How tokenization works, and who keeps what

Seven stages from origination to redemption, the stakeholder that captures value at each one, the role of oracles, the bottlenecks that still exist in 2026, and an honest comparison against a conventional private placement.

The process, stage by stage

Left, what happens. Right, who captures value there and roughly how much. Figures are indicative and vary by asset class.

  1. Origination and structuring

    Feasibility, SPV or fund wrapper, offer documents, investor eligibility

    Issuer or sponsor

    Cheaper capital, retained control through the SPV, a wider investor base; pays 2 to 5% all-in at set-up

  2. Valuation, custody and legal

    Independent valuation, custody agreement, legal opinions on title and enforceability

    Valuer, custodian, counsel

    Fixed engagement fees and recurring revaluation; custodian 10 to 50 bps a year on assets held

  3. Token design and compliance

    Standard selection, identity registry, transfer rules, freeze and forced-transfer powers

    Tokenization platform

    Set-up fee, per-issuance fee, service fee (Kubermint's plans replace the license-plus-advisers stack)

  4. Primary issuance

    Whitelisted subscription, funds verified, delivery versus payment, mint

    Placement agent or platform

    1 to 3% of the primary raise

  5. Oracles and lifecycle data

    NAV, proof of reserve, metered output, corporate action triggers written on-chain

    Oracle network or attesting party

    Per-feed data fees; the value is trust in the number, and the fee is small

  6. Secondary market

    Transfers between approved holders, bulletin board or venue, collateral use

    Venue and market maker

    Bid-ask spread, trading and listing fees; only earned if liquidity materializes

  7. Servicing and redemption

    Distributions, revaluation, reporting, buyback or maturity, burn

    Servicer and investor

    Servicer 5 to 25 bps a year; investor keeps yield plus principal and bears platform and venue fees

Net effect: roughly 3 to 6% of value goes to intermediaries at issuance and 30 to 80 basis points a year in servicing. That is below a conventional placement plus fund administration stack only if secondary liquidity materializes; without it, the comparison is close to even.

The fee comparison, line by line

Indicative ranges for a mid-sized private issuance. Two of the five lines are compressible. Any thesis built on fee arbitrage alone will not fund, which is why Kubermint leads with access, verification and redemption.

Cost lineConventional routeTokenized equivalentCompressible
Distribution and arranger0.5 to 2.0% of raise (up to 5% on small deals)1 to 3% platform or placement feeNo
Legal, valuation, structuring1 to 2% of raiseSame or higher while counsel prices noveltyNo
Custody and trustee5 to 20 bps a year10 to 50 bps a yearNo
Administration, transfer agent, registrar20 to 45 bps a year5 to 25 bps a year; the register runs in the contractPartly
Verification and reconciliationEmbedded in the spreadAutomated against the on-chain registerYes

Where tokenization saves

  • Post-issuance administration: cap table, transfer restrictions, distributions and reconciliation collapse into 5 to 25 bps
  • Repeat issuance: the SPV, compliance modules and identity registry are reusable, so a second tranche costs a fraction of the first
  • Direct distribution to a KYC'd investor base the platform already holds
  • The illiquidity discount: private assets exit at 20 to 30% below fair value; any reduction dwarfs the fee delta

Where it does not

  • Legal and custody usually cost more, because the work is new to the providers
  • A platform fee sits in the same band as an arranger who already holds the relationships
  • Single large placements to one or two institutional anchors: the arranger fee is a relationship fee and no platform replaces it

The role of oracles

The chain cannot see the SPV, the bank account, the property register or the inverter. Oracles are how the legal and physical asset reach the token. They do four jobs.

Price and NAV feeds

Daily NAV for funds and treasuries, mark-to-model for real estate and private credit. Drives redemption pricing and collateral haircuts.

Proof of reserve and collateral

Attests that the custodian holds what the tokens claim: bank balances, vault audits, receivables ledgers. Minting is gated on this attestation.

Lifecycle and event data

Coupon and rent triggers, defaults, maturity, corporate actions, metered output. The contract pays out and burns against these events.

Identity and compliance attestations

KYC, accreditation and sanctions status written to the on-chain registry, and the messaging that lets those claims travel with the token across chains.

The weak point: an oracle can attest to a number, not to enforceability. If the SPV is drained or the title is disputed, the token still reads "backed". The legal opinion and the custodian are the trust anchors; the oracle is only as good as its data source. This is why assets that meter themselves (solar generation, compute utilization, collection accounts) make the strongest tokenization candidates.

Bottlenecks in 2026

These are the reasons deals stall. None of them is token technology.

Liquidity

Most tokenized assets still show thin volume, long holding periods and weak secondary markets, with liquidity spread across issuers, chains and venues rather than concentrated.

Issuer readiness

Deals stall on the canonical record: reconciled ownership, valuation, cap table and agreements that survive diligence. With licensing now available, the question has shifted from whether it is allowed to whether the company is ready.

Narrow access

Most tokenized value sits behind institutional or offshore channels; retail access remains limited by structure and jurisdiction.

Regulatory and legacy friction

Misaligned rules across jurisdictions, integration with legacy processes, and thin buy-side and sell-side participation.

Portability

Moving a regulated token between chains while preserving its compliance state is unsolved; identity claims on one chain do not exist on another.

What Kubermint does about them

The feasibility memo tests readiness and liquidity honestly before anything is built. The service plans include the register, reporting and investor support that readiness requires. Distribution is built into the offer, not bolted on afterwards.

Value kept by each stakeholder

Indicative, and it varies by asset class. This is the table we walk through with every sponsor before quoting.

StakeholderWhat they keep
Issuer or sponsorLower cost of capital, retained control through the SPV, global distribution; pays 2 to 5% all-in at set-up
Valuer and counselFixed engagement fees; recurring revaluation
Custodian or trustee10 to 50 bps a year on assets under custody
Tokenization platformSet-up fee, per-issuance fee, annual service fee
Placement agent1 to 3% of the primary raise
Oracle network or attesting partyPer-feed data fees; staking yield on decentralized networks
Venue and market makerBid-ask spread, trading and listing fees
Transfer agent or servicer5 to 25 bps a year servicing
InvestorYield plus principal, fractional access, transferability outside market hours; bears platform and venue fees

See how your asset scores

The intake form asks the twenty-six questions behind this analysis and tells you which lane the project falls into.