Tokenized Equities & Securities Rails

A 50/50 joint venture between OKX and ICE, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, has filed to launch 24/7 tokenized US stock trading under the SEC's proposed five-year innovation exemption, the first major attempt by anyone to use that exemption. The initial list will have 63 stocks, including Strategy, Apple, Nvidia, Coinbase, Robinhood, Circle and major banks. Trading would run continuously, 24/7 365, through Uniswap liquidity pools on OKX's X layer and in USDC, USDG and USDT pairs, with users holding assets in self-custodial wallets subject to identity verification, AML and KYC. Unlike Robinhood-style representations, the tokens must be backed one for one by an actual share held through a registered broker dealer, and investors would receive dividends and voting rights just like on any stock. Companies have 30 days to object to having their stock tokenized.

Strategy added 334 bitcoin for $28.7 million while spending $176.3 million to buy back its STRC preferred stock, a sum roughly six times larger than its latest bitcoin purchase. The bitcoin purchase was funded with $15.7 million from issuing and selling MSTR shares and $13 million from Strategy's flexible USD cash pool, while the STRC buyback was funded with $154.1 million of its USD cash pile and $22.2 million of interest earned on its dollar holdings. Strategy now holds $4.88 billion in protected USD reserve and $833.4 million of flexible USD cash, and has spent about $64 billion in total on bitcoin at an average cost base of $75,440.70. Separately, a joint venture between OKX and Intercontinental Exchange, the parent of the New York Stock Exchange, has filed to offer 24/7 tokenized US stock trading under the SEC's proposed five-year innovation exemption, with an initial list of 63 stocks including Strategy, Apple, Nvidia, Coinbase, Robinhood and Circle. Trading would run continuously through Uniswap liquidity pools on OKX's X Layer in USDC, USDG and USDT pairs, with assets held in self-custodial wallets and backed one-for-one by actual shares held through a registered broker-dealer. Bloomberg Terminal has also begun carrying Hyperliquid data, and the Independent Community Bankers of America is suing the OCC over national trust bank charters granted to crypto companies. Ethereum Layer 2 network Blast will shut down with an October 26 withdrawal deadline, after assets on the network fell from $2.2 billion to $32 million and its token lost 98% of its launch value, while the IMF approved funds for El Salvador after a waiver for its bitcoin breach.

BNB Chain has become the first blockchain to surpass $1 billion in total tokenized stocks and exchange-traded funds. According to Token Terminal data, the market value of tokenized stocks and ETFs rose about 17% from $2.87 billion in August to $3.35 billion in September. As of October 2, the overall market stood at $3.7 billion, with BNB Chain accounting for $1.1 billion, or roughly 30%, followed by Ethereum at $828 million and Solana at $738 million. In January, Ethereum held about 48% of the market, while BNB Chain accounted for just 13%. In a report dated September 29, Binance Research said the number of holders on BNB Chain had reached 1.8 million, noting that Binance's bStocks, launched in late June, is driving the growth.

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation announced the DTCC tokenization service on May 4, 2026, a platform designed to bring Russell 1000 components, ETFs, and US Treasuries onto distributed ledgers. With over 50 firms including BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Circle, Ondo, and Nasdaq participating, the service moved into limited production in July 2026 following a December 2025 SEC No-Action Letter. DTCC CEO Frank La Salla said tokenization will significantly change how markets operate by bringing new levels of liquidity, transparency, and efficiency to investors, while Brian Steele of the DTCC added that the service is designed to provide systemic scale where deep liquidity already lives. The infrastructure shift extends beyond the DTCC: Nasdaq secured SEC approval on March 18, 2026, under Release 34-105047, to facilitate tokenized settlement on the same order book, ticker, and CUSIP as traditional assets, NYSE Arca followed with rule change SR-NYSEARCA-2026-45 effective April 29, 2026, and the broader NYSE received approval for its own related filings on April 17, 2026. The SEC issued a five-year conditional innovation exemption on September 17, 2026, specifically for tokenized NMS stocks, while the CFTC clarified through Staff Letter 25-39 and an updated FAQ on September 24, 2026, that tokenized collateral may be used for derivatives margin. The tokenized asset market tracked by rwa.xyz stood at approximately $38.6 billion as of late September 2026, up from $2 billion in 2022, with tokenized Treasuries accounting for $14.7 billion to $15.65 billion of that total, led by BlackRock's BUIDL at $2.70 billion, Circle's USYC at $2.60 billion, and Ondo's USDY at $2.23 billion. A June 1, 2026, Citi report estimates a base case of $5.5 trillion in tokenized assets and $1.9 trillion in stablecoins by 2030, though it warns of a messy period in which tokenized and legacy systems operate side by side.

