Analysis of the five major publishers’ holding addresses reveals the true image of on-chain token holders.

Written by: Arrakis Research

Translated by: AididiaoJP, Foresight News

As of September 13, 2026, Arrakis Research analyzed the holdings of Ondo, xStocks, bStocks, Robinhood, and Backpack across four chains. The on-chain value is approximately $2.29 billion, with an end-user value of $2.22 billion. In the past year, the supply of tokenized stocks has grown over five times, from 60 contracts to 2,344, covering 1,060 companies and funds. Funds are highly concentrated. Self-custody accounts for 46% of the end-user value, while exchanges and custodians account for 44%, and protocol contracts account for 10%. 718 whale addresses hold $733.6 million, which is equivalent to 72% of the self-custody value held by 0.056% of addresses; 64% of this is on Ondo Ethereum, with nearly half being long positions in funds such as the S&P 500. Large retail investors prefer individual stocks, primarily in Circle, Tesla, and Strategy, with quicker turnover. Small retail investors make up 98% of the addresses but only account for 6% of the value; many new entries on bStocks and Robinhood come from meme coins.

Of the $80.5 billion in on-chain transactions, wash trading and automated trading account for over half, while organic transactions amount to approximately $6.2 billion, but have accelerated in the past three months. Wash traders hold almost no positions but contributed significant bStocks volume during the Binance Alpha point period. After US market hours, spreads widen significantly. Ethereum is where the large funds are located, with the highest average holding and longest holding periods; BNB Chain has the most users, with three-quarters of the value on exchanges and custodians. Robinhood Chain invests more value into DeFi, with meme coin trading accounting for 36% of its stock token transactions. The SEC granted a five-year exemption on September 17, allowing venues to trade tokenized US stocks under certain conditions; Nasdaq, NYSE, and LSE are also advancing related arrangements. The report believes that current growth mainly comes from the accessibility of overseas retail, and to scale further, clarity on primary issuance, dividend voting rights, and clear claims on underlying assets is still needed.

The Rise of Tokenized Equity

In the past year, tokenized stocks have evolved from early experiments to one of the fastest-growing markets on-chain. Most products are supported by underlying stocks, held by custodians, and track listed shares. Unlike broker accounts, they can be traded around the clock, cover global investors, and gradually provide after-hours and weekend price discovery, while also having direct access to DeFi. On the regulatory front, the CLARITY Act was stalled in the Senate on September 15, 2026; two days later, the SEC opened a conditional path for venues to trade tokenized shares; ESMA issued an assessment the week prior. As the path becomes clearer, the number of issuers has increased, and a global holder base is forming. According to rwa.xyz, supply has grown over five times in the past year, with eighteen platforms reaching a total of $2.86 billion. As of September 13, the five issuers have collectively about $832.6 million (Ondo), $589.6 million (xStocks), $652.7 million (bStocks), $173 million (Robinhood), and $26.5 million (Backpack); along with Securitize, Reality, Figure, and other platforms.

How the Market Forms

In the fifteen months since xStocks minted its first tokenized US stock, the stock token contracts from the five issuers have increased from 60 to 2,344, covering 1,060 companies and funds. In the past six months, the number of contracts has more than doubled, with 923 minted for the first time in June. Backpack has expanded the fastest on Solana, adding 30 contracts in the 13 days before September. Of the 1,060 targets, most are provided by only one issuer; twelve are provided by all five, including SPCX, DELL, HIMS, IBM, MSTR; AAPL, AMZN, NVDA appear in four of them. During the same period, the number of self-custody addresses holding tokenized shares surged from 1,076 to 1.28 million.

Nearly Half of Market Share Held by Exchanges or Custodial Institutions

On-chain, $2.29 billion was measured, with $2.22 billion accounted for as end-user funds, and approximately $70.8 million belonging to market makers, routing, token contracts, launch pads, and cross-chain bridges. Among end-user value, self-custody accounts for 46% ($1.01 billion), exchanges or custodial wallets account for 44% ($974.2 million), and protocol contracts for 10% ($231.5 million).

