The Tokenization Movement Extends to Equities

From bonds to commodities to real estate, talk of tokenization is spreading through the financial world. On blockchains, it “may facilitate capital formation and enhance investors’ ability to use their assets as collateral,” Hester Peirce of the Securities and Exchange Commission said in July. Yet “tokenized securities are still securities” and subject to federal securities laws.

Why not equities? In the name of market modernization and democratization, digital marketplaces are blazing a trail into tokenized representations of shares. Robinhood Markets did so controversially in Europe with tokens tied to privately held OpenAI.

Amid competing moves by the likes of Gemini and Kraken, Coinbase has sought SEC approval to offer tokenized equities. The crypto trading platform includes tokenized real-world assets, stocks and other instruments in its vision of an “everything exchange.”

In recent days, Ondo Finance and Backed Finance’s XStocks have launched or expanded equity tokenization offerings. A “bridge” between traditional and on-chain markets enabled Galaxy Digital common stock to be the first publicly listed U.S. equity security...