Matt Hougan, Chief Investment Officer of Bitwise, said that the failure of the Clarity Act draft to advance in the Senate on September 15, by a vote of 49 in favor to 50 against, actually sent the crypto market higher, with Bitcoin rising nearly 11% and Ether up about 12%, while smaller tokens posted far larger gains. Hougan explained that the market may not have gotten clarity from federal-level legislation, but it also avoided a compromise deal that would have held back a major part of the industry, leaving regulators such as the SEC and CFTC to step in with measures he sees as more beneficial than the bill itself. For example, the final version of the bill would have barred platforms from paying interest or yield on stablecoin balances, but when the bill stalled, exchanges such as Coinbase were able to keep offering yields under the existing GENIUS Act framework. Meanwhile, the SEC issued a five-year innovation exemption just days after the vote, allowing limited trading of tokenized U.S. equities through blockchain-based platforms, and SEC staff also provided additional guidance in the past week for projects that buy back their own tokens. Hougan also warned of the risk that a future government could change direction at points where Congress has not locked regulation into law, but for now he said crypto has given up long-term clarity and gotten better regulation, and faster too.

South Korea's Kakaopay Securities announced on September 29 partnerships with Ondo Finance and Dinari. The company aims to build an overseas distribution framework for Korean-listed stocks and is considering issuing tokens backed by equities. It signed memoranda of understanding with Ondo on September 28 and with Dinari on September 29. Under the Ondo partnership, the two sides will jointly study a mechanism covering the sourcing and custody of Korean stocks through to overseas distribution, with Kakaopay Securities operating an omnibus account for foreign investors to source and hold the Korean shares that back the tokens. Under the Dinari partnership, the company will advance a proof of concept for a one-to-one link between underlying shares and tokens, drawing on Dinari's tokenized securities product dShares. Dinari operates infrastructure for tokenizing US stocks and exchange-traded funds, handling 724 securities as of the announcement and offering them to eligible investors in more than 85 countries and regions, including the United States. Through cooperation with both firms, Kakaopay Securities aims to build a new route for overseas individual investors to access Korean stocks.

Brazilian financial-market infrastructure provider CSD BR has moved to integrate the XRP Ledger into its regulated securities infrastructure, according to a local media outlet. The move would connect the XRP Ledger to Brazil's securities market, which the report values at $4 trillion. CSD BR is the country's financial-market infrastructure provider, and the integration targets its regulated securities operations. The report did not specify a timeline or the terms of the integration.

The Eurosystem, made up of the European Central Bank and the national central banks of the euro area, began operating Pontes on September 21, 2026, a mechanism for settling large-value transactions in tokenized assets on distributed ledgers using central bank money. From the first day, 13 financial institutions including Deutsche Bank, Santander, Société Générale and the European Investment Bank, along with four companies that operate distributed ledgers such as Clearstream, are able to use it. Pontes connects T2, the euro area's real-time funds transfer system, with private distributed ledgers, and settles transactions in T2 central bank money through cash tokens transferred on the ledger. Two settlement methods are available and can be chosen for each transaction: one completed entirely on the ledger, and one that moves funds directly in T2. The ECB positions this as an initial version, and plans to extend settlement hours in 2027 to match T2 at 22.5 hours a day, five days a week, then in 2028 to advance next-day carryover of cash tokens and support for other currencies before consolidating on the cash token method, with 24-hour, 365-day operation planned for mid-2028. Behind this is the rapid growth of tokenized assets. According to figures presented by ECB Executive Board member Piero Cipollone in an August speech, tokenized assets on public blockchains grew about fivefold in the year to the end of March 2026, reaching 23.3 billion euros.

