#每周来晒 #周末行情你看涨还是看跌 Tokenized stocks are exploding—is this innovation or just a game?
Every day, you watch Apple, NVIDIA, Tesla, and other companies’ market caps break through new levels, or see how much their stocks have fallen. If you want a share of the action, all you can do is anxiously watch from the sidelines. The A-share market opens at 9:30 a.m., and you still cannot catch the U.S. market after hours.
But now there is a way: open an application on a blockchain, spend $100 to buy 0.02 “tokenized NVDA,” and complete the transaction in seconds.
What exactly is this? Is it reliable?
The global number of tokenized stock holders has surpassed 1.09 million, with weekly growth at one point reaching as high as 117%; Jupiter’s monthly tokenized stock trading volume grew 360% year-on-year, with more than 65% of trades taking place outside regular U.S. stock market hours.
What are tokenized stocks?
Traditional stocks are like “only being able to buy when the supermarket is open,” while tokenized stocks are like “a vending machine—you scan a code and take what you want.”
Tokenized stocks take shares of companies such as Apple, NVIDIA, and Tesla, cut them into “grains of rice,” and sell them on a blockchain. Behind every “grain of rice” (token) is one or more real shares—when a user buys one xAAPL on-chain, it is equivalent to having a licensed custodian hold one Apple share on the user’s behalf.
This solves three problems that traditional finance cannot:
(1) The threshold problem: Buying one lot of Kweichow Moutai in the A-share market is unaffordable (¥200k), while buying one lot of NVIDIA shares costs ¥100k.
After tokenization, $10 is enough to buy “half a grain of rice”—fractional ownership cuts the threshold down to ankle height;
(2) The time problem: Traditional stock markets trade for 4 to 9 hours a day, and the rest of the time, the world is shut down.
Tokenized stocks trade 7×24 hours, so you can place an order even at 2 a.m.;
(3) The speed problem: Traditional stock settlement takes T+1 or even T+2.
On-chain trades settle in seconds, and assets can immediately be used as “cash equivalents” for DeFi collateral, wealth management, and cross-border transfers.
Most importantly, the cross-border and fractional nature of this development offers unlimited room for imagination.
After looking at these six figures, you will notice an interesting phenomenon: the absolute scale is still very small, but growth has already taken off—this is a typical signal of the eve of every “mainstream narrative.”
When tokenized U.S. Treasuries and BlackRock’s BUIDL first emerged, the market was the same—small but accelerating, with institutions following the trend, and then suddenly becoming standard.
A penetration rate of 0.0007% does not mean “failure”; it means the sector is “still in its infancy.” Thirteen years ago, Bitcoin’s share of the global payments market was also this figure, and no one now calls it an experiment.
How did it develop?—Four major milestones
The biggest gray rhino facing digital assets in the past was “not knowing whether the SEC recognized them.” Since 2026, the regulatory attitude has shifted from ambiguity to clarity, laying out lanes for the entire sector:
Milestone 1: December 2025—DTC no-action letter The Depository Trust Company (DTC) obtained an SEC no-action letter, meaning that underlying stocks could be tokenized after securities trading and settlement. This was “fixing the pipeline”—without this step, all subsequent tokenization would be castles in the air.
Milestone 2: January 28, 2026—SEC’s three-division joint guidance The SEC’s three major divisions—Corporation Finance, Investment Management, and Trading and Markets—jointly issued guidance on the classification of tokenized securities. This was the first time U.S. regulators systematically answered the question, “How exactly should tokenized stocks be regulated?” The most critical point in the guidance was the distinction between two types of products:
(1) Issuer-tokenized stocks—the issuing company itself puts the stock on-chain, granting genuine equity, voting rights, and dividend rights.
(2) Third-party synthetic tokens—“price-tracking tokens” synthesized by someone else on your behalf, with no voting or dividend rights and essentially contracts for difference (CFDs).
Milestone 3: March 17, 2026—SEC+CFTC joint interpretation The two major regulators issued a joint statement: regardless of whether they are on-chain, tokenized securities remain subject to existing federal securities laws. Going on-chain is not a shortcut to evade regulation; they are regulated in the same way as before.
Milestone 4: March 19, 2026—Nasdaq approval The SEC approved a Nasdaq rule change allowing tokenized securities to trade on the same order book as traditional stocks (initially limited to Russell 1000 constituents).
This day was dubbed “Nasdaq’s entry” by the industry: traditional exchanges had officially accepted tokenized assets. When the largest securities exchange in the U.S. says, “We can play together now,” this is no longer a crypto industry experiment—it is an official Wall Street issue.
Not all tokenized stocks are the same
Many users treat “tokenized stocks” as one single category.
In reality, tokenized stocks using different models can have vastly different risk and rights structures.
The vast majority of tokenized stocks people encounter are price-tracking synthetic tokens. For example, what a user buys is the “direction of Apple’s price movement,” not an equity interest in Apple granted to the user by the company. This is the most common conceptual trap, so be sure to understand it clearly.
The biggest “trap” with tokenized stocks is not the technology, but “thinking you bought a stock.” What users buy may be price tracking, a contract for difference, or a price insurance policy—but it is definitely not a shareholder certificate.
What will happen to tokenized stocks in the future?
Nasdaq has already opened the door. The next steps are the New York Stock Exchange, CME, and then major exchanges around the world.
Within five years, the words “market close” may disappear from the financial dictionary. AI agents replacing users to monitor markets overnight and rebalance positions will become standard practice. Fractionalization will let ordinary people use “high-value assets” for “small investments”: $5 to buy one “grain of rice,” or $100 to become a “mini NVIDIA shareholder”—technology will flatten the wealth threshold.
At the same time, this means that the channel for retail speculation will be opened, but retail investors will also be more vulnerable to high volatility.
Entering 2026, AI agents will become the biggest players. This is the most critical point. In the past, stock trading was people competing against one another, while AI conducted high-frequency quantitative trading. But tokenized stocks + smart contracts + 7×24 hours will lead to a large number of “AI fund managers” automatically running strategies, taking profits and stopping losses, and rebalancing positions. These agents will trade thousands of times a day, backed by hundreds of millions of dollars in capital.
This follows the same logic as the “AI agent phone” we discussed before: once every asset is on-chain, every decision can be handed over to AI.
Tokenized stocks are the most practical starting point for this trend.
At present, the vast majority of tokenized stocks are synthetic tokens (tracking prices only). Over the next 5–10 years, more and more issuers will put their stocks on-chain themselves, turning tokens into genuine “digital stocks.” By then, what users buy will not just be “Apple’s price,” but real equity, voting rights, and dividend rights in Apple.
The true innovation of tokenized stocks is not moving stocks onto the blockchain; it is redesigning the door of “who can participate in finance.”
Which do you favor: tokenized stocks or cryptocurrency? Let’s discuss in the comments ☕☕.
