Securitize launches tokenized stocks with twelve names: how to check whether you can trade them in Germany

Since October 8, 2026 the US provider Securitize has been trading twelve tokenized US stocks on the Solana blockchain. Behind each token sits a real share, dividends keep running, and settlement is in the stablecoin USDC. Whether you may use this offering from Germany is, however, not settled. Securitize speaks of "eligible investors" in the United States, the European Union and further approved markets, but does not define which investors it means. Your own due diligence begins at exactly that point, and only after that does it pay to look at tax, custody and trading hours.

Securitize Stocks: twelve tokenized US stocks on Solana since October 8

The product is called Securitize Stocks and launched on Wednesday, October 8, 2026. At the outset it covers twelve companies. Eleven of them are named consistently in the reports by Decrypt and CoinDesk: Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Alphabet, Tesla, Meta, Amazon, Netflix, Circle, Strategy and Palantir. The twelfth name is given in neither report, and anyone who needs the complete list will for now find it only at the provider itself.

Trading runs through the Securitize platform, which operates as a registered broker-dealer in the United States. Liquidity is supplied by an automated market on Solana, with CoinDesk naming the trading firm Jump Trading as market maker. Settlement, custody and clearing are handled by the service provider RQD, according to CoinDesk. For the onward use of the tokens in blockchain lending, Decrypt reports that Ripple Prime and Aave are envisaged, though the language there is one of review and intent rather than live operation.

Securitize is no newcomer to this field. The company is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker SECZ, has issued tokenized assets worth more than $4.5 billion to date according to CoinDesk, and brought BlackRock's first money market fund onto a blockchain. Around $300 million of its own listed shares already sit tokenized on Solana and Avalanche. For context: according to The Block, the value of tokenized stocks on blockchains recently passed $3 billion.

One-to-one backing: a real share sits in custody for every token

The technical core is quickly told. Each token is backed one-to-one by an actually existing share. Decrypt additionally reports that the deposited shares are not lent out. That commitment is no side note, because in securities lending the share moves temporarily to a third party, and if that third party becomes insolvent, clear backing turns into a claim.

Carlos Domingo, chief executive of Securitize, drew precisely that distinction on launch day. He told Decrypt: "Tokenized stocks should give investors more than a price on a wrapper that tracks a stock and is only offered offshore." Nick Ducoff of the Solana Foundation spoke in similar terms the same day, putting worldwide access at the centre.

Wrapper, certificate, backing: three terms that often get confused

A wrapper is a shell that merely replicates the price of an underlying asset, without the provider having to hold the share itself. Such a token can track the price and still convey no claim to the share. That differs from a structure with actual backing, where a share is held in custody for every token issued. Which variant you are dealing with is not something you can tell from the price chart, only from the provider's legal documents.

Security entitlement: why your name does not appear in the shareholder register

By its own account, Securitize issues the tokens as security entitlements. The term comes from the US Uniform Commercial Code and denotes a claim against an intermediary, not direct entry in the company's shareholder register. CoinDesk puts it in terms of the tokens precisely not establishing direct ownership in the register. Conversion into registered shares is to become possible once the respective issuer supports tokenization.

In practice that means a custody chain stands between you and Apple or Nvidia. As long as it holds, you notice nothing of it. If a link fails, the legal system of the custodian decides what remains of your claim, and in this case that is US law. This structure is entirely standard in the securities world; your German brokerage account also works through intermediaries. What is new is that the chain here runs via a US broker-dealer and a public blockchain rather than via the familiar combination of a house bank and Clearstream.

Settlement in USDC: the detour via a stablecoin and its currency risk

Trading and settlement are in USDC, the dollar stablecoin issued by Circle. Anyone coming from Germany normally holds euros and therefore needs two conversion steps: from euros into USDC, and back again on selling. Each of those steps costs fees, and between purchase and sale sits a currency risk that has nothing to do with the share. If Apple rises by five percent while the dollar gives up four percent against the euro, little of the price move survives.

A second point concerns the stablecoin itself. USDC is authorised in the European Union as an e-money token and is therefore one of the few dollar stablecoins that may be offered here as a matter of course. That does not resolve the currency question, though; it answers only the authorisation question for the means of payment. The dollar exposure remains part of your calculation either way.

Eligible investors: what Securitize leaves open about access from the EU

Both reports name "eligible investors" in the United States, the European Union and further approved markets as entitled to access. What that term means concretely remains open. Neither Decrypt nor CoinDesk says whether retail investors are meant or only professional and qualified investors, and on the requirements for identity verification and anti-money-laundering checks neither report offers any detail. In US securities law an "eligible" or "accredited investor" is typically tied to wealth or income thresholds, and those hurdles sit well above what an average private portfolio meets.

That sets a clear order of priority for you. Before tax, fees or trading hours matter at all, you need the answer to the access question, and you need it in writing from the provider: are retail investors resident in Germany admitted, what evidence does registration demand, and on what legal basis is a German customer accepted. A provider that actively directs investment services at retail clients in the EU needs an authorisation under European law to do so. One that instead relies on the customer's own initiative shifts the risk onto you. If you would rather hold the same share without these open questions, the route runs through a regulated broker; which providers are available in Germany is shown in our crypto broker comparison.