On September 17, the SEC approved a temporary framework for trading tokenized US equities, called the Innovation Exemption, potentially giving Coinbase Global a new avenue to expand its Everything Exchange beyond crypto. Baird reiterated a Neutral rating on Coinbase with a $130 price target, saying the change could let the company offer tokenized stocks and bring its asset mix closer to Robinhood Markets. Coinbase is not starting from scratch: in June it announced plans to introduce tokenized US stocks for eligible non-US customers, and the product went live on Base in August, initially covering mega-cap names including Apple, Nvidia, and Alphabet, with tokens issued by Coinbase and backed 1:1 by the underlying assets. The SEC's permission is temporary, lasting five years, and conditional on tokenized stocks providing the same rights and privileges as the underlying shares, so Coinbase must satisfy those conditions, adapt its international tokenization infrastructure to the US market, and demonstrate enough domestic demand to meaningfully boost results. In Q2, 88% of Coinbase's net revenue came from non-Bitcoin spot trading, while prediction market contracts and revenue increased 106% quarter over quarter; hedge funds holding the stock fell to 62 in Q2 from 65 in Q1, though Cathie Wood's ARK Investment Management raised its stake 6% to about 2.5 million shares and Southpoint Capital Advisors lifted its position 50% to nearly 1 million shares, while short interest stood at 12.5% of the float as of August 31.

Krungthai Bank has launched PromptFund, a real-time fund service that applies blockchain technology to real-time fund trading. Customers can buy and sell funds with the bank instantly at any time, every day, including holidays. Sell and receive money immediately; buy and receive fund units immediately. This helps reduce the time constraints of the past, when customers had to wait overnight or several days. Customers can also see real-time trading prices to make decisions before placing orders. Mr. Payong Srivanich, President and Chief Executive Officer of Krungthai Bank, said the launch of PromptFund is a major transformation of Thai investing, building on the Digital Bond, Gold Wallet, and Global Savings services under the concept "60 Years Krungthai, Every Step for a Million Futures." Ms. Pornanong Budsaratragoon, Secretary-General of the SEC, said the SEC supports applying Distributed Ledger Technology and Blockchain in the capital market alongside Use Case testing under the Regulatory Sandbox, and is pushing for amendments to the Securities and Exchange Act, which the House of Representatives already approved in principle in the second quarter, to support the issuance of securities by electronic means. The launch of PromptFund is another step in applying the Tokenization policy to real financial services, in line with the SEC's efforts to drive the Digital Securities Ecosystem, or DSE.

Coinbase's tokenized US equities have crossed $1 billion in decentralized exchange volume on its Base network in roughly one month, a milestone the Base team announced on X on September 19, 2026, though the figure is vendor-sourced data from Base itself and the volume is strictly for non-US persons. The activity validates the B20 standard, a native ERC-20-compatible format launched on August 24, 2026 and built on Rust precompiles to handle compliance policies and pausable functions; tokenized stock spot DEX volume on Base has surged approximately 830% month-over-month, with Aerodrome, the Base-native DEX, accounting for roughly 85% of that activity, or about $852.7 million. Coinbase's model relies on direct 1:1 share ownership through Alpaca Securities as a regulated broker-custodian under the Abu Dhabi Global Market framework, giving token holders actual shareholder rights including dividends and voting, subject to eligibility, and it launched with DeFi integrations from day one including Aave, Morpho, Euler, 0x, 1inch, CoW Swap, and Wasabi. The SEC issued an Innovation Exemption, Press Release 2026-90, on September 17, 2026, a five-year conditional relief for tokenized NMS stocks that unlocks the US market provided tokenized stocks offer the same rights as the underlying securities and trading venues operate under permissioned access with OFAC compliance, and Coinbase Institutional said the framework to bring the same regulated onchain market infrastructure onshore just got clearer. Coinbase is not first to tokenize equities: Kraken's xStocks boasts $25 billion in cumulative volume, largely centralized-exchange-matched rather than on-chain DEX volume, Ondo Global Markets holds a $638 million total value locked and roughly a 58% share of the issuer market, and Binance's bStocks has reached $610 million in assets under management in just two months, while the total tokenized public equities market now sits at approximately $2.48 billion. Chainlink Data Feeds provide the pricing backbone with 24/5 continuous feeds, a 0.5% deviation threshold and 24-hour heartbeats reporting Total Return Values that account for dividends, even as Nasdaq, NYSE, and Cboe push back against tokenized equities over liquidity fragmentation and degraded price discovery during the 16 hours of overnight trading that on-chain markets enable, and SIFMA pushes for formal SEC rulemaking rather than exemptions.

