They say that the tens of billions of people locked out are the real market for tokenized stocks.

They say the tens of billions of people locked out from the market are the real audience for tokenized stocks.

An Argentinian wants to buy SPY, a Nigerian wants to buy NVDA, a Turk wants to hold dollar-denominated assets, and a Chinese person wants to allocate overseas assets. A US VC asks, “Who will buy tokenized stocks?”—but really, they’re asking, “Why not Robinhood?”

But those tens of billions of people can’t use Robinhood at all.

I think this conclusion is right—but only halfway.

A lot of the time, what they actually want is dollars, and stocks are just a convenient wrapper they can buy into.

In the past few years, what has truly taken off has been stablecoins and on-chain Treasuries, while this stock layer has stayed lukewarm.

But that, in turn, makes me more and more fixated on another thing.

The crypto dream in 2009 was to bypass banks, bypass the US dollar, bypass Wall Street, and bypass sovereignty. By 2026, the most successful crypto products are all, without exception, helping more people worldwide hold US assets.

Many people call this tradfi on-chain, but what’s really happening is that crypto has become a new distribution channel for the dollar system.

The wildest part is that the US isn’t stopping it—it's instead giving stablecoins legislation the green light in return. Because Washington has figured it out: on-chain dollars and on-chain Treasuries are its best export channels, moving capital into places where capital controls exist and where banks can’t get in. The decentralized track that was meant to take down the empire back then has become the empire’s most efficient cargo truck.

So one day, when tens of billions of people enter US capital markets through wallets instead of brokers—

does that mean crypto won, or does the dollar have won?

I lean toward the latter, but maybe I’m just too pessimistic.