The surge in interest in tokenization could impact the prices of cryptocurrencies related to the sector, such as ETH, SOL, XRP, and LINK. This view was expressed by analysts at Bitwise.
“I’ve always had mixed feelings about tokenization. On one hand, it seems inevitable. The fact that stocks trade only from 9:30 to 16:00 on weekdays is absurd. But despite the sense of inevitability, I often thought it was too early. Just ask anyone who has seen how long it took to move from floor trading to electronic trading,” noted Bitwise’s Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan.
The stock and bond market is valued at $257 trillion—a figure that far exceeds even the most ambitious goals for the cryptocurrency market’s capitalization, the expert stated. Therefore, even a moderate adoption of tokenization at 1-5% would unlock trillions of dollars.
While full-scale trading of securities on the blockchain may be decades away, actions by major companies like Robinhood and Tradeweb indicate a growing momentum, experts noted.
“The narrative around tokenization will only accelerate—if Robinhood launches tokenized trading, you can be sure that Charles Schwab and others are actively exploring it. I expect a wave of new announcements this fall,” said Hougan.
Investing in a basket of leading blockchain projects and infrastructure solutions like Ethereum, Solana, XRP, and Chainlink is the “purest” way to invest in the tokenization trend, according to Bitwise.
At the end of June, Robinhood announced the development of its own blockchain network and the launch of tokenized stock trading on the L2 protocol Arbitrum. The company issued tokens based on securities from OpenAI, Robinhood Markets, Trump Media & Technology Group, Schwab U.S. Dividend Equity ETF, and YieldMax MSTR Option Income Strategy.
Robinhood’s co-founder and CEO Vladimir Tenev stated that numerous private companies have approached his firm to add their tokenized stocks.
Tokenization on BNB Chain
In May, Kraken announced the launch of tokenized stock trading for Apple, Tesla, Nvidia, and 50 other companies for users in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
Each asset is backed by a share or ETF stake through Kraken’s partner, the Swiss company Backed Finance. The price of xStocks is synchronized with the market value of the underlying assets.
Tokens tied to real securities, xStocks, were initially launched on the Solana blockchain. On July 9, Kraken and Backed announced the addition of BNB Chain. In the coming weeks, exchange clients outside the U.S. will be able to deposit and withdraw tokenized securities via BNB Chain and Solana on the centralized exchange.
“[…] These instruments function as programmable settlement units, providing instant payments, real-time cross-border transfers, and integration with on-chain lending, derivatives, and structured products,” commented Kraken’s co-CEO Arjun Sethi.
Backed will issue xStocks on BNB Chain as BEP-20 standard tokens, offering tokenized versions of U.S.-listed stocks and ETFs, such as AAPLx, TSLAx, SPYx, and NVDAx.
According to Dune’s panel by venture firm Hashed, xStocks generated $32.8 million in on-chain trading volume. However, these figures do not account for internal metrics on centralized exchanges, so the total trading turnover could be significantly higher.
In July, AI startup OpenAI called the tokens of its shares on the Robinhood platform fake and denied involvement in the launch.