GSR’s Andy Baehr makes the case for tokenized fixed income as the collateral layer traditional finance actually needs

Tokenizing stocks sounds cool. Tokenizing bonds sounds boring. Guess which one is actually getting institutional adoption. Andy Baehr, managing director of asset management at GSR, called the idea of mass equity tokenization “exciting” in a recent discussion. But the more interesting thread in his commentary points to where tokenization is already proving its value: fixed income instruments and their role as collateral in institutional trading. The boring stuff is winning HSBC’s Orion platform, which handles tokenized bond issuance, has crossed $3.5 billion in cumulative issuances. Goldman Sachs’ GS DAP platform has exceeded $700 million in tokenized fixed income instruments. These aren’t pilot programs or proof-of-concept demos. They’re live infrastructure processing real capital. The reason bonds are leading the tokenization race over equities comes down to something decidedly unglamorous: valuation clarity. Bonds have well-defined cash flows, maturity dates, and credit ratings. That makes them easier to price, easier to custody on-chain, and critically, easier to accept as collateral. Research published by DTCC on May 13, 2026 reinforced this point, finding that tokenized tradit...