Original｜Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)
Stock tokenization is seen as a revolution initiated by the cryptocurrency industry against the traditional financial system, aiming to deepen the integration of cryptocurrencies into the stock market and gradually reshape its trading rules. Following platforms like Robinhood and xStocks that promoted the tokenization of U.S. stocks, some listed companies have also begun to embrace this trend. On the evening of August 5, market news reported that U.S. listed crypto giant Galaxy Digital plans to issue tokenized stock GLXY and has signed a cooperation agreement with Superstate, a company under Robert Leshner, for its RWA (Real World Assets) platform. Odaily Planet Daily will provide a brief analysis of this below for readers' reference.
The landscape of U.S. stock tokenization has changed: When crypto giants choose "self-revolution"
When mentioning Galaxy, many may feel somewhat unfamiliar, but it has been listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange's venture board in Canada since 2018, becoming "the world's first publicly listed crypto asset investment and management company." In May of this year, Galaxy completed its restructuring from the Cayman Islands to the U.S., officially listing on NASDAQ under the stock code GLXY, thus becoming a benchmark enterprise in the cryptocurrency industry.
Moreover, Galaxy is known as "the Goldman Sachs of the cryptocurrency industry." Previously, it participated in asset custody for ETH treasury reserve companies like BitMine, Sharplink Gaming, and Bit Digital. With the stock price speculation of ETH treasury reserve companies in June and July, Galaxy's stock price surged from 18.5 dollars in early June to 30.59 dollars on July 20. As of the time of writing, Galaxy's after-hours stock price is reported at 27.21 dollars, with a 24-hour decline of 1.7%. According to on-chain analyst Ai Yi's statistics, Rootdata information shows that Galaxy Digital has invested in 124 projects, including Sonic, Monad, Ethena, Babylon, and Plume, with a profit of 71.2 million dollars from its investment in EOS during 2018-2019, achieving a return on investment of 123%. It also profited hundreds of millions of dollars during the Luna incident but was ultimately fined 200 million dollars for being considered one of the instigators of the Luna collapse.
In addition, Galaxy is an active intermediary in the OTC market, with its most notable recent operation being helping early BTC investors complete the sale of over 80,000 bitcoins, which, based on the market value at the time, exceeded 9 billion dollars, making it one of the largest nominal bitcoin transactions in the history of the crypto market.
Yesterday, Galaxy's NASDAQ-listed subsidiary Galaxy Digital announced its Q2 financial report for the period ending June 30, 2025, reporting a net income of 30.7 million dollars, a total equity value of 2.6 billion dollars, and holding approximately 1.2 billion dollars in cash and stablecoins. Thanks to the aforementioned "80,000 BTC transaction," its digital asset business adjusted gross profit reached 71.4 million dollars, a 10% increase quarter-over-quarter.
Additionally, on-chain analyst Ai Yi monitored that Galaxy Digital currently holds approximately 921 million dollars in on-chain assets, including 5,119.73 BTC (about 585 million dollars); 75,425 ETH (about 268 million dollars); 151,196 SOL (about 24.51 million dollars); and also holds 17.49 million USDT and 6.67 million USDC. The top five assets held are all mainstream coins and stablecoins.
It is worth mentioning that among Galaxy's early investors, there is a rare Asian presence—HCM Capital, an investment institution under Foxconn Group, had early bets on Galaxy Digital, and this capital institution also participated in investing in industry giant Digital Currency Group (DCG). See more in “Cryptocurrency Investment Bank Galaxy Digital Goes Public! Do You Recognize the Chinese Investors Behind It?”_.
With its industry status, asset management scale, and the aura of being a U.S. listed company, Galaxy's choice to actively tokenize its stock may be driven by two considerations:
On one hand, it may be due to the Q2 financial report data and business performance being somewhat lackluster, falling short of market expectations. Although Galaxy's Q2 report significantly outperformed Q1, even turning a loss of 295 million dollars in Q1 into a profit with an adjusted gross profit of 299 million dollars, the sharp decline in its asset scale (total assets decreased by 43% to 6.3 billion dollars), the highly uncertain regulatory environment, and the high-risk, high-volatility market have made investors skeptical about its future market performance. Following this news, its stock price fell 7.6% to 28.10 dollars in pre-market trading after the report was released.