The proportion of self-custody is entirely dependent on the issuer: Ondo is about 80%, bStocks about 8%. Among the $626.6 million held by bStocks holders, 83% is on Binance.

80% of Ondo’s assets are on a combination of Ethereum and BNB; the differences between the two are significant. xStocks is similarly split: most Ethereum value is self-custodied, while most on Solana is on exchanges. Binance Alpha custodial wallets hold $140.6 million of the Ondo BNB supply. Robinhood has no exchange listing, thus no exchange custodial supply; its end-user value is mostly in protocol contracts, primarily between Uniswap and Lighter.

Transaction Costs

Tokenized stocks are mainly traded through centralized exchange order books, or on-chain liquidity pools, market makers/issuers’ quotes. Which is cheaper depends on the issuer, trade size, and the day of the week.

For Ondo and xStocks, small amounts are cheaper on the centralized order book: a $100 round trip on MEXC costs 2 basis points, while its own quote is 12.8 basis points. Beyond $100, the order reverses; Ondo’s quotes can maintain prices within $20,000, while the centralized order book widens. For xStocks, Bybit's order book is the cheapest across all scales.

After US market close, the liquidity for tokenized US stocks thins. After 8:00 PM EDT on Friday, after-hours trading ends, and Ondo's quotes rise from 13.3 basis points to 23.1 basis points, while the centralized order book nearly doubles in size; xStocks’ main on-chain pathway maintains weekday levels over the weekend.

During weekday nights, underlying shares can still be traded in overnight venues, but from 8:00 PM Friday to 8:00 PM Sunday, there are no trades or settlements. Market makers buying tokens on Friday night may not be able to hedge or check prices until Sunday, thus relaxing quotes or opting out.

Both Ondo and Kraken documents indicate that bid-ask spreads widen during US market hours; the BNB Chain market maker guidelines state that bStocks quotes may be unavailable. Filippo Armani, the head of digital asset research at Dune, stated that Arrakis shows that spreads on tokenized stocks widen in times when the listed market is closed, causing market makers to exit because they cannot hedge before Monday; stock perpetuals are different, remaining open, and funding rates continue to accrue, leaving a continuous record in the market.

How Much of the Volume is Organic

The five issuers collectively recorded $80.5 billion in transactions: $34.4 billion on seven exchanges and $46.1 billion on-chain.

Of the on-chain transactions, about 26% appear to be incentivized wash trading, with another 27% being automated trading. Wash trading refers to trading to receive volume-based rewards: Binance Alpha points are tiered based on volume, and wash traders often buy and sell repeatedly to pass thresholds.

Many automated trades are akin to arbitrage, aligning on-chain prices with stock prices; in trades where counterparties can be tracked, automated trade amounts are nearly equal. Organic trading refers to addresses buying and selling out of interest in the underlying stocks themselves. After removing wash trading and automation, the differences between issuers' transactions narrow. On-chain organic transactions are approximately $6.2 billion, accounting for about 14% of the on-chain volume; wash trading and automation combined make up about 53%; with another 33% coming from exchanges, infrastructure, and addresses that never held $10 at the end of the day. Organic transactions are accelerating, with over half occurring in the last three months.

How Holders Are Categorized

Self-custody addresses are categorized by historical maximum positions and trading behaviors: whales (over $100,000), large retail (between $10,000 and $100,000), small retail (between $10 and $10,000).

There are also wash traders and automated traders. The sixth category is exchanges and custodians holding for clients. Approximately 1.1 million addresses with maximum positions below $10 are excluded from this profile, collectively holding about $1 million, making up just 0.1% of the self-custody value.

Whales with Holdings Over $100,000

Based on holdings and on-chain transactions: whales hold $851.1 million, with transactions totaling $2.94 billion; large retail holds $95.9 million, with transactions of $848 million; small retail holds $44.7 million, with transactions amounting to $2.45 billion; those holding below $10 have $1.12 million with transactions of $5.27 billion; wash traders hold $270,000, with transactions of $1.195 billion; automated traders hold $6.47 million, with transactions of $1.267 billion; exchanges and custodians hold $974.2 million, with transactions of $636.2 million; unclassified holders have $14.5 million, with transactions of $573 million.

