Decode Stock on Chain: Why Are Crypto Enthusiasts Investing in US Stocks While Wall Street Is Going Blockchain Unfriendly?
Original Title: "Understanding Stock Tokenization in One Article: Why Crypto Enthusiasts Are Investing in Stocks While Wall Street Is Going the Other Way?"
Original Authors: Changan, Amelia, Biteye
Over the past year, a thought-provoking phenomenon has repeatedly appeared:
While the US stock market and precious metals have repeatedly hit new highs driven by the productivity boom and AI narrative, the crypto market has been mired in periodic liquidity droughts.
Many investors lamented that "the end of the crypto world is in stocks" and even chose to exit entirely.
But what if I told you that these two seemingly opposing paths to wealth are undergoing a historic convergence through tokenization? Would you still choose to leave?
Why is it that from BlackRock to Coinbase, top global institutions in their 2025 annual outlook all unanimously favor asset tokenization?
This is not just a simple "stock migration." Starting from the underlying logic, this article thoroughly dissects the underlying logic of US stock tokenization for you and inventories the current trading platforms and frontline KOLs involved in stock tokenization with in-depth insights.
Core: More Than Just On-chain
Stock tokenization refers to converting US stocks (such as Apple, Tesla, NVIDIA, etc., shares of listed companies) into tokens. These tokens are usually 1:1 pegged to the equity or value of real stocks and are issued, traded, and settled through blockchain technology.
In simple terms, it moves traditional US stocks onto the blockchain, turning stocks into programmable assets. Token holders can obtain the economic benefits of stocks (such as price fluctuations, dividends), but not necessarily full shareholder rights (depending on the specific product design).
As shown in the figure, the TVL of US stock tokenization has grown exponentially since the fourth quarter of this year.

(Source: Dune)
After clarifying the basic definition of US stock tokenization and its differences from traditional assets, a more fundamental question arises: since the traditional securities market has been operating for hundreds of years, why should we go to great lengths to put stocks on the chain?
Because the combination of stocks and blockchain will bring many innovations and benefits to the traditional financial system.
1. 24/7 Trading: Breaking the shackles of trading hours on the NYSE and NASDAQ, the cryptocurrency market can achieve 24/7 uninterrupted trading.
2. Fractional Ownership Reduces Investment Threshold: In the traditional stock market, the minimum purchase is usually 1 lot (100 shares). Tokenization allows assets to be divided into tiny fractions, enabling investors to invest $10 or $50, without having to buy the full share. Ordinary investors worldwide can also equally partake in the growth dividends of top companies.
3. Interoperability of Cryptocurrency and DeFi: Once stocks are tokenized, they can seamlessly interact with the entire decentralized finance ecosystem. This means you can do things with tokenized stocks that are impossible (or difficult) with traditional stocks. For example: you can use tokenized stocks as collateral for cryptocurrency loans, or leverage tokenized stocks in LP to earn trading fees.
4. Global Liquidity Convergence: Under the traditional system, the liquidity of US stocks and other assets is somewhat segregated, with macro benefits often "rising on one side." After US stocks go on-chain, crypto capital can participate in global high-quality assets without moving, fundamentally advancing liquidity efficiency.
BlackRock's CEO Larry Fink also stated: the next generation market, the next generation securities, will be security tokenization.
This also hits the cyclical dilemma in the crypto market - when US stocks and precious metals perform strongly, the crypto market often faces liquidity shortages, leading to capital outflows. However, if "US stock tokenization" matures, bringing more high-quality traditional assets into the crypto world, investors are less likely to exit altogether, thus enhancing the resilience and attractiveness of the entire ecosystem.
Of course, US stock on-chain is not a utopian solution that removes all friction. On the contrary, many of the issues it exposes are precisely because it is beginning to integrate into the real-world financial order.
1. US Stock On-chain is not Truly Decentralized Stock
Currently, mainstream US stock tokenization products mostly rely on regulated entities to custody real stocks and issue corresponding tokens on-chain. Users actually hold claims to the underlying stocks, not full shareholder identities. This means that asset security and redeemability largely depend on the issuer's legal structure, custody arrangements, and compliance stability. If the regulatory environment changes or the custodian faces extreme risks, the liquidity and redeemability of on-chain assets could be affected.
2. Price Vacuum and Depegging Risk During Non-Trading Hours
During the US stock market closure, especially in perpetual contracts or products with non-1:1 pegging, on-chain prices lack real-time references from traditional markets, relying more on internal crypto market sentiment and liquidity structure. When market depth is insufficient, prices can easily deviate significantly and even be manipulated by large funds. This issue is similar to pre-market and after-hours trading in traditional markets but is further amplified in the 24/7 on-chain environment.