Securitize Corp. has sealed a deal with ARK Invest to tokenize the ARK Venture Fund, its first tokenization contract since the Securities and Exchange Commission issued what it called the Innovation Exemption allowing tokenized representation of traditional securities. The ARK Venture Fund, an actively managed closed-end interval fund holding private and public companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic, Stripe and Databricks, will become available on Ethereum, with Securitize providing the infrastructure for onchain issuance and the investor experience. ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood said tokenizing the fund puts the firm's conviction in the evolution of capital markets into practice and called the partnership a natural extension of its mission to democratize access to disruptive innovation. Following the SEC's rules issuance on tokenized securities, Cantor Fitzgerald initiated coverage with a buy recommendation and a $21.20 price target, while Rosenblatt raised its price target to $13 from $11, citing the Innovation Exemption as a significant catalyst. Securitize manages around $5 billion of tokenized assets under management across 23 public blockchains, and the article notes that traditional financial assets total $319 trillion worldwide with only $39 billion, or 0.01 percent, currently on-chain.

Korn Chatikavanij supports amending capital market and digital asset laws to unlock the ability for Thai stocks to be listed on blockchain and to open the door to Stablecoin for payments. The approach aims to drive the official use of digital assets in Thailand's capital market, both through tokenizing securities on blockchain and using Stablecoin as a payment channel. Reports say this push involves the issues of Blockchain, Stablecoin, Thai Baht Stablecoin, Tokenization, and USDT, as well as the role of the Bank of Thailand and Thai financial innovation. The news was reported by the Thai news agency Efinancethai.

Coinbase is working to become the world's first "everything exchange," according to John D'Agostino, head of strategy at Coinbase Institutional. D'Agostino said the company is "all over tokenization" and has announced the launch of its tokenization model out of Abu Dhabi, with the aim of eventually giving US investors access to it. The tokenization model is one-to-one backed by the actual equity and will afford traditional rights to token holders, he said. Coinbase also announced that its US retail customers can participate in IPOs, part of the push to offer whatever people want in one centralized location while using blockchain and crypto rails where possible. D'Agostino pointed to the SEC's innovation exemption, noting that ETFs were granted hundreds of such exemptions in their early days and that it is very hard for industries to grow without them.

Blockchain.com, a crypto asset services company, and the New York Stock Exchange announced on September 23 that they have signed a memorandum of understanding aimed at providing access to tokenized US-listed stocks and ETFs. Under the plan, Blockchain.com users would be able to trade tokenized US stocks and ETFs through a digital alternative trading system that NYSE is developing, and if realized, this would enable trading unbound by regular market hours. In January, NYSE announced the development of a trading and settlement platform for tokenized securities supporting 24/7 trading, fractional share trading, stablecoin funding, and instant on-chain settlement. The partnership also includes the mutual provision of market data, with ICE Data Services, a unit of NYSE parent company Intercontinental Exchange, set to provide Blockchain.com's crypto asset market data and analytics to its customers, while Blockchain.com plans to integrate some ICE and NYSE data feeds into its app to deliver real-time stock information to more than 44 million verified accounts. The two companies did not disclose the timing of the service launch, the stocks and ETFs to be covered, or the financial terms of the agreement, and the launch of the service is contingent on the rollout of NYSE's digital ATS and the necessary regulatory approvals.

