Last Updated: October 21, 2026
Tokenized stocks are blockchain-based tokens that represent shares in companies such as Tesla, Nvidia and Alphabet, letting investors trade around the clock and buy a fraction of a share. The International Monetary Fund now has the data to show the demand is real, and that the risks are real too. In its October 2026 Global Financial Stability Report, the IMF found that more than half of tokenized equity trading happens outside regular U.S. market hours and roughly 80% of trades are for less than one share, even as the same markets are about 1.5 times more volatile and far less liquid than the shares they track.
The findings land as the market shifts from experiment to business line, and as the companies whose shares are being tokenized start to push back. The IMF put tokenized equities at about $2.3 billion of a roughly $65 billion tokenized real-world asset market as of July 31, 2026, and the rwa.xyz tracker showed about $3.42 billion across roughly 4.38 million holders on October 21. U.S. regulators have opened the door: the SEC’s Innovation Exemption, issued on September 17, lets approved venues trade tokenized versions of U.S.-listed stocks. But by October 19, 16 companies, including Microsoft, Alphabet and Goldman Sachs, had objected to having their shares traded on OKXICE, the second venue to file under the new rules, after TSV LLC.
What Are Tokenized Stocks?
Tokenized stocks are shares of a conventional company, or claims on them, issued as programmable tokens on a blockchain. In the most common setup, an issuer buys the underlying shares, holds them with a regulated custodian and mints a token for each share, so the token can be split into tiny units and traded whenever the network is live. The tokens change hands on centralized exchanges such as Kraken, Bybit and OKX, on decentralized venues and directly between crypto wallets.
Not every token gives its holder the same thing. SEC staff said in a January 28, 2026 statement that tokenized securities are still securities and described three broad models. Issuer-sponsored tokens are the shares themselves, recorded onchain by the company or its transfer agent, as with Galaxy Digital’s shares on Superstate’s Opening Bell platform or Securitize’s own SECZ stock. Custodial tokens give holders an entitlement to a real share that a broker or custodian keeps for them, the approach behind Securitize Stocks, Dinari’s dShares and Coinbase’s tokens on Base. A third group covers notes, certificates and contracts issued by a third party that track a share’s price without full shareholder rights. Most of the largest offshore products work this way, including xStocks, Ondo Global Markets, Binance’s bStocks and Robinhood’s Stock Tokens, although these are backed 1:1 by shares the issuer holds.
The structure decides what a holder actually gets. xStocks holders have no voting rights and no direct claim on the company, and dividends are reinvested as extra tokens. Ondo and Coinbase also reinvest dividends rather than paying cash, while Securitize’s tokens can be converted, where available, into direct ownership on the issuer’s books. That distinction matters for U.S. trading, because the SEC’s new exemption covers only tokens that carry the same rights as the underlying share, whether the company or a third party issues them.
Where Can You Trade Tokenized Stocks?
Where an investor lives largely decides what they can buy. xStocks, issued by Backed, now part of Kraken, offers more than 700 tokenized stocks and ETFs in over 110 countries but excludes the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and Australia. Ondo Global Markets lists more than 400 stocks and ETFs on Ethereum, Solana and BNB Chain for eligible non-U.S. investors. Binance launched bStocks on BNB Chain in June under prospectuses approved in Abu Dhabi and added BlackBerry, MongoDB and other names on October 14. Robinhood sells Stock Tokens on its own Robinhood Chain in more than 120 countries outside the U.S., and Coinbase put tokenized Apple, Nvidia, Meta and Alphabet shares on Base for non-U.S. users in August, as our report on Coinbase’s tokenized stocks details.
U.S. investors have fewer options, but the list is growing. Dinari opened 724 tokenized U.S. stocks and ETFs, including the whole S&P 500, to eligible U.S. investors in August, and Securitize put 12 U.S. equities onchain on Solana on October 8 for eligible investors in the U.S. and the EU, with each token backed by a real share, settled in USDC and supported by Jump Trading as market maker. Dinari has also partnered with tZERO on a turnkey platform that lets broker-dealers offer tokenized stocks to their own clients.
For a full platform-by-platform comparison, see our guide on where to buy tokenized stocks.
The leaderboard has changed quickly. Binance’s bStocks moved into first place on rwa.xyz in October with about $1.2 billion in tokenized stocks, ahead of Ondo at about $884.5 million, xStocks at $596.0 million and Securitize at $308.5 million, as of October 21. Robinhood follows with about $145 million. Securitize’s own SECZ shares are the largest single tokenized stock at about $251 million, followed by Binance’s versions of Circle and SpaceX shares at about $149 million and $137 million.
