Tokenized stocks may be approaching a tipping point as investor demand for blockchain-based financial products surges, potentially accelerating the adoption of traditional assets onchain.
Tokenized stocks, which are part of the growing real-world asset (RWA) tokenization sector, reached a $370 million market capitalization by the end of July, according to a Wednesday Binance Research report shared with Cointelegraph.
The lion’s share, $260 million, was attributed to Exodus Movement (EXOD) shares issued through Securitize. Excluding this figure, the market capitalization of tokenized stocks rose to $53.6 million, marking a 220% monthly increase since June.
Tokenized stocks are seeing the same pace of growth reminiscent of the early decentralized finance (DeFi) boom when TVL rose from $1 billion to $100 billion in under two years from 2020 to 2021, the report said, adding:
“Though still small relative to the global equity market (valued at over US$100T), July’s explosive growth suggests tokenized equities may be nearing a major inflection point in the broader transition to hybrid finance.”
Blockchain addresses holding tokenized stocks surged to over 90,000 in July from 1,600 in June, signaling growing investor demand for tokenized equities.
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Tokenized stocks may surpass $1.3 trillion by absorbing 1% of global equity market
Tokenized equities may present a trillion-dollar market opportunity due to growing investor demand.
Tokenized stocks may surpass a $1.3 trillion market cap if just 1% of global equities get tokenized on the blockchain. This would make tokenized stocks worth eight times more than the DeFi market at its peak, according to Binance Research.
More tokenized financial products will, in turn, drive demand for more “sophisticated” DeFi infrastructure, as the two segments are poised to “reinforce each other and propel blockchain adoption into the mainstream.
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Over 60 tokenized stocks went live for trading on major exchanges, including Kraken and Bybit and Solana’s DeFi ecosystem via Backed Finance’s xStocks, focused on popular blue-chip stocks like Amazon, Nvidia, Apple, Tesla and Microsoft, among others, Cointelegraph reported on June 30.
Tokenized xStocks promise significant differences compared to their traditional counterparts, including 24/7 trading, freely transferable assets and a lack of commissions on the Kraken exchange.
However, the end goal of tokenization is not to simply bring traditional products on the blockchain, but to go beyond Wall Street systems onchain, to unlock new levels of accessibility for investors, Mark Greenberg, the global head of Kraken’s Consumer Business Unit, told Cointelegraph.
“Tokenized equities can’t just be ‘Wall Street on a blockchain.’ That misses the point,” Greenberg said. He added that equities must “feel like the internet,” which is always on, self-directed and globally accessible.
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