MoonPay has agreed to acquire private-markets infrastructure platform North Capital in an all-stock deal worth more than $60 million, as the crypto payments firm pushes further into tokenized assets. The transaction, announced Wednesday, will make North Capital a wholly owned subsidiary of MoonPay once it closes, subject to regulatory approval and other customary closing conditions. Salt Lake City-based North Capital provides technology and regulated financial services for private securities issuers, fund managers, intermediaries and investors, and its platform has handled more than $8.7 billion in primary and secondary transaction volume. Its businesses include SEC-registered broker-dealers, a transfer agent, an investment adviser and PPEX, a registered alternative trading system with more than 1,250 approved assets available for secondary-market trading. MoonPay CEO and founder Ivan Soto-Wright said all financial markets are becoming more technology-driven, but the infrastructure supporting them is still fragmented across different tech stacks, providers and workflows. MoonPay has been expanding beyond its traditional crypto payments business, launching Trade in May and acquiring Solana trading infrastructure provider DFlow and crypto security startup Sodot earlier this year.

Michael Selig, Chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, said that with the potential for "massive tokenization" to take hold in financial markets, regulators need to adapt existing markets to new technologies such as blockchain and artificial intelligence. Speaking on September 22 at a conference on the U.S. Treasury market held at the New York Fed, Selig said that developments such as tokenization, on-chain finance, and 24/7 trading are likely to change financial markets over the next decade more than the past several decades combined. The CFTC is moving forward on accommodating 24/7 trading; in May it published a staff advisory on 24/7 trading, clearing, and settlement, and in June it sought public comment on matters including 24/7 trading of standard futures contracts, with energy futures such as crude oil in mind. Selig also indicated that he plans to further examine ways to promote the "responsible adoption of stablecoins" by market participants, exchanges, and clearinghouses. Meanwhile, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on the 17th published an "innovation exemption" establishing a framework under which tokenized U.S.-listed equities can be traded on-chain under certain conditions. With the CLARITY Act, which would set a regulatory framework for crypto asset markets, failing to clear a procedural vote in the Senate, the CFTC and the SEC are each pushing ahead with building systems designed for tokenization and on-chain finance.

Bitcoin held above $86,000 on Tuesday after a multi-session rally that analysts say marks the end of the token's cyclical crypto winter. The token jumped more than 5% on Friday and another 6% on Monday, breaking solidly above its 50-day moving average. Sean Farrell, head of digital assets, told Yahoo Finance the breakout is credible and that the crypto winter is over, though he cautioned the path higher may not be linear. Compass Point analyst Ed Engle wrote that crypto is in the early innings of a new bull market with few signs of overheating, while Nansen senior research analyst Nicolai Sondergaard attributed the move to a combination of renewed ETF demand and a large short squeeze. Altcoins also surged after the Securities and Exchange Commission granted a five-year exemption last week for trading in certain tokenized stocks, a move that followed the Senate's failure to advance the Clarity Act. The total cryptocurrency market capitalization stood at $2.94 trillion on Monday, about 30% below its record valuation in October, when bitcoin reached an all-time high of more than $125,000.

Ondo Finance announced on September 21 a new feature that allows financial institutions and others to directly exchange physical U.S. stocks and ETFs they hold for corresponding tokenized products. The feature is integrated with Alpaca's Instant Tokenization Network, or ITN, a securities trading infrastructure provider. Eligible institutions can transfer shares held in their Alpaca account to an Ondo account and receive the corresponding stock tokens, called Ondo Stocks, or conversely redeem the tokens to receive physical shares. The service currently supports Ethereum and the BNB Chain, and is limited to institutions that have passed screening by both Ondo and Alpaca. Until now, Ondo offered a mechanism to issue tokenized stocks using cash or stablecoins, but even if an institution already held the underlying shares, it could not issue tokens directly using them and had to prepare separate funds. Under the new mechanism, held shares can be tokenized directly without the step of selling them and converting them into cash, making it easier to reduce funding costs and timing gaps that arise between physical stock inventory and tokenized positions. Because it becomes easier to replenish token inventory, Ondo says this will lead to narrower spreads, the difference between buying and selling prices, and greater liquidity.

Elon Musk's X platform has launched a new feature that lets users in the United States buy and sell crypto and stocks directly from the timeline, without leaving the app. Users can tap a Cashtag such as $BTC or $TSLA to see real-time price charts and related posts, then press a Trade button that takes them to a partner platform, including Interactive Brokers, Moomoo, Gemini, Kraken or Coinbase, to log in or sign up and complete the trade there. X says it does not act as a broker-dealer, and that actual trading still takes place on the partner exchanges. Cashtags have been available on X for several years, and earlier this year the company upgraded them with real-time prices and charts. Mridul Singhai, X's head of product engineering, said Cashtags help close the gap between the ticker symbols on the timeline and the market itself. X currently has about 132 million monetizable daily active users on mobile devices, and more than 245 million worldwide across all devices.