What the IMF’s Data Shows
The IMF analyzed the five most liquid tokenized U.S. equities, tokens tracking the S&P 500, the Nasdaq 100, Tesla, Google and Nvidia issued by Ondo and xStocks, across 11 centralized and decentralized venues. The sample covered 365 trading days, more than two million five-minute price observations and about $345 million in market value, roughly 15% of the market. The chapter, published on October 8 ahead of the full Global Financial Stability Report on October 13, has three findings that stand out.
First, more than half of all trading occurred outside regular U.S. market hours, including weekends, which suggests round-the-clock access is a key draw. Second, about 80% of trades were smaller than one share, pointing to demand for fractional ownership. Third, overnight moves in tokenized shares carried real information: traditional markets absorbed between 87% and 99% of the overnight change in tokenized prices within the first five minutes after the U.S. open.
The demand is broad enough that NYSE’s parent is moving in. On October 4, OKXICE, a joint venture between OKX and Intercontinental Exchange, filed to launch round-the-clock trading in 63 tokenized U.S. stocks on OKX’s X Layer network, through permissioned trading pools paired with stablecoins. On October 14, Perpetuals.com became the third venue to file under the exemption, after TSV LLC and OKXICE.
Why the IMF Still Sees Risks
Despite the demand, the IMF cautions that tokenized equities remain a small and fragmented market. Realized volatility was about 1.5 times higher than for the same shares on traditional venues, and it was highest on decentralized exchanges. Liquidity was markedly thinner too: using a standard price-impact measure, the IMF found traditional markets the most liquid, centralized exchanges materially less so, and decentralized exchanges the least by a wide margin. Prices generally tracked the underlying shares closely, but low-volume venues showed larger pricing errors.
Part of the volatility gap reflects the fact that tokenized venues trade continuously, capturing price moves during low-volume overnight and weekend periods when the underlying stock is not trading. More fundamentally, the report argues the market cannot scale without legal certainty for tokenized assets, consistent regulation, interoperability between platforms and settlement in safe, widely accepted forms of money.
For individual buyers, the risks are more immediate. With custodial and tracker tokens, holders depend on the issuer and its custodian to keep the shares and honor redemptions, and what they recover in a failure depends on the issuer’s legal structure. Many offshore tokens carry no voting rights, and fake tokens are a real hazard: Base warned users to check contract addresses because tokens outside its official list were not issued by Coinbase.
Are Tokenized Stocks Legal in the U.S.?
Yes, when they are offered within U.S. securities law, which is why most offshore products block U.S. persons. The rules shifted on September 17, when the SEC issued its Innovation Exemption. It lets permissioned “tokenized securities venues” trade tokenized versions of U.S.-listed stocks and ETFs without registering as exchanges until September 17, 2031, covering tokens issued by the company and third-party tokens with the same rights as the share, but not synthetic tokens. Each venue can list up to 75 large stocks, capped at 0.25% of a stock’s average daily volume, and up to 250 other stocks capped at 2.5%. Companies get 30 days to object to third-party tokens of their stock, and verified retail users can trade from their own wallets. Our report on the SEC’s Innovation Exemption has the details.
That objection right is already being used. An objection bars the stock from that venue only, and the venue must update its public notice within five business days. In notices published on October 15 and October 19, OKXICE disclosed objections from 16 companies: Cerebras, AppLovin, Applied Digital, Rocket Lab, CoreWeave, Verizon, Applied Optoelectronics, Broadcom, UnitedHealth, Microsoft, Alphabet, Goldman Sachs, Qualcomm, Caterpillar, McDonald’s and Western Digital. Cerebras was not on the original list but objected anyway, so roughly a quarter of the 63 tickers are now off the table. None of the companies gave a reason, and Nasdaq has said it will opt its own shares out of the exemption. Wall Street’s trade group SIFMA, in an October 19 comment letter, asked the SEC to require affirmative issuer consent rather than an opt-out.
Wall Street’s infrastructure is moving in parallel. NYSE said in January that it is developing a 24/7 platform for tokenized U.S. stocks and ETFs, funded with stablecoins and settled instantly, and ICE has since partnered with tZERO on its infrastructure, named Avalanche as a leading candidate blockchain and signed a non-binding memorandum with Blockchain.com to distribute tokenized stocks once the platform launches. Nasdaq won SEC approval in March for a pilot that lets tokenized shares trade on the same order book as regular shares once the DTCC’s system is ready. The DTCC ran its first live tokenized transactions with more than 30 firms on July 15, and on October 16 it outlined its full service: 25 securities at launch, including Russell 1000 stocks, ETFs and Treasuries, on the Canton network and a private DTCC ledger, with about $30 trillion of the assets it holds eligible over time. Our guide to the DTCC tokenization service explains how it works.