As of September 13, 718 whale addresses hold $733.6 million. 72% of self-custody value is held by 0.056% of addresses.

The launch of bStocks, Robinhood, and Backpack in June and July brought in new whales, but over 40% of May’s whales have since left, primarily from Ondo BNB. 91% of leavers had their value in individual stocks rather than funds, while among those remaining, this ratio is 64%.

Most leavers from Ondo BNB entered in May, during which AI chip stocks took off and Micron's share prices nearly doubled; in May, the number of Ondo BNB whales increased by 65%, with the maximum buys coming from Micron. By the cutoff date, 72% of these new whales had left. Ondo represents a higher proportion among whales: 51% of whale addresses hold 76% of its value, with an average balance of $1.53 million, while the median for other issuers is $491,000.

Ondo Ethereum whales hold their assets longer, with 59% of positions remaining open 30 days later, with nearly half in funds, primarily S&P 500 tracking products (IVV, SPY); most enter through aggregators and protocols like CoW Protocol and 1inch rather than minting.

xStocks whales have about half traded on-chain, with a median of 62 trades, while other issuers range from 5 to 36 trades. Among traceable whale wallets, about half of trade times fall within the European timezone. Substantial whale funds seem to seek long-term positions for broad exposure to US equities: 64% on Ondo Ethereum, with nearly half in long positions in funds.

Large Holders with Transactions Between $10,000 and $100,000

As of the cutoff date, large retail had 3,499 addresses, holding $105.8 million.

22% of their value is in two crypto companies: Circle (CRCL) and Strategy (MSTR), while this ratio for whales is 9%. This segment has grown by 26% since May, primarily due to new issuances in June and July.

Nearly half of the large retail holders from May have since changed, similarly linked to the AI chip market; the leavers' holdings in Micron and other chip stocks were nearly double those of earlier holders.

The average holdings across issuers are closely aligned, ranging from $28,000 to $34,000, predominantly in single companies. Single companies account for 83% of the value, primarily in CRCL, TSLA, MSTR, with whales at 65%. Large retail holdings on xStocks have grown by a third since May, surpassing the larger Ondo BNB at that time; it is also the only large retail issuer where holdings remain open longer than whales, with 41% open after 30 days, compared to 33% for whales.

This group resembles individual investors seeking exposure to single companies, with quicker turnover.

Retail Investors with Transactions Between $1,000 and $10,000

As of the cutoff date, small retail had 187,556 addresses, holding $52.8 million, making up 98% of the address count across the three holding intervals, but only accounting for 6% of their value.

The number of addresses has more than tripled since May, primarily from bStocks and Robinhood, with values increasing over three-quarters. Growth continues to accelerate, with nearly 40% of small retail entering in September, slightly over half on Robinhood.

Ondo and xStocks were already online before June, with a 50% increase in addresses in this segment, although values only grew 13%; 30% of small retail from May have left, with those entering related to the AI chip market exiting nearly double the rate of earlier holders.

bStocks and Robinhood average holdings are about $150, while Ondo and xStocks are around $520, with many seemingly entering through meme coins. On the BNB Chain, Flap meme coins distribute holdings to bStocks holders: at least a third of bStocks small holders have received distributions at least once, and the four tokens with the widest holdings are also those that Flap has distributed most. On Robinhood Chain, meme coins are often priced in stock tokens, with nearly three-quarters of small holders having previously held them.

On Ondo and xStocks, they are more like individuals making small purchases in single companies; while on bStocks and Robinhood, they represent a newer, larger crowd that frequently holds alongside meme coins.

Increment by Interval: Growth, Holdings, and Transactions

The smallest holders have increased the fastest, while funds remain in the hands of whales.

In the third quarter, as of September 13, the intervals with the most growth are bStocks, Robinhood, and xStocks.

Single companies are the largest holdings in each interval, but whales’ holdings in funds are about ten times those of large and small retail combined.

In most issuers, whales trade on-chain most frequently.

Across all three intervals, each issuer has an average of about 40% of positions still open after 30 days.