MiFID II rather than MiCA: tokenized stocks are financial instruments, not crypto assets

This is where the most common misconception about this product type lies. The European crypto regulation MiCA governs crypto assets but excludes instruments that already count as financial instruments. A tokenized share remains legally a share, even when it is transferred on a blockchain. What applies, therefore, are the securities rules under MiFID II and national provisions, not the MiCA authorisation that many providers point to.

In practical terms that means two things. A MiCA licence says nothing about whether a provider may sell tokenized stocks to you. And the protections you know from securities, such as the appropriateness assessment or the information duties on distribution, depend on whether the provider is authorised as an investment firm in the EU. On the US side, the Securities and Exchange Commission introduced an exemption described as an innovation exemption in September 2026, opening an orderly route for trading venues dealing in tokenized securities. That exemption applies to the US market and replaces no European authorisation.

Extended trading hours: the NYSE platform and OKXICE are announced, not live

At launch, trading runs in extended hours, so beyond regular exchange hours, but not yet continuously. Securitize names round-the-clock operation as a goal. Also planned is an extension to the New York Stock Exchange's announced round-the-clock platform, in whose construction Securitize is involved, and to the OKXICE trading venue, a joint venture of the exchange operators Intercontinental Exchange and OKX, which filed an application in the same week.

Both are subject to conditions. The venues first have to launch and meet the regulatory requirements. For your decision today, therefore, only the one figure that already applies counts: trading in extended hours on one platform. Thin trading hours have a side effect that occurs in every young market. The gap between the bid and the ask price widens, and an order without a price limit can be executed at a price you did not expect. A limit protects against that; a market order does not.

To place the surroundings on launch day: Solana trades at $108.52 on October 8, 2026, around 7.1 percent below the previous day's level. The broad crypto market also gave ground that day. For the stock tokens themselves that is initially irrelevant, because their value hangs on the deposited share and not on the price of the blockchain they sit on. It becomes relevant for transaction costs, and when you use tokens as collateral in lending.

Flat-rate withholding tax instead of a holding period: the tax break between share and coin

Anyone arriving from cryptocurrencies brings an expectation that does not hold here. With cryptocurrencies, section 23 of the German Income Tax Act on private disposals applies, and after a holding period of one year the gain stays tax-free. Shares do not fall under it. For them, section 20 of the Income Tax Act on income from capital assets applies: 25 percent flat-rate withholding tax, plus the solidarity surcharge of 5.5 percent on that tax, together around 26.4 percent, and church tax on top where applicable. The saver's allowance stands at 1,000 euros for single filers and 2,000 euros for joint assessment. There is no holding period after which it becomes tax-free.

Two further points arise with a foreign provider. Without a German paying agent, no capital gains tax is withheld automatically, and you declare the income yourself via the KAP schedule. And dividends from US companies first attract US withholding tax, which can be reduced to 15 percent under the double taxation treaty and credited against the German tax. For that you have to prove your tax residence to the provider. There is also an offsetting restriction: losses from the sale of shares may be offset only against gains from share sales, not against other investment income.

One caveat belongs here explicitly. Whether the German tax authorities treat a security entitlement under US law in the same way as a share, or classify it as another capital claim, depends on the specific structure and is not settled for this product. We have broken down the tax treatment of tokenized stocks in Germany in detail in a separate article. For an individual case, a tax adviser settles this before the first purchase takes place, not afterwards.

Dividends and voting rights: what the company commits to and where the limitation lies

According to Securitize, holders retain the economic benefits of their position, meaning dividends, and voting rights. Decrypt adds a limitation that is contained in the company's own wording: voting rights apply where applicable. That carries weight, because exercising a voting right presupposes that the chain from the token to the annual general meeting is organised. Whether and how that works in practice will only become clear in the first AGM season after launch.

The dividend is the easier part. As a payment process it can be passed along the custody chain, and USDC provides a settlement instrument for it. A voting right concerns the exercise of a membership right, and that depends on who stands in the register. According to CoinDesk, that is precisely where the tokens do not stand.

Tokenized stocks: without clarity on access, the rest is theory

The news is a genuine step: twelve well-known US names, backed one-to-one, on a public blockchain, through a broker-dealer registered in the United States. For investors in Germany, though, the decisive point remains unanswered, and it cannot be settled by reading, only by information from the provider. Three steps, in this order:

1. Clarify access in writing. Ask Securitize whether retail investors resident in Germany are admitted and what evidence registration requires. If the answer comes back negative or unclear, your review ends here. For recording holdings and income across several platforms, a tracker helps, of the kind we set against each other in our overview of tax tools and portfolio trackers.
2. Calculate the cost of the currency chain. Add up the conversion from euros into USDC, the trading fee and the way back, and hold the result against the cost of the same security in your existing brokerage account. Which trading venues offer USDC as a matter of course is set out in our crypto exchange comparison.
3. Check the legal form of the position. Read in the contractual documents against whom your claim runs and what applies if the custodian becomes insolvent. Why entry in the register makes the difference is something we explained using the example of the transfer agent's role.

(As of October 8, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)