What Happens Next
The IMF stops short of calling tokenization a systemic threat, saying risks remain limited because the market is still small, but it warned that interconnection and leverage could amplify stress as the market grows. Its policy prescription is a technology-neutral framework built on “same activity, same risk, same regulatory outcome,” alongside policy sandboxes, circuit breakers, liquidity safeguards for 24/7 trading and settlement in safe money.
The next tests are already on the calendar. OKXICE’s 30-day objection window for its first list runs into early November, after which the remaining stocks could start trading, although no launch date has been announced; Perpetuals.com is aiming for mid-November. The DTCC’s service is expected to go live by the end of October, and the SEC is still taking public comments on the exemption before deciding whether to make onchain stock trading permanent. Robinhood is also exploring a tokenized actively managed ETF with T. Rowe Price. For the latest developments, see our daily RWA tokenization news page.
For investors, the report is a reminder that 24/7 trading and fractional ownership are real improvements that come with thinner liquidity, sharper price swings and fewer rights than a conventional brokerage account. For the industry, the message is that the technology works well enough to show demand, and that the guardrails around it, now including the companies themselves, are the main constraint on how far tokenized stocks can grow.
Disclaimer: The information in this article is for educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice.
FAQ
What are tokenized stocks?
Tokenized stocks are blockchain tokens linked to shares of listed companies such as Tesla, Nvidia or Apple. In the most common model, an issuer buys the real shares, holds them with a regulated custodian and creates one token per share. The tokens can trade around the clock, in fractions of a share and between crypto wallets, but the rights they carry depend on how the issuer structures them.
Are tokenized stocks real shares?
Only some of them. Issuer-sponsored tokens, such as Galaxy Digital’s shares on Superstate’s Opening Bell, are the shares themselves. Custodial tokens, like Securitize Stocks or Dinari’s dShares, give holders an entitlement to a real share kept by a broker or custodian. Many offshore products, including xStocks, Ondo Global Markets and Robinhood’s Stock Tokens, follow the price without voting rights or a direct claim on the company.
Can U.S. investors buy tokenized stocks?
Yes, but the choice is limited. Most offshore products, including xStocks, Ondo Global Markets, Binance’s bStocks, Robinhood’s Stock Tokens and Coinbase’s tokens on Base, exclude U.S. persons. Eligible U.S. investors can use Dinari, which offers 724 tokenized stocks and ETFs, or Securitize Stocks, which launched on Solana on October 8. The SEC’s Innovation Exemption, issued on September 17, 2026, opens a path for more regulated U.S. venues.
Is it safe to buy tokenized stocks?
Tokenized stocks carry risks that ordinary shares do not. Holders depend on the issuer and its custodian to keep the underlying shares and honor redemptions, and many tokens carry no voting rights. The IMF found tokenized markets about 1.5 times as volatile as the underlying stocks and less liquid, especially on decentralized exchanges. Buyers should also check contract addresses against the issuer’s official list, because fake tokens circulate.
Does Robinhood offer tokenized stocks?
Yes, but not to U.S. customers. Robinhood sells Stock Tokens through the Robinhood Wallet on Robinhood Chain, its network built on Arbitrum, in more than 120 countries. The new tokens are tokenized debt securities issued by Robinhood Assets (Jersey) Limited and give price exposure only. Customers in the European Union can also trade Classic Stock Tokens, which are derivative contracts, in the Robinhood Europe app.
Which companies issue the most tokenized stocks?
By value, Binance’s bStocks leads with about $1.2 billion, followed by Ondo Global Markets at about $884.5 million, xStocks at $596.0 million and Securitize at $308.5 million, according to rwa.xyz data from October 21, 2026. The whole market is worth about $3.42 billion across roughly 4.38 million holders. Binance overtook Ondo for first place in October, just four months after launching bStocks.
Can companies block tokenized versions of their stock?
Under the SEC’s Innovation Exemption, a company can object within 30 days to a third-party token of its shares on a specific venue, and that stock is then barred from the venue. By October 19, 2026, 16 companies, including Microsoft, Alphabet, Goldman Sachs, Verizon and UnitedHealth, had objected to trading on OKXICE. Companies that stay silent can have their shares listed.
