On the heels of the 2025 Blockchain Futurist Conference, make no mistake - the conversation around tokenization, AI, and real-world assets (RWAs) is no longer theoretical—it’s operational.
The next wave of decentralized finance (DeFi) isn’t about speculative coins or hype cycles; it’s about bringing transparency, efficiency, and liquidity to asset classes that have barely evolved in decades.
One of those asset classes is life insurance.
For most people, life insurance is something purchased around the kitchen table—a family plan meant to provide security in times of loss. But in institutional finance, life insurance is part of a global market worth trillions. It’s used by corporations, banks, and family offices for estate planning, tax management, and collateralization.
Yet despite its scale and importance, it remains a largely analog system: documents in drawers, policies tracked on legacy software, and valuations dependent on slow, manual processes.
Tokenization is changing that.
By placing life insurance contracts on blockchain-based systems, it becomes possible to view every element of a policy—cash value, death benefit, collateral status—in real time.
And the result is not greater risk, but greater clarity.
Blockchain doesn’t replace trust; it verifies it. Immutable records and automated verification replace the “black box” of traditional finance (i.e. 'TradFi'), making regulatory oversight, auditing, and even consumer understanding more transparent than ever.
This evolution matters because financial opacity—especially in multi-trillion-dollar markets—creates inefficiency. In the current system, life insurance policies are difficult to value or transfer, and their liquidity is tightly constrained. Tokenization could change that by making such assets tradeable, fractionalized, or usable as collateral in broader digital markets.
Artificial intelligence ('AI') is additionally accelerating this process by helping to digitize and analyze vast quantities of insurance data. AI can also identify risk factors, model performance, and optimize yields with far greater speed and accuracy than human analysts.
Together, blockchain and AI form a powerful infrastructure for transparency and scale—where one enforces truth and the other interprets it.
The numbers make the potential impossible to ignore. Boston Consulting Group (BCG) projects that global tokenized assets could exceed $16 trillion by 2030. Think of the possibilities if global life insurance and pension funds onboard tokenization, funds which to-date hold more than $60 trillion in assets.
Even a small portion of that moving 'on-chain' represents a seismic shift in how value is stored, transferred, and leveraged.
We’re already seeing early signs of this shift. Major insurers and financial institutions are quietly piloting blockchain integrations to improve recordkeeping, settlement, and verification. Some have even begun incorporating digital assets as part of their reserves—an acknowledgment that blockchain is no longer fringe, but foundational.
For individuals, the implications are equally transformative. Imagine holding a whole life policy with $50,000 in cash value.Today, accessing that liquidity means going through your insurer or bank, which can be a cumbersome process, depending on the details. A tokenized version of that policy could let you lend against it, trade it on a regulated exchange, or use it as collateral in a DeFi platform—turning a static asset into a dynamic one, all while maintaining regulatory safeguards.
That’s not speculation—it’s modernization. It’s about unlocking dormant value within one of the most stable financial instruments ever designed.
The conversation should not be about whether blockchain belongs in insurance—it should be about how quickly we can adapt our systems, laws, and mindsets to support it responsibly.
The tokenization of life insurance won’t make the industry riskier; it will make it more efficient, accountable, and accessible.
Blockchain isn’t the Wild West anymore. It’s the foundation of a clearer, more transparent financial future—one where even the most traditional instruments can thrive in a digital economy, one built on trust and truth.