The digital bond of SCG JWD Logistics Public Company Limited, or SJWD, the company's first digital bond, sold out in full at 500 million baht in just 46 seconds through the bond trading wallet on Krungthai Bank's Paotang application. Ravin Boonyanusasna, head of the money and capital markets business at Krungthai Bank, said the bond issuance was carried out jointly with SJWD and received an overwhelming response from investors. The wallet on Paotang supports end-to-end investment, from subscription and payment to receiving interest and principal, as well as trading in the secondary market. The bank stated that the response reflects the readiness of both the business sector and investors to use digital technology in the capital market, and the bank will continue to develop technology and investment services to expand fundraising options and give the public convenient, safe, inclusive and equal access to investment.

Cathie Wood's ARK Invest sold roughly $60 million of crypto-linked equities into last week's regulatory-driven rally, including about $4 million in Bitmine and about $700,000 in Bullish, with the sales spanning Circle, Coinbase, Bitmine and Bullish plus a large slug of ARK's spot bitcoin ETF. Four days after those sales, the SEC unveiled a five-year Innovation Exemption that lets platforms trade tokenized U.S. equities without full exchange registration, and Coinbase jumped again. Coinbase closed at $194.25 on September 18, up 10.84% on the week and 21.25% on the month, but still down 43.39% over the past year, while its Q2 2026 revenue of $1.22 billion fell 18.5% year over year and missed consensus, with a GAAP loss of $1.36 per share against a $0.23 estimate. Coinbase's market share hit an all-time high of 10.3%, services revenue held at $555 million, or 48% of net revenue, and adjusted EBITDA was positive for a 14th consecutive quarter, while Strategy trades as a levered proxy on Bitcoin, which is down 29.03% year over year at $81,820.97, and miner MARA Holdings carries pure Bitcoin beta with none of Coinbase's subscription cushion. Prediction markets price the Clarity Act becoming law in 2026 at just 0.066, with the No outcome at 0.934, and Polymarket assigns a 0.555 probability of Coinbase leading in the U.S. on tokenized equities.

Solana is trading at $116 after rallying 20% this month from a September 15 dip to $97, making it the top performer among major cryptocurrencies. In the past 24 hours Solana gained 6.6%, outpacing Bitcoin's 5.3%, Ethereum's 5.4%, and XRP's 6.4%, as Bitcoin's push toward $85,000 forced a short squeeze that liquidated $262 million of short positions in a single hour once the price crossed $84,000, according to CoinGlass. Solana's own catalysts include the SEC's September 17 grant of a five-year Innovation Exemption for venues trading tokenized stocks, a market where Solana already hosts $465 million in tokenized equities, more than any other chain. Two network upgrades have also gone live: Transaction V1, which raised the transaction size limit by 3.3 times, and SIMD-0525, which cut block production time from 300 milliseconds to 250 milliseconds. Solana is set to launch Alpenglow on September 28, a rewrite of its block-agreement system aimed at improving transaction finality from 12.8 seconds to about 150 milliseconds, while Solana ETFs have seen inflows for 12 consecutive weeks. Immediate resistance sits at $119, with a daily close above that level opening the path to $123 and $132, while key support levels are $110, $105, $100, and $94; Solana remains about 61% below its all-time high of $293 set in January 2025.

The SEC issued a five-year exemption on September 17 creating a regulated pathway for certain trading venues to issue tokenized representations of publicly traded U.S. stocks, sending crypto-linked equities higher Monday morning. Ethereum is at $2,727.39, up 5.7% over the trailing 24 hours, while the iShares Ethereum Trust ETF is up 3.3% to $20.57 and the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust is up 0.7% at $767.14. Bitmine Immersion Technologies, the largest publicly traded Ethereum treasury, is at $27.42, up 6%, and SharpLink is at $9.80, up 5%, both tracking the coin as Ethereum-treasury proxies. Coinbase Global is at $205.12, up 6%, catching a separate bid because it already runs tokenized equity offerings outside the United States and sits closest to the order's practical mechanics. The exemption carries volume limits and no formal rulemaking has followed, so the durability of Coinbase's rally hinges on any U.S. onshore rollout it pursues under those conditions.