3. High Compliance Costs, Slow Expansion Speed
Unlike native crypto assets, stock tokenization naturally falls within a strong regulatory boundary. From security attribute identification, cross-jurisdictional compliance, to custody and settlement mechanism design, each step requires deep coordination with the real-world financial system. This makes it difficult for this space to replicate the explosive growth path of DeFi or meme coins, with each step involving legal structures, custody, and licensing.
4. Deals a Heavy Blow to the Shanzhai Narrative
When on-chain trading of high-quality assets like Apple and NVIDIA is possible, the attractiveness of narrative-based assets lacking real cash flow and fundamental support will be significantly reduced. Capital begins to rebalance between the "high-volatility imagination space" and "real-world returns." This shift is positive for the long-term health of the ecosystem but lethal for some emotionally driven Shanzhai assets.

In summary, bringing US stocks on-chain is a slow, realistic process with long-term certainty in financial evolution. It may not create short-term frenzy but is likely to become a mainstream theme in the crypto world, deeply integrated with traditional finance and eventually solidifying as infrastructure.
Implementation Logic: Custodial Support vs Synthetic Assets
Tokenized stocks are created by issuing blockchain-based tokens that reflect the value of specific equity. Depending on the underlying implementation, tokenized stocks in the current market are usually created using one of the following two models:
· Custodial-backed Tokens: Regulated entities hold real stocks in the traditional securities market as reserves and issue corresponding tokens on-chain at a certain ratio. On-chain tokens represent holders' economic claims to the underlying stocks, with their legal enforceability depending on the issuer's compliance structure, custody arrangements, and disclosure transparency.
This model is more aligned with compliance and asset security in the traditional financial system, making it the primary implementation path for current US stock tokenization.
· Synthetic Tokens: Synthetic tokens do not hold real stocks but rather track stock prices through smart contracts and oracle systems to provide users with price exposure. These products are more akin to financial derivatives, focusing on trading and hedging rather than transferring asset ownership.
Due to the lack of real asset backing and inherent compliance and security vulnerabilities, early pure synthetic models represented by Mirror Protocol have gradually faded from the mainstream view.
With tightening regulatory requirements and institutional capital inflow, the model based on real asset custody has become the mainstream choice for the tokenization of US stocks in 2025. Platforms such as Ondo Finance and xStocks have made significant progress in compliance frameworks, liquidity access, and user experience.
However, at the operational level, these models still need to coordinate between the traditional financial system and on-chain systems, bringing about some engineering differences worth noting.
1. Execution Detail Differences Due to Batch Settlement Mechanism
Platforms generally adopt a net batch settlement method in executing real stock trades in traditional markets (e.g., Nasdaq, NYSE). While this inherits deep liquidity from traditional markets, resulting in very low slippage for large orders (usually <0.2%), it also means:
1) During non-US stock market hours, minting and redeeming may experience brief delays;
2) During extreme volatile markets, the execution price may have slight deviations from on-chain pricing (due to platform spread or fee buffers).
2. Custodial Concentration and Operational Risks
Stocks are held by a few regulated custodians. If there are custodian operational errors, bankruptcies, settlement delays, or extreme black swan events, it could theoretically affect token redemptions.
Similar issues are prevalent in Perpdex targeting US stocks. Unlike spot trading's 1:1 peg, during US stock market closures, contract trading faces the following extreme scenarios:
1) De-pegging Risk:
On normal trading days, contract prices are forcibly pegged to the Nasdaq price through funding rates and oracles. Once in a non-trading day, with external spot prices frozen, on-chain prices are solely driven by on-chain funds. If there is a significant crypto market fluctuation or large sell-offs by whales, on-chain prices will quickly deviate.
2) Poor Liquidity Leading to Manipulation:
On non-trading days, both open interest (OI) and order book depth are usually thin. Large holders can manipulate the price through high-leverage orders, triggering cascading liquidations. This is similar to the pre-market futures contracts scenario, akin to the situation seen in the $MMT$MON price action, where violent price surges by whales trigger cascading liquidations when investors are overwhelmingly positioned in a similar way (collective short hedges).
Inventory of On-Chain Trading Platforms for US Stocks
For most investors, the key question is: amidst the vast array of the crypto ecosystem, which projects have actually turned this vision into a tangible reality?
· OndoFinance
Ondo Finance is a leading RWA tokenization platform focused on bringing traditional financial assets onto the blockchain. In September 2025, Ondo Global Markets was launched, offering 100+ tokenized US stocks and ETFs (for non-US investors) with 24/7 trading, instant settlements, and DeFi integrations (such as collateralized borrowing and lending).
