On Tuesday, Miami-based fintech Securitize, best known for tokenizing BlackRock’s $3 billion BUIDL fund, announced plans to go public via a merger with a SPAC sponsored by an affiliate of Cantor Fitzgerald. The deal values Securitize at $1.25 billion pre-money at a time when crypto firms are racing toward public markets and the real-world asset (RWA) tokenization market has ballooned 135% in the past year to $35 billion.
We sat down with CEO Carlos Domingo to discuss why Securitize is going public now and when tokenization will finally go mainstream. The transcript was edited for clarity.
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Forbes: So when exactly are you planning to list?
Carlos Domingo: We have to get the U.S. government to open first—minor detail! Now that we’ve announced the merger with Cantor Equity Partners II, the next step is to file with the SEC a document called an S-4, which is similar to an S-1—the filing companies use to go public via an IPO. It has to be reviewed by the SEC, which requires the government to be open. Assuming this happens in a timely manner, it shouldn’t take longer than two to three months. Then the SPAC will conduct a proxy vote to approve the merger, and we’ll go public hopefully early next year.
Forbes: Cantor is now one of the primary banks servicing the crypto industry, but what else made them an attractive partner?
Carlos Domingo: Cantor is not only successful in crypto. Historically, they’ve been one of the best SPAC sponsors who really understand the process. They’re also an investment bank, so they help raise the PIPE financing as well. Their SPAC structure is very clean: no warrants or rights, just common stock and sponsor shares. That simplicity helps avoid dilution and price depression.
Forbes: How long have you been planning this, and why now?
Carlos Domingo: Actually, not that long. If you’d asked me at the beginning of this year, it wasn’t even on my radar. We were planning to stay private and maybe raise more money. Markets weren’t open. Remember, around March and April, things weren’t great. But by May and June, equity markets started performing better, and in June Circle did their IPO, which was extremely successful. Congratulations to our friends there. So in July, at our quarterly board meeting I told the board, “Markets are open. We’re ready to apply to be a public company. We’re already a regulated entity, we’ve had audits since 2018, all the stuff required. I think we can do this.” And here we are in October. It’s been a pretty fast three months of work.
Forbes: What changes for you once you become a public company, beyond the obvious? Are there new opportunities you pursue that were harder to access before?
Carlos Domingo: First, our credibility will increase immediately once we’re publicly traded. It shows that we have audited financials, proper governance—all the requirements to be public. We’ll also have a large balance sheet, so any questions about our long-term viability disappear. Keep in mind, we work with the largest financial institutions in the world, and that requires trust not just in our technology but in our company for the foreseeable future. Second, we’ll have access to capital markets. We can raise money in a different way, use liquid stock for financing or acquisitions—things that are difficult as a private firm. Third, visibility. Once public, more people will know who we are and what we do, and that leads to more business.
Forbes: Can you give us an overview of the business today and the growth you’ve seen recently?
Carlos Domingo: We’ve already filed an investor deck with the SEC so it’s public. We’ve only published data up to Q2 2025 since we started the process in Q3. Our revenue has grown ninefold in the last 18 months. Really strong growth, much more than I expected. We’ve been profitable for two years and forecast around $69 million in revenue and will be profitable in 2025.
Forbes: We’ve been talking about tokenization for years, and you’ve been at it for eight. How do you think about where we are today?
Carlos Domingo: One of the things that has radically changed in the U.S. is the regulatory environment. President Trump won elections, the new SEC leadership—Paul Atkins as chairman and the crypto task force under Commissioner Peirce—the environment is night and day compared to before. Also, tokenization is now embraced more widely. Everyone talks about it. Not just BlackRock, but people like Vlad from Robinhood, Brian Armstrong from Coinbase—companies that typically haven’t been talking about the space. So tokenization has become a big focus for many companies, which is great. Ultimately, we want to grow the pie.
Forbes: What else do companies like yours need to operate comfortably in the U.S.?
Carlos Domingo: There’s always room for improvement. Some legacy rules can be modernized, like those around transfer agents and record-keeping. For the most part, we have what we need. What we also need—this is going to be an unpopular opinion—is enforcement actions towards people breaking the law. Because they also get in the way of those trying to follow regulations.
Forbes: There seems to be this tension between companies offering wrappers and those focused on native issuance, like yours. Which wins?