On the other hand, it may be eyeing the explosive potential of the stock tokenization market. As early as May of this year, Galaxy founder Mike Novogratz revealed that Galaxy Digital intends to tokenize its stock into DeFi application tokens, with specific application scenarios including lending and trading. As a giant in the cryptocurrency industry, Galaxy believes that "tokenizing U.S. stocks" has immense growth potential and could even create a new market worth trillions of dollars, with features like 24/7 trading and targeting non-U.S. investors further releasing market liquidity. Of course, as a listed company, it candidly stated that the relevant market is still in its early stages and cautiously pointed out in SEC filings: The tokenized securities market is still in its infancy, and there is no guarantee that tokenized GLXY will develop into a large-scale and orderly circulation market in the future. Compared to regulated national exchanges like NASDAQ, on-chain trading mechanisms (such as DEX) may have significant gaps in liquidity, trading volume, transparency, and regulatory frameworks.
Nevertheless, based on the current market progress, Galaxy has taken a key step.
Galaxy's stock tokenization partner: Superstate's RWA business model
As soon as the news of Galaxy's stock tokenization broke, it was quickly confirmed by Superstate CEO and RobotVentures founder Robert Leshner, who is also the founder of the well-known DeFi protocol Compound. It is worth noting that previously, NASDAQ-listed company 180 Life Sciences announced plans to raise approximately 425 million dollars through private equity financing to establish an Ethereum treasury, and after the transaction is completed, the company will be renamed ETHZilla Corporation, with Robert Leshner also being one of the investors.
The collaboration between Superstate and Galaxy has been premeditated.
It is understood that Galaxy signed a "Digital Asset Transfer Token Agreement" with Superstate Services in May of this year, officially appointing the company as its digital asset transfer agent; Superstate Services is the company behind the RWA tokenization platform Superstate, which has gained attention in the market for launching several tokenized private funds (such as USTB and USCC).
In May of this year, Superstate launched an on-chain trading platform called "Opening Bell" and submitted a framework proposal to the SEC in collaboration with several institutions.
At that time, the project claimed it would be the first to deploy on the Solana chain, achieving a native integration of traditional equity and blockchain infrastructure, eliminating reliance on CEX and traditional listing mechanisms, and providing continuous trading and real-time settlement through blockchain facilities. The "SOL version of MicroStrategy," SOL Strategies, will be the first to tokenize its common stock on the Solana chain, allowing U.S. stocks to circulate directly on-chain. This was recently confirmed by SOL Strategies CEO @LeahWald , who also emphasized: "Unlike tokenized packaging, this is a fully compliant, tradable equity that can be seamlessly exchanged with its underlying security."
From this point on, Superstate may become the go-to choice for an increasing number of crypto concept stocks and U.S. stocks opting for on-chain tokenization. Based on Robert Leshner's previous experience in founding Compound, it may further activate liquidity inflow from the U.S. stock market to the on-chain market, provided that the trading experience of on-chain U.S. stock tokens surpasses that of the U.S. stock market.
Conclusion: Internal and External Forces Converge, U.S. Stock Tokenization Welcomes a Turning Point
If the previous tokenization of U.S. stocks by platforms like Robinhood, xStocks, and MyStonks resembled a "Trojan War" initiated by the cryptocurrency industry from the outside against the U.S. stock market—especially Robinhood's attempt to pre-price equity in unlisted companies like SpaceX and OpenAI—then the actions of companies like Galaxy and SOL Strategies actively collaborating with the RWA platform Superstate to promote stock tokenization resemble a "proactive revolution" sparked from within. This leverages their deep expertise in the crypto industry to advance the deep coupling of liquidity between the stock market and the crypto market.
As for whether Galaxy's stock price and business performance can achieve new heights through this, it will depend on whether the U.S. stock market and the crypto market can absorb the "big pie" it has drawn.
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