What Are Tokenized Stocks? IMF Finds Real Demand as the SEC Opens a U.S. Path

Last Updated: 13 October

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. 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 $3.34 billion across roughly 4.35 million holders on October 12. U.S. regulators have also opened the door: the SEC’s Innovation Exemption, issued on September 17, lets approved venues trade tokenized versions of U.S.-listed stocks, and NYSE owner Intercontinental Exchange, Nasdaq and the DTCC are building their own systems.

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 the first three 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 450 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, 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 and settled in USDC. Dinari has also partnered with tZERO on a turnkey platform that lets broker-dealers offer tokenized stocks to their own clients.

By value, Ondo leads with about $929.6 million, followed closely by Binance’s bStocks at $923.4 million, xStocks at $593.4 million and Securitize at $426.3 million, according to rwa.xyz. Binance has overtaken xStocks for second place since launching in June, and most of Securitize’s total comes from its own SECZ shares, the single largest tokenized stock on the tracker at about $358 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. Three findings 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, joining Coinbase, Kraken, Binance and Robinhood in the market.

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.

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, and the DTCC ran its first live tokenized transactions with more than 25 firms on July 15, with a broader rollout targeted for October.

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. Companies have 30 days to object to OKXICE’s listings, and Cerebras Systems has already done so. The DTCC is due to widen its tokenization service in October, and the SEC is 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 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 are now 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, Ondo leads with about $929.6 million, followed by Binance’s bStocks at $923.4 million, xStocks at $593.4 million and Securitize at $426.3 million, according to rwa.xyz data from October 12, 2026. Together, the top three account for about 73% of a market worth roughly $3.34 billion. Most of Securitize’s total comes from its own tokenized SECZ shares, the largest single token tracked.