The Securities and Exchange Commission issued an "Innovation Exemption" on Sept. 17 that lets qualifying venues trade tokenized versions of U.S. stocks for five years without registering as stock exchanges, a move Robinhood Markets CEO Vlad Tenev has campaigned for since the start of 2025. Robinhood shares climbed 5% that day and trade at about $120. The relief is temporary and conditional: a venue must verify every token it lists carries the same rights and privileges as conventional shares, including dividends and votes, must give a company written notice and a chance to object before trading a third-party tokenized version of its stock, and must publish its plans publicly at least 30 days before launching, with the order capping symbols and volume. Robinhood's existing stock tokens, launched in Europe in mid-2025 and expanded to more than 120 countries, are structured as debt securities and would not qualify because holders do not own the underlying shares and cannot vote them. Three days before the order, on Sept. 14, Tenev said in a post on X that "in-kind redemption and voting are coming for Robinhood Stock Tokens," and Johann Kerbrat, who runs Robinhood's crypto business, called the exemption "a signal that tokenization is ready to come to the United States." Robinhood's equities transaction revenue jumped 95% year over year in the second quarter to $129 million, accelerating from 46% growth in Q1, while total revenue rose 32% to $1.31 billion and net income grew 48%.

Bitcoin climbed to an eight-month high above $85,000 on Monday, peaking at $85,222 for a gain of up to 5.1% as renewed ETF demand and improving appetite for risk assets extended momentum from the prior week. The token settled at $85,117, a 4.7% advance, and has now surged more than 30% from its Aug. 19 level while adding close to 6% in last week's trading alone, staying comfortably clear of the $80,000 mark that had repeatedly resisted upward breakthroughs in prior weeks. Zaye Capital Markets analyst Naeem Aslam cited accelerating ETF inflows, favorable signals from regulators, and traders covering short positions, while on the options platform Deribit call contracts outnumbered puts by more than 272,000 to 154,000. FxPro chief market analyst Alex Kuptsikevich told Bloomberg that the crypto market capitalization has risen to $2.8T, its highest level since the end of January this year, with buyers dominating since Sunday. Falling oil prices and optimism ahead of a planned Thursday summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping lifted risk assets broadly, with Ether rising more than 4.3% to $2,747 while XRP, Solana, and Monero also gained. The milestone builds on a recovery that absorbed the failure of the Clarity Act and the Federal Reserve's first interest-rate increase in more than three years, aided by a Securities and Exchange Commission green light on Thursday for digital versions of securities to begin trading in the U.S., though bitcoin remains well below the $97,000-plus level it hit in mid-January and trails its all-time October record by an even wider margin.

Binance Wallet, the Web3 wallet of major cryptocurrency exchange Binance, announced on September 20 a new service called Pre-Access that gives users access to tokenized products linked to pre-IPO private companies. Eligible users can join a limited-time purchase subscription through Binance Wallet, with token sales conducted on PancakeSwap; after the sale ends, users either receive their allocated tokens or get a refund for the portion they were not allocated. The move addresses the difficulty ordinary investors face in gaining investment opportunities in private companies, and PancakeSwap signaled its aim to bring indirect investment exposure to previously hard-to-access private companies on-chain through tokenization. Demand has been evident in previous related products: a subscription campaign for a SpaceX-linked product that Binance Wallet ran in June drew applications worth more than 557 million dollars from 27,689 wallets, but the campaign was halted because the necessary backing assets could not be secured. What users acquire through the service is not equity in the private company but tokens indirectly linked to the company's value; they carry no shareholder rights such as voting rights or dividends, and there is no guarantee they will convert into shares even if the company goes public. Risks include reduced allocations or cancellation due to oversubscription, as well as low liquidity and the inability to cash out, and the first target company will be announced later. The service is not expected to be available in Japan for now; Binance Japan stated in June that it does not offer Binance Wallet domestically, and the official FAQ does not disclose eligible regions, so plans for a domestic launch remain unclear.