The platform has expanded to Ethereum, BNB Chain, and plans to launch on Solana in early 2026, supporting over 1000 assets. The Total Value Locked (TVL) has grown rapidly, exceeding hundreds of millions of dollars by the end of 2025, making it one of the largest platforms in the tokenized stock space.
Ondo has raised over a billion dollars in funding (including early rounds). In 2025, there were no major new public fundraises, but the TVL soared from hundreds of millions at the beginning of the year to over $1 billion by the end of the year, with strong institutional support (such as partnerships with Alpaca and Chainlink).
On November 25, 2025, Ondo Global Markets was officially integrated into the Binance Wallet, directly listing 100+ tokenized US stocks in the "Markets> Stocks" section of the app. This deep integration between Ondo and Binance's ecosystem allows users to trade on-chain (e.g., Apple, Tesla) without requiring additional brokerage accounts and supports DeFi use cases like collateralized borrowing and lending.
Ondo has become the largest global tokenized securities platform, with a year-end TVL exceeding $1 billion, directly challenging traditional brokers.
· Robinhood
The traditional brokerage giant Robinhood is breaking financial barriers using blockchain technology to bring US stock trading into the DeFi ecosystem. In the EU market, it offers tokenized stocks as derivatives based on the MiFID II regulations, operating as an efficient "internal ledger."
In June 2025, the tokenized stocks and ETF products based on Arbitrum will be officially launched for European Union users, covering over 200 US stocks, supporting 24/5 trading on weekdays, and commission-free. There are plans to launch their own Layer2 chain, "Robinhood Chain," in the future and migrate assets to this chain.
Thanks to innovations such as predictive markets, crypto business expansion, and stock tokenization, Robinhood's $HOOD stock price has surged over 220% year-to-date, becoming one of the standout performers in the S&P 500 Index.
· xStocks
xStocks is the core product of the Swiss compliant issuer Backed Finance, issuing tokens backed 1:1 by real US stocks (60+ types, including Apple, Tesla, NVIDIA). It mainly trades on platforms such as Kraken, Bybit, Binance, supports leverage, and DeFi usage (such as collateral). It emphasizes EU regulatory compliance and high liquidity.
Backed Finance raised millions in early funding, with no new public rounds in 2025, but its product trading volume exceeds $300 million, and there is strong partner expansion.
In the first half of 2025, there was a large-scale launch on Solana/BNB Chain/Tron, leading to a significant increase in trading volume; it is seen as the most mature custody model, with plans for more ETFs and institutional-level expansions in the future.
· StableStock
StableStock is a crypto-friendly next-generation brokerage supported by YZi Labs, MPCi, and Vertex Ventures, committed to providing global users with borderless access to financial markets through stablecoins.
StableStock deeply integrates licensed brokerage systems with a stablecoin-native crypto financial architecture, allowing users to trade real stocks and other assets directly using stablecoins without relying on traditional banking systems, significantly reducing the barriers and frictions of cross-border finance. Its long-term goal is to build a global trading system centered around stablecoins, serving as an entry point for tokenized stocks and a wider range of real-world assets. This vision is gradually being realized through specific product forms.
In August 2025, the core brokerage product StableBroker was launched for public testing, and in October, a partnership with Native was established to introduce 24/7 trading of tokenized stocks on the BNB Chain. The current platform supports over 300 US stock equities and ETFs, with an active user base of thousands, daily trading volume of US equities approaching a million dollars, and continuous growth in asset size and various metrics.
· Aster
Aster is the next-gen multi-chain perpetual contract DEX (merged from Astherus and APX Finance), supporting stock perps (including US stocks like AAPL, TSLA), leverage up to 1001x, hidden orders, and yield farming. Cross-chain on BNB Chain, Solana, Ethereum, emphasizing high performance and institutional-grade experience.
The seed round was led by YZi Labs, with a post-2025 TGE peak market cap of over $7 billion for $ASTER.
Post September 2025 TGE, trading volume surged, exceeding $500 billion for the year; launching stock perps, a mobile app, and Aster Chain Beta; with over 2 million users, end-of-2025 TVL exceeding $400 million, becoming the second-largest perps DEX platform.
Of note: CZ publicly disclosed buying $ASTER tokens in the secondary market, underscoring Aster's strategic position on BNBChain.
· Trade.xyz
Trade.xyz is an emerging Pre-IPO tokenization platform, focusing on unicorn company equity (such as SpaceX, OpenAI), issuing tokens via SPV backed by real shares, supporting on-chain trading and redemption. Emphasizing low barriers and liquidity.