We estimate locations based on whether wallet trading times fall within Asian, European, or US working hours, only counting wallets with at least 48 recorded transactions. In every time window we tested, traceable whale wallets tend to lean towards Europe.

Wash Traders and Automated Trading

These two groups hold almost no positions yet contribute significantly to on-chain transactions.

Automated trading can often be identified by patterns, such as the frequency of trades or buying and selling the same token within a single transaction. Wash trading, on the other hand, often requires understanding the underlying motivation. Wash trading becomes identifiable when known incentives are present, as transactions arranged around incentives leave traces. Within this report's scope, the only identifiable incentive is Binance Alpha points, which appear in bStocks and Ondo BNB, thus wash trading under other incentives may have been overlooked. For full methodology, see section 1.4's data notes.

Addresses appearing to wash trade contributed over a quarter of all on-chain transactions, but hold only 0.01% of the value. They generated $11.95 billion in transactions through at least 32,853 addresses, almost all on bStocks.

On bStocks, they entered along with points activities and exited with them: 95% executed their first trade on or after July 7, and 91% within three weeks; 56% made their last trade on August 7, just one day before Binance reduced the bStocks rewards multiplier. No other group left in synchrony with them: the next highest proportion of stop trading that day was among large retail, at only 1.4%.

8,084 automated trading addresses generated $12.67 billion in on-chain transactions, with a holding of $6.47 million. Automated trading occurs across every issuer. Some of this may be wash trading behavior not identified in this report.

Automated traders’ transaction volume is about 2,000 times their holding value, while wash traders are higher; whales are about 3.5 times.

Exchanges and Custodians

The largest holders in this market are not individuals.

Among all five issuers, the identifiable exchanges and custodial wallets hold $974.2 million in end-user value, almost equal to the total value of all self-custody wallets.

Binance holds 68% of this, through two product holdings: its spot exchange wallets (almost all in bStocks) and the custody wallets of Binance Alpha (almost all in Ondo BNB).

These wallets conduct almost no on-chain transactions. Each wallet holds funds for many clients and cannot be distinguished by owner on-chain. This is the only large group detailed analysis of which cannot be provided in this report.

Chains and Issuers

Solana

Solana targets global retail and is one of the earliest roots for tokenized stocks. xStocks launched in June 2025, increasing to $56 million within two months, with over 7,000 self-custody wallets holding no less than $10. By September 1, it accounted for approximately 95% of the issuer value in this report before Ondo entered. After the market expanded, Solana still holds about 23%.

xStocks is issued by Backed Finance, which is now part of Kraken's parent company Payward, launched alongside Kraken and Bybit, capturing 95% of Solana's related value. Its whales trade on-chain more than those of other issuers. Allium reported that 63% of the tokenized stock transactions on this chain occur outside regular US market hours, with weekends accounting for 17%. Allium research head Elton Shehdula stated that these figures carry weight, as Solana captures about a third of the on-chain tokenized stock transactions.

Backpack issues its own tokenized stock through Backpack Securities, launching with two tokens on June 12, and reaching 44 by the cutoff date; in partnership with Sunrise, it added 30 new tokens within 13 days before September, being the fastest in this report. After only four days of trading, a single day achieved $78 million in transactions; by the cutoff date, on-chain trading reached $1.6 billion. xStocks has begun listing targets outside of US stocks, including Tencent, AIA, BYD, and Italian private company Bending Spoons.

Ethereum

Ethereum is currently the home of large funds for tokenized stocks. Ondo launched tokenized stocks here in September 2025, with Ethereum now accounting for 30% of the analyzed end-user value in this report. Here, holders are the largest across chains: each address that has held tokenized stocks holds on average $17,023, over twelve times that of the next highest average on BNB Chain. Holding durations are also the longest. On Ondo Ethereum, 52% of positions remain open 30 days later, the highest among the analyzed issuers.

Ondo Stocks is the largest issuer on Ethereum, accounting for three-quarters of the terminal user value on that chain. Its tokens are backed by shares held by registered brokers and trust companies in the US. Qualified investors outside the U.S. can create and redeem directly with Ondo at Ondo's own quotes, starting at $1. Others buy through wallets and exchanges: MetaMask and Ledger provide these tokens in wallets, while 1inch, CoW Protocol, and Uniswap handle routing for trades.

