as well as cash, you can be on the side that is consolidating and not be consolidated by somebody else."