Carlos Domingo: The real, legal things win. Companies doing regulatory arbitrage or illegal offerings don’t last. I remember when we were trying to tokenize credit products in 2021, and people were telling me “Look, you can get this from Celsius or BlockFi.” None of those companies exist anymore. Some wrappers, like Robinhood’s, are, in my opinion, a bad idea, but legal. And there are those that are a bad idea and illegal. The moment you have the native, tokenized version of those wrappers, they go down to zero and die. Why buy a wrapper from a random company that you don’t even know when the issuer of the underlying security tells you they don’t represent my security? Now, native tokens offer the standard equity holder rights: voting, dividends, etc. There’s no question that that’s the model that wins.
Forbes: For now, tokenization seems driven mostly by crypto players. What’s your go-to-market strategy for traditional finance?
Carlos Domingo: Good question. TradFi is obviously embracing tokenization from a product-creation perspective: we work with firms like BNY and BlackRock. But from a consumption perspective the activity is driven mostly by crypto players. What’s missing is the ability of TradFi players to use stablecoins because stablecoins play a big role in manifesting the benefits of tokenization—having tokenized dollars alongside tokenized securities. I think the GENIUS Act has accomplished that already. Obviously, it will take time for everyone to adopt it, but it’s getting there.
The second thing is the ability to use the infrastructure in a more seamless way—to access blockchains, to have wallets integrated with the endpoints used in the applications TradFi institutions rely on. That’s the next step for tokenization to be broadly adopted by TradFi. If you had asked me a year ago, I would have told you this would still take a long time. At this point, I think we’re looking at probably less than three to five years.
Forbes: What do you think will be the “killer product” once everything is set up—tokenized equities, treasuries, or funds?
Carlos Domingo: All of the above. We think tokenized treasuries have massive growth ahead because in traditional finance you have more treasuries than dollars. In crypto, you have $200 billion of tokenized dollars and only $8 billion of tokenized treasuries. So we think tokenized treasuries should naturally grow to become bigger than stablecoins. Number two, funds. We just released the CLO (collateralized loan obligation) product with BNY, and we’re excited about that space. There are so many varieties of things you can tokenize there that there’s a ton of work to do. And then, obviously, public stocks, done the right way.
Forbes: And “the right way” means working directly with security issuers?
Carlos Domingo: Right. I was talking to a crypto company the other day, and their executive was telling me, “Look, we’ve put this asset into one of these wrappers but we have to put all these disclaimers on it and nobody wants to touch it.” Because what’s the advantage of buying this and taking so much risk? So these are not sustainable long-term products. As I mentioned, as soon as native tokenization happens, they will die. And I think we’ll see that happening in 2026 for sure.
Forbes: Large exchanges like Kraken and Gemini offer wrapped stocks.
Carlos Domingo: Backed Finance, issuer of xStocks, has them as distribution partners. You know what’s their total AUM? $100 million (it’s $130 million to be precise). That tells you everything. You’re looking at a market that is like $40 trillion, and they’ve managed to tokenize $100 million. Nobody cares.
Forbes: What’s the progress on Converge, the blockchain you’re building with Ethena Labs?
Carlos Domingo: We aren’t sharing it publicly yet. We’re working closely with Ethena, they are one of the largest users of BUIDL (BlackRock’s money market fund, tokenized by Securitize). We are considering the best positioning for the product because so many new blockchains like Arc (from Circle) and Tempo (Stripe) have launched.
Forbes: BlackRock is probably your highest profile partner, and Larry Fink is a major proponent of tokenization. Have you met him?
Carlos Domingo: I’ve actually never met him in person. He’s obviously one of the best spokespeople for tokenization. I don’t want to speak on their behalf but we are very excited to work with BlackRock, they are a great partner.
Forbes: Is there anything in tokenization you think people still misunderstand in a major way?
Carlos Domingo: I think that the topic we covered is, to me, one of the most important things. Normal, everyday users have a hard time distinguishing between wrappers and native tokenization. Many of these companies doing wrappers are misleading investors. They’ll tell you, “Oh, this is a tokenized Tesla,” when it’s not a tokenized Tesla; it’s a tokenized something else. Institutions are more sophisticated, but even they often don’t know how to tell them apart. That’s a problem. Securities are highly regulated. You can’t mislead investors, tell them you’re selling one thing, and then give them something else.
Unfortunately, this activity happens and happens offshore. These companies go to jurisdictions where they think no one will chase them, but the ones who ultimately suffer are investors. So I think communicating that people need to do their research before buying something, understand exactly what they’re buying and make sure they’re not being misled by the issuer.