Ondo Ethereum houses most of the market's whale funds. Its whales hold $470 million, accounting for 64% of the total whale value in this report, with an average of approximately $2.5 million. Of these, 44% are in Safe multi-signature wallets, a structure common among funds, vaults, and other professional holders.

Ondo states: "Liquidity is the prerequisite for the scalability of tokenized stocks. Ondo Stocks pioneered the use of an instant liquidity model, accessing traditional market depth, allowing us to support hundreds of tokenized stocks and ETFs while enabling users to trade on a larger scale with less slippage. Arrakis' findings prove this scalability: from $100 to $20,000, the basis point costs of quotes remain consistent. Bringing Wall Street on-chain means bringing its liquidity on-chain as well."

Tokenized stocks are also beginning to be used in DeFi on Ethereum. As of the cutoff date, Euler’s treasury holds $5.2 million in Strategy preferred shares tokenized by xStocks; Morpho holds $600,000 in xStocks S&P 500 tokens as collateral. Pendle also holds $13.1 million in the same preferred shares, splitting principal tokens and income tokens for separate trading. Ondo tokens have been accepted as collateral by Morpho and Euler since February 2026.

BNB Chain

BNB Chain is the ecosystem that reaches the most people with tokenized stocks. Over 187,000 addresses here have held $10 or more, more than the combined total of Solana and Ethereum; in the three months leading up to the cutoff date, this chain also saw the largest increase in holders. It simultaneously holds the largest share of market value, at 41%, with three-quarters on exchanges and custodians, mainly Binance.

bStocks is issued by Binance's BTech Holdings and became one of the first tokenized securities listed by Abu Dhabi's financial regulator in June. It launched with five trading pairs, increasing to 74 by the cutoff date; it appeared on PancakeSwap, Trust Wallet, Aster, and Venus within ten days.

Binance states that over 90% of bStocks users are in emerging markets, with 44% being from Generation Z. Most holders here tend to return frequently: among bStocks holders with holdings over $10, 59% have been active over five or more days. Among holders who entered the various issuers during the same week in June and July, the proportion of bStocks holders who remain active after two months ranks highest.

Ondo reaches the widest audience on BNB Chain since its launch in October 2025. Binance Alpha custodial wallets—where tokens bought with Binance account balances are stored—hold 51% of Ondo's value on that chain and trade only at Ondo's own quotes. Ondo addresses holding over $10 here average $1,157, compared to $26,581 on Ondo Ethereum.

Robinhood Chain

Robinhood Chain is the platform for the fastest growth of tokenized equities, as well as where several noteworthy innovations have occurred. Robinhood opened its proprietary blockchain to the public on July 1, 2026, launching a series of new stock tokens. As of the cutoff date, over 133,000 addresses held tokens worth $10 or more. In just the first 13 days of September, over 50,000 new small holders joined, more than double that of any other issuing platform.

Robinhood stock tokens are issued by Robinhood Assets (Jersey), each backed by a share held by Alpaca Securities, sold through the Robinhood wallet in over 120 countries outside the US, and traded on-chain around the clock.

Holders of $10 or more on average possess over six different stock tokens, while bStocks holders average four, primarily due to meme coins priced in tokenized stocks. One-third of addresses that have held stock tokens have previously traded.

This chain has the highest proportion of value allocated to DeFi: 72% of end-user value is in protocol contracts, compared to 13% for Solana. Within ten weeks of launch, stock tokens have become collateral, yield, and leverage. Uniswap pools hold 42% of this chain's end-user value; Morpho accepts stock tokens for lending, with approximately $2 million deposited by the cutoff date.

