On September 10, 2026, Collective members joined Matt Zeigler, Kris Abdelmessih, Shaun Martinak and Izabella Kaminska for an hour on tokenization: what it actually is, what it changes about how markets work, and where it goes next. The thread started on a member call in May, when Kris said he felt behind on the topic; Shaun, who builds it at Coinbase, walked us through it on a later call, and it was worth putting the two of them in a room with Izabella, who follows where the money moves when market structure changes.
Kris Abdelmessih is a longtime options and derivatives trader who once worked the floor of the New York Stock Exchange as a specialist. He thinks in market structure and has a habit of explaining it through pop culture, and he writes the Moontower newsletter on options and probability. Shaun Martinak is head of tokenization at Coinbase, and brings an engineer’s read on how the plumbing actually fits together. Izabella Kaminska spent years at the Financial Times, where she edited FT Alphaville, and now writes The Blind Spot and The Peg; she follows the messy, human side of money that the technologists tend to skip past.
Matt Zeigler is a master at hosting conversations with people who haven't met, but should. Matt is a managing director at Sunpointe Investments, editor at Panoptica, he hosts several podcasts, and creates a variety of stunning content at Cultish Creative, where he connects markets to art, music and the craft of thinking clearly.
Between the three guests, we had the technology, the market plumbing and the money itself covered; which is what let the hour move from what tokenization is to what it actually changes.
This is the second of three conversations in this rendition of The Roundtable Sessions: live discussions that put people who joined Collective separately together around a single question.
Not a paid subscriber yet? Paid subscribers get live access to The Roundtable Sessions, plus the On the Phone With briefings, the Collective Conversations filmed at our events, and the Common Thread. Join us to be in the room for the next one.
What They Discussed
Why the interest now. Shaun described tokenization as a missing layer of the internet, the ability to own something and prove it is unique, which he said the internet has lacked. In his account the technology itself matured years ago; what changed recently is regulatory acceptance, which is what lets large institutions build on it.
How far it goes. Shaun described adoption as gradual and partial: portfolios moving from no exposure to one percent, then more, but in his view never to a hundred percent, because legal and cross-jurisdictional complications keep some assets on the old rails. He put current adoption below one percent.
What actually changes. Izabella said tokenization does not change the underlying instruments much; its main effect is cost, saving money on settlement and clearing by moving those functions onto a shared network. Kris agreed that the innovation sits under the hood while the end product looks the same, and, in competitive businesses, becomes cheaper for the customer.
Who funds the rails. Izabella described a shift in who provides the working capital for the system: in the current model a bank’s balance sheet finances the plumbing, while in this one the speculators holding the underlying tokens do. She said that transfers power from bank balance sheets to speculators, and noted that how reliable that liquidity is under stress is not yet known, which is part of why regulators are cautious.
Volatility, credit, and insurance. Kris connected the discussion of round-the-clock liquidity to options and insurance: because volatility is itself tradable, a firm worried about an intraday funding shock could buy the optionality to reshape its exposure, and someone would sell that protection. He described the endpoint as looking like a large insurance function.
The ledger and ownership. Asked whether tokenization is more about the ledger or the asset, Shaun said the asset is the ledger and how that ledger is enforced. The practical test, in his framing, is whether you can be sure you own something and can access it, which he tied to a system that places trust in math rather than in a small set of intermediaries.
Notable Quotes
“Blockchains are a missing piece of the internet. We needed a property rights layer.”
— Shaun Martinak
"We’re moving towards a day where financial instruments can be treated as computer programs, executing actions without needing traditional intermediaries."
— Shaun Martinak
“It’s transferring power from bank balance sheets to speculators.”
— Izabella Kaminska
"The legal infrastructure behind society is a function of money itself. It’s a messy tapestry that we are still navigating."
— Izabella Kaminska
“All of this, at the limit, just starts to look more and more like insurance.”
— Kris Abdelmessih
“The asset is the ledger and then how that ledger is enforced.”
— Shaun Martinak
Takeaways
A few threads carried across the hour:
* The group’s read was that tokenization changes the plumbing, not the product: the same instruments, with cheaper settlement and clearing.
* The funding model shifts from bank balance sheets to a “commons” of speculators holding the underlying tokens; how reliable that liquidity is under stress is the open question.
* Several of the ideas raised (intraday pricing of liquidity, perpetual futures, volatility as something tradable) point toward markets that run continuously and price liquidity in real time.
Resources & references
* “Money Stuff,” Matt Levine (Bloomberg). Kris cited his column, including the piece on Robinhood tokenizing AMC stock. LINK
* Russell Napier, on the post-1970s “non-system” that governed global trade and money. LINK
* Izabella Kaminska: The Blind Spot and The Peg
* Matt Zeigler: Cultish Creative, and Sunpointe Investments
The Full Roster
Check out the full suite of episodes of Vol. 2 of The Roundtable Sessions.
* The Yen at 160: Robert Mullin hosts Vincent Deluard and Louis Gave, recorded in the final hours before the Bank of Japan moved. Coming September 25
Not a paid subscriber yet? Paid subscribers get live access to The Roundtable Sessions, plus the On the Phone With briefings, the Collective Conversations filmed at our events, and the Common Thread. Join us to be in the room for the next one.
Remember, this post is for informational purposes only. For anything investment-related, you should consult a qualified financial advisor who can help assess your individual needs, risk tolerance, and goals.
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