Peter Schiff says Bitcoin's rally above $80,000 following the SEC's tokenized-stock decision "makes no sense," arguing the development creates more competition for BTC. Bitcoin jumped more than 5% Friday to around $80,587 after the Securities and Exchange Commission opened a regulatory route for tokenized US equities, and later traded around $81,290 on Saturday, up roughly 1.6% over 24 hours. The SEC granted qualifying platforms a five-year conditional "innovation exemption" allowing tokenized US stocks to trade using blockchain-based infrastructure, with issuers receiving advance notice and the right to object, and investors retaining standard rights such as dividends and voting rights. Schiff argues tokenized shares can offer blockchain-based ownership while retaining dividends and shareholder rights, making them a more reliable store of value than Bitcoin, though Bitcoin supporters view BTC as a fundamentally different asset. Tokenized stocks are currently valued at only about $3 billion, with less than $30 billion in monthly trading volume, according to Reuters Breakingviews, while Bitcoin ETF inflows returned Thursday with roughly $160 million entering the products after two days of outflows.

Binance is significantly expanding its traditional brokerage platform, Binance Stock Trading, by adding 25 new listings at once today at 13:30 UTC. The move comes as the platform approaches a $754 million milestone in real-world assets. Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange, is pushing further into tokenized traditional equities through the expansion. The 25 new listings represent a single batch within the broader Binance Stock Trading platform, which is nearing the $754 million RWA milestone.

On September 18, Binance Research published a report analyzing the real-world asset tokenization market, titled "The RWA Activation Era," reporting that on-chain RWA assets under management reached $34.18 billion, equivalent to approximately 5.37 trillion yen, up 85.2% year-to-date. The largest category was bonds and money market funds, with AUM of $18.29 billion. Equities rose 390.4% year-to-date to $4.43 billion, and their share of all tracked RWA expanded from 4.9% to 13.0%. Meanwhile, gold and commodities rose 46.6%, private credit 43.6%, and real estate 17.9%. The report introduces a "Programmable Asset Ratio," which shows tokenized assets as a proportion of the underlying asset market, and a "Capital Activation Rate," which shows the share of tokenized assets actually being used in on-chain finance, noting that while the major asset markets eligible for tokenization exceed $300 trillion globally, the share currently tokenized on-chain remains at only about 0.01%. The CAR for all tracked RWA is about 12%, with private credit posting the highest CAR at 49.67%, while equities also climbed from 1.95% at the start of the year to 7.54%. Binance Research analyzes that in the next growth phase of the RWA market, it will be important not only to issue assets on the blockchain but also to use them for liquidity provision, lending, and collateral.

Avalanche's AVAX token surged nearly 50% over the past week to an eight-month high of $10.82 on Sunday, lifted by a wave of institutional tokenization headlines. The biggest catalyst came from Intercontinental Exchange, the NYSE parent, which has spent roughly a year testing Avalanche for a potential 24/7 platform for tokenized US stocks and ETFs, though ICE has not selected Avalanche or announced a commercial deal, and Ava Labs President Charley Cooper said the firm remains actively engaged with the network. New York Life Investment Management announced plans to launch its first tokenized fund on Avalanche through Centrifuge, giving eligible investors exposure to US high-yield corporate bonds, while Aave is developing an institutional RWA lending market on Avalanche, Paxos expanded support for AVAX and USDC, and Janus Henderson joined the network as a validator. Avalanche's Helicon upgrade is scheduled for Sept. 22, cutting the minimum staking lockup from 14 days to 48 hours and adjusting validator requirements and rewards. On the charts, AVAX rebounded from the lower boundary of a giant falling wedge that has developed since the 2021 peak, bouncing near the $5.80 to $6.50 support zone and recovering above its 20-week EMA near $7.97; a continued rebound could target $19 to $20, where the wedge's descending upper trendline converges with the 0.236 Fibonacci retracement level near $19.86, an approximately 85 to 90% rally from current levels around $10.50. The setup would weaken if AVAX loses the wedge's lower trendline and falls decisively below the $5.80 support area, while the 50-week exponential moving average is serving as solid resistance.