Related products include: Arcus (dYdX Labs) has waived Arcus fees for around 200 stock token markets and packaged leveraged positions into holdable tokens; Pendle splits Robinhood's NVDA and PFE into principal and dividend tokens for separate trading; Lighter has accepted SPY stock tokens as perpetual collateral since July 19, followed by USO; Flap has launched meme coins paired with stock tokens, able to distribute stock tokens to holders, funded by taxing trades of meme coins. By the cutoff date, over 133,000 addresses have held tokens of no less than $10; just in the first 13 days of September, over 50,000 new small holders were added, more than double those from other issuers.

Looking Ahead

Meme Coins

The Robinhood Chain mainnet opened to the public on July 1. Within two weeks, Long and subsequent Flap allowed creators to price new meme coins in Robinhood stock tokens instead of ETH, SOL, or USDC. Buyers' dollars often convert to stock tokens within a single transaction before being traded for meme coins, with stock tokens remaining in the pool. On BNB Chain, Flap and Four.meme began pairing meme coins with bStocks in late July.

On Robinhood Chain, 51,903 meme coins priced in stock tokens emerged within three months, along with 56,341 pools. By the cutoff date, meme coin trading accounted for 36% of stock token transactions on this chain: $3.5 billion in stocks traded as meme coin assets, plus an additional $6.2 billion of other transactions on this chain.

96 stock tokens (before mid-August additions) were each priced in at least one meme coin, with the number of meme coin pools being more than eight times that of pools paired with stablecoins or Ethereum; NVIDIA appeared in 13,052 meme coin pools. Uniswap v4 holds over a third of the value of Robinhood stock tokens, including 54% of the circulating volume for S&P 500 tracking products and 35% for NVIDIA.

By August 18, Flap meme coins had distributed bStocks to 80,910 addresses, of which 78% still held some as of September 13: 3,258 held $100 or more, 60,113 held less than $100, and 17,539 had cleared their holdings.

Four.meme minted its own stock tokens, with over $2 million in minting requests within hours of going live on September 8. About one-fifth (22%) of the stock token transactions on this chain occurred on Saturdays or Sundays. For issuers, meme coins serve as an entry point: nearly three-quarters of small holders on Robinhood previously held meme coins, with at least a third of bStocks small holders having received distributions from Flap.

Innovation

The most interesting part of the tokenized stock market may be what is built upon it. Developers have turned stock tokens into collateral, leverage, yields, and a basket of products; now the on-chain market even begins to price it before companies list. Most of these have only a few weeks of history, with very small scales, but they are developing rapidly.

Stock tokens are no longer just things to hold; they can also be borrowed against. Shares in a broker's account typically can only be used as collateral by the broker holding them, and only under that broker's terms. Tokens tracking shares can be deposited into any lending market or exchange that accepts them.

Stock leverage traditionally meant margin accounts, with terms set by brokers, or buying into leveraged funds through brokers. Leveraged tokens integrate leverage directly into the tokens themselves. Holders can place them in wallets, trade around the clock, and use them in other protocols.

Shares of private companies traditionally change hands in secondary markets, often requesting rights tied to special purpose vehicles; in the US, these markets are generally only open to qualified investors. By tokenizing rights, they can be transferred on-chain, also allowing a minimum threshold in markets of $10 or higher to reach much smaller single amounts.

Stocks held at brokers earn dividends, with income from lent shares handled according to broker terms. Stock tokens can be deposited into treasury and exchange products, which pay returns on them.

A basket of stocks used to require a fund to package together. With tokenized shares, a basket can be purchased in a single transaction, placed in an account controlled by the buyer, with no intermediary fund.

Almost all tokenized stocks are closed off to US investors, as each issuer has its own account opening and qualification screening, making it necessary for applications wanting to offer multiple products to connect separately with each.

Outlook

On September 17, 2026, just four days after the cutoff date, the SEC granted a five-year exemption allowing venues to trade tokenized US stocks without registering as exchanges. Venues must publish notifications on their websites 30 days before opening, posting contracts on a permissionless ledger, while maintaining access permissions and halting trading when primary exchanges suspend trading. They can trade up to 75 of the largest stocks and funds, limited to no more than 0.25% of their average daily trading volume; they may also trade up to 250 other targets, capped at 2.5%.

The order also exempts a company from registering as a dealer when providing liquidity pools with tokenized stocks using its own capital.

