Picture this: you’re half-asleep, phone in hand, buying Apple stock at 3 a.m.; later you park that Tesla position in a DeFi protocol and borrow stablecoins against it; by weekend you own a sliver of SpaceX equity—all from the same crypto wallet.

These “mission-impossible” feats are becoming the new normal. Tokenized equities—digital twins of real-world shares—have quietly outrun the long-promised DeFi summer, blurring the line between TradFi and crypto faster than regulators can redraw it.

A tokenized stock is a blockchain-native certificate that tracks the price of an underlying share. A licensed custodian locks one real share (or a fraction) in a vault and mints an equal number of tokens. Those tokens trade on crypto exchanges, plug into DeFi, and zip between wallets—none of which your legacy brokerage account can do.

Crypto Exchanges

• Kraken & Bybit – June 2025, 60+ U.S. blue-chips and ETFs (“xStocks”) on Solana via Swiss issuer Backed Finance.

• KuCoin – integrated xStocks with USDT pairs.

• Bitget – added wallet-to-wallet transfers and DeFi hooks.

TradFi Brokers

• Robinhood – 200+ tokens for Europeans, including private names like OpenAI and SpaceX, running on Arbitrum. The launch sent HOOD stock to an all-time high.

• eToro – 24/5 equities, with ERC-20 tokens on Ethereum promised by year-end for true 24/7 markets.

• Gemini – partnered with FINRA-approved Dinari for Base/Arbitrum listings.

• CMC Markets – teasing “CMC CapX” tokenized assets.

High-throughput chains (Solana, Ethereum L2s) deliver millisecond settlement and sub-penny fees. More importantly, issuers in Switzerland, the EU, and Singapore now hold real licenses—no more “wild-west” wrappers.

Backed Finance’s xStocks did $300 million volume in its first month; Binance Research shows the sector’s market cap exploded from $16.7 million in June to $53.6 million in July (excluding the outsized $260 million Exodus issuance). Wallet counts leapt from 1,600 to over 90,000—echoes of DeFi Summer’s hockey stick.

• Always-On Markets – 24/5, often 24/7, covering Asia and Europe gaps.

• Instant Settlement – seconds vs. T+2.

• Fractional Ownership – slice any stock to six decimals.

• Lower Fees – pay gas, not brokerage commissions.

• DeFi Composability – lend, borrow, or yield-farm your AAPL tokens while you sleep.

Kraken’s Mark Greenberg frames the endgame: “We’re not just putting Wall Street on-chain; we’re building the internet of capital—always on, permissionless, global.”

• “Not Real Shares” – Holders own a claim on the custodian, not the underlying equity. If the trust breaks, lawsuits—not shareholder rights—are your only recourse.

• Liquidity Gaps – When the underlying market is closed, market makers struggle to hedge, widening spreads and creating phantom premiums/discounts.

EU rules treat tokenized stocks as “other regulated financial instruments,” bypassing U.S.-style accredited-investor limits. Swiss clarity lets issuers go retail-first. Result: every major platform geofences Americans. The SEC still treats these tokens as unregistered securities, keeping Wall Street on the sidelines—for now.

Binance Research: tokenizing just 1 % of global equities equals a $1.3 trillion market—eight times DeFi’s peak TVL. BCG projects the entire real-world-asset (RWA) space will swell from $0.6 trillion (2025) to $18.9 trillion (2033). Even a sliver of global stock trading would flood on-chain venues with volume.

Solana dominates on speed and cost; Ethereum L2s (Arbitrum, Base) keep the old guard comfortable.

Tokenized stocks have pried open Pandora’s box. The boundary between crypto and traditional finance is dissolving in real time. The remaining suspense: how long before Wall Street stops watching and starts building its own never-sleeping market?

Picture this: you’re half-asleep, phone in hand, buying Apple stock at 3 a.m.; later you park that Tesla position in a DeFi protocol and borrow stablecoins against it; by weekend you own a sliver of SpaceX equity—all from the same crypto wallet.

These “mission-impossible” feats are becoming the new normal. Tokenized equities—digital twins of real-world shares—have quietly outrun the long-promised DeFi summer, blurring the line between TradFi and crypto faster than regulators can redraw it.

A tokenized stock is a blockchain-native certificate that tracks the price of an underlying share. A licensed custodian locks one real share (or a fraction) in a vault and mints an equal number of tokens. Those tokens trade on crypto exchanges, plug into DeFi, and zip between wallets—none of which your legacy brokerage account can do.

Crypto Exchanges

• Kraken & Bybit – June 2025, 60+ U.S. blue-chips and ETFs (“xStocks”) on Solana via Swiss issuer Backed Finance.

• KuCoin – integrated xStocks with USDT pairs.

• Bitget – added wallet-to-wallet transfers and DeFi hooks.

TradFi Brokers

• Robinhood – 200+ tokens for Europeans, including private names like OpenAI and SpaceX, running on Arbitrum. The launch sent HOOD stock to an all-time high.

• eToro – 24/5 equities, with ERC-20 tokens on Ethereum promised by year-end for true 24/7 markets.

• Gemini – partnered with FINRA-approved Dinari for Base/Arbitrum listings.

• CMC Markets – teasing “CMC CapX” tokenized assets.

High-throughput chains (Solana, Ethereum L2s) deliver millisecond settlement and sub-penny fees. More importantly, issuers in Switzerland, the EU, and Singapore now hold real licenses—no more “wild-west” wrappers.

Backed Finance’s xStocks did $300 million volume in its first month; Binance Research shows the sector’s market cap exploded from $16.7 million in June to $53.6 million in July (excluding the outsized $260 million Exodus issuance). Wallet counts leapt from 1,600 to over 90,000—echoes of DeFi Summer’s hockey stick.

• Always-On Markets – 24/5, often 24/7, covering Asia and Europe gaps.

• Instant Settlement – seconds vs. T+2.

• Fractional Ownership – slice any stock to six decimals.

• Lower Fees – pay gas, not brokerage commissions.

• DeFi Composability – lend, borrow, or yield-farm your AAPL tokens while you sleep.

Kraken’s Mark Greenberg frames the endgame: “We’re not just putting Wall Street on-chain; we’re building the internet of capital—always on, permissionless, global.”

• “Not Real Shares” – Holders own a claim on the custodian, not the underlying equity. If the trust breaks, lawsuits—not shareholder rights—are your only recourse.

• Liquidity Gaps – When the underlying market is closed, market makers struggle to hedge, widening spreads and creating phantom premiums/discounts.

EU rules treat tokenized stocks as “other regulated financial instruments,” bypassing U.S.-style accredited-investor limits. Swiss clarity lets issuers go retail-first. Result: every major platform geofences Americans. The SEC still treats these tokens as unregistered securities, keeping Wall Street on the sidelines—for now.

Binance Research: tokenizing just 1 % of global equities equals a $1.3 trillion market—eight times DeFi’s peak TVL. BCG projects the entire real-world-asset (RWA) space will swell from $0.6 trillion (2025) to $18.9 trillion (2033). Even a sliver of global stock trading would flood on-chain venues with volume.

Solana dominates on speed and cost; Ethereum L2s (Arbitrum, Base) keep the old guard comfortable.

Tokenized stocks have pried open Pandora’s box. The boundary between crypto and traditional finance is dissolving in real time. The remaining suspense: how long before Wall Street stops watching and starts building its own never-sleeping market?