What is the generational gap between traditional fund investors and active digital wallet investors — and why does it matter for tokenization?
The average traditional fund investor is in their early 50s, while the average active retail investor in DeFi is around 27 years old — roughly half the age. Angie Walker, Global Head of Commercialization at Apex Digital, identifies this gap as one of the most urgent structural forces pushing the asset management industry toward tokenized, digitally native products.
The behavioral expectations of these two generations are fundamentally different. The 27-year-old DeFi investor expects 24/7 always-on access to their portfolio, real-time visibility across positions, high yield diversity, and meaningful control over how and where their capital is deployed. These are not preferences — they are baseline assumptions formed by years of interacting with digital-first financial platforms. Traditional fund structures, built for a different investor profile, do not natively deliver any of these things.
The urgency becomes clearer when you factor in scale. Walker cites $124 trillion expected to be passed down through generations over the coming two decades. A large portion of that wealth will transfer to investors who have grown up with digital wallets, not paper subscription forms. Asset managers who cannot meet these investors on their terms — with tokenized products that offer on-chain transparency, fractional access, and continuous liquidity windows — risk losing relevance with the single largest incoming cohort of wealth holders in history.
This context also explains why 42% of the 100 senior managers surveyed in the Apex Digital and Mergermarket report cited broadening investor access as the primary driver for pursuing tokenization — not operational efficiency, not cost reduction, but access. Hear the full conversation on Listenly to understand how survey respondents are translating this demographic reality into concrete product strategy.
DeFi (Decentralized Finance) refers to financial services and investment activity conducted via blockchain-based protocols, without traditional intermediaries. In this episode, Angie Walker uses "active retail investor in DeFi" to describe individuals who manage digital wallets, engage with on-chain assets, and expect real-time, self-directed control over their portfolios — the behavioral profile now arriving in mainstream financial markets.
"Distribution is king. Everything we do is actually all about distribution — whether that's distribution onto a chain or multiple chains, distribution to a centralized digital venue, a decentralized digital venue, or to an aggregator."
— Angie Walker, Global Head of Commercialization, Apex DigitalAbout Tom Bennett
Tom Bennett serves as Global Head of Fintech at Apex Digital, where he focuses on the infrastructure and strategic direction underlying the firm's tokenization capabilities. In this episode, Bennett appears alongside Angie Walker, Global Head of Commercialization for Apex Digital, in a joint interview hosted by Brian as part of the podcast series tied to a major industry research initiative. Together, Bennett and Walker co-authored insights from a tokenization survey produced in partnership with Mergermarket, covering 100 senior managers across the Americas, EMEA, and APAC — spanning funds and asset managers with between $500 million and $5 billion in assets under management. His perspective on where tokenization adoption sits today — moving from early adopters toward mainstream deployment — is grounded in direct client engagement and product development experience at one of the industry's most active digital asset infrastructure providers. Apex Digital currently represents approximately 16% of all global crypto fund administration and brings 13 years of experience in the sector, giving Bennett's observations an unusually broad empirical base.