With no public record of large fundraising rounds, it is an early-stage project, relying on community and ecosystem growth.
Partially launched on the testnet in 2025, integrating perps with Hyperliquid HIP-3; moderate trading volume, planning to expand to more companies and DeFi integrations in 2026.
· Ventuals
Ventuals is built on Hyperliquid, using the HIP-3 standard to create Pre-IPO company valuation perpetual contracts (not actual ownership but price exposure, such as OpenAI, SpaceX). Supporting leveraged long/short positions, priced based on a valuation oracle.
Incubated by Paradigm, in October 2025, the HYPE collateral vault attracted $38 million in 30 minutes (for market deployment).
Launched on the testnet in 2025, quickly becoming a key player in the Hyperliquid ecosystem for Pre-IPO perps; deploying multiple markets in October, experiencing rapid trading volume growth; planning to expand to more companies and settlement mechanisms, positioning as an innovative futures.
· Jarsy
Jarsy is a compliance-focused Pre-IPO platform that tokenizes real private shares at a 1:1 ratio (such as SpaceX, Anthropic, Stripe), with a minimum investment of $10. Purchase real shares through the tokenization of actual stock after pre-sale test demand, supporting on-chain proof of reserves and verification.
Completed a $5 million pre-seed round in June 2025, led by Breyer Capital, with participation from Karman Ventures and several angels (such as Mysten Labs, Anchorage).
Officially launched in June 2025, rapidly adding popular companies; emphasizing transparency and compliance, TVL growing; future plans to expand dividend simulations and more DeFi compatibility.
In the wave of on-chain U.S. stocks, top CEXs such as Binance, OKX, Bitget, Bybit play a crucial role as traffic gateways, commonly adopting an aggregation model, directly connecting to asset pools of regulated issuers like Ondo Finance, xStocks.
Binance Wallet and OKX Wallet, Bitget's U.S. stock tokenization service deeply integrate with Ondo, providing U.S. stock trading services to users directly in the app's market section.
Bybit, on the other hand, provides U.S. stock contract trading for users through TradFi platforms, specifically synthetic derivatives that track the price movements of real U.S. stocks or indices. Trading hours follow the traditional market, offering 24/5 trading only.
KOL Insights: Consensus, Disagreement, and Vision
· Jiayi (XDO Founder): Looking ahead, stock tokenization is unlikely to follow an explosive growth curve, but it could become a highly resilient infrastructure evolution path in the Web3 world.
https://x.com/mscryptojiayi/status/1940782437879238992?s=20
· Roger (KOL): 2025 U.S. Stock Tokenization (RWA) Core Benefits Top 10
https://x.com/roger9949/status/2000177223874101705?s=20
· Ru7 (KOL): Stock tokenization is not about "copying stocks to the blockchain." It is more like connecting the traditional capital markets with an open, composable decentralized financial system.
https://x.com/Ru7Longcrypto/status/2003821123553902998?s=20
· Blue Fox (KOL): The tokenization of US stocks is a fatal blow to crypto projects, leaving no chance for even a tiny bit of future copycatting.
https://x.com/lanhubiji/status/2001849239874531381?s=20
· Lao Bai (Amber.ac Advisor): The essence of stock tokenization is the "digital migration" of assets: Just as the Internet enables the free flow of information and undermines old intermediaries, blockchain is restructuring the underlying logic of stock assets by eliminating settlement costs, breaking geographical barriers, and decentralizing power.
https://x.com/Wuhuoqiu/status/2003447315139559911?s=20
Epilogue: From the Financial "Parallel World" to the "Twin System"
Returning to the initial question: Why are major institutions unanimously bullish on tokenization in their annual outlooks?
From a first principles perspective, tokenization is liberating assets from the traditional island of geography, institution, and transaction time, transforming them into globally programmable, composable digital assets. When the growth dividend of top companies is no longer restricted by borders and transaction time, the trust foundation of finance is also shifting from centralized intermediaries to code and consensus.
The tokenization of US stocks is far more than just the on-chain movement of assets; it is a fundamental reconstruction of financial civilization.
Just as the Internet demolished the walls of information, blockchain is leveling the playing field for investment.
The crypto industry is also venturing into the deep waters of the real world.
It is no longer just the antithesis of traditional finance but is evolving into a deeply integrated twin financial system with the real-world financial system, advancing together in tandem.
This is not only a leap in transaction efficiency but also a crucial step for global investors to move from passive participation to financial empowerment.
In 2026, the migration of asset liquidity is just beginning.
(This article is for reference only and does not constitute investment advice. The market is risky, so please participate rationally.)
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