The exemption covers shares tokenized by the company itself or by an unrelated third party; venues can only list when the tokens carry the same dividends, voting rights, and liquidation claims as the shares. Among the five issuers analyzed in this report, four explicitly state in their documents that their tokens do not carry shareholder rights: Ondo Stocks, xStocks, bStocks, and Robinhood.

The exemption opens up a venue: it can list tokenized US stocks without becoming an exchange; companies can quote above without registering as dealers. A qualified structure would involve transferring the shares themselves onto the chain as a registration entry, making the tokens the registration entries. Superstate's Opening Bell has handled Galaxy, Forward Industries, and Exodus in this manner. It has 84 token holders; in the 30 days before the cutoff date, no shares changed hands among holders.

In Europe, tokenized shares remain financial instruments under MiFID II, not falling under MiCA scope. The DLT pilot scheme allows venues to test trading and settlement of tokenized shares for companies valued under €500 million; the European Commission proposed to expand this scheme on December 4, 2025. Abu Dhabi regulators approved Ondo tokenized stocks for trading in a regulated venue on Binance in March 2026 and approved BTech's bStocks prospectus before its June listing. Singapore's regulation of tokenized shares is identical to that of their non-tokenized counterparts.

A regulatory system more favorable to tokenized stocks may notably impact the migration of existing institutions to blockchain paths.

Nasdaq received SEC approval on March 18, 2026, to trade tokenized shares of Russell 1000 stocks and ETFs tracking major indices on its existing order book. Trading will begin once DTC’s tokenized service is open, and Nasdaq has issued a 30-day notice to members; DTCC plans to launch in October 2026. At that time, tokenized shares will trade alongside regular shares on the same order book with equal rights; participants qualified by DTC will set flags on orders to settle in tokenized forms, and settlements will continue through DTC on a T+1 basis.

The New York Stock Exchange announced on September 23 it signed a memorandum of understanding with Blockchain.com to distribute tokenized US stocks and ETFs in its announced but not yet launched digital venue, subject to regulatory approval. Its exchange has submitted the same DTC-based rules as Nasdaq.

The London Stock Exchange indicated on September 1 its intention to list and trade xStocks on LSE 24 in 2027, subject to regulatory approval.

Weekend trading represents a clear advantage of this market compared to traditional public markets. Approved extended hours for listed trading still stop on weekends; however, the SEC's exemption on September 17 does not impose trading time restrictions on on-chain venues. If existing institutions achieve seven-day trading, this advantage may narrow, reducing the rationale for holding tokens instead of shares.

We simulated potential scenarios for this market over its initial fifteen months, projecting where it might reach by the end of 2027 under three scenarios.

Not all respondents believe tokenized stocks are mainstream. Dean Khan Dhillon, head of growth at rwa.xyz, told us that so far, most growth has come from accessibility: for example, investors in Asia and Latin America can now holds exposure to US stocks on-chain, which is operationally difficult in traditional broker channels and often impossible. The first wave consists of retail investors seeking exposure, indifferent to whether tokens are recognized by companies, whether they pay dividends, or whether they carry ownership.

He mentioned: "The growth in the next 12 months will still stem from the same accessibility logic," making it very likely that the market could reach "at least hundreds of billions." "Getting to a trillion is another matter. It requires multiple investor profiles and more serious participants and quasi-institutions; they care about things that retail has always been willing to overlook: primary issuance, dividends and voting rights, and clear claims on the underlying assets." He referred to the entire market. Covering only the five issuers measured in this report, and only including self-custody addresses with holdings of $10 or more, the end-user value of $892 million among the $2.22 billion on September 13.

He believes the bigger opportunity lies in the private market, where clearly legally packaged private credit delivered on-chain is the obvious next step. "The buy-side here is not Asian retail wallets," he stated. "I expect the buyers to be fund treasury sitting on hundreds of millions of stablecoin reserves," targeting returns above tokenized treasury bonds.

Dinari operates as an SEC-registered transfer agent, purchasing real shares through its FINRA-member brokerage, custody held by a third-party broker, and issuing tokenized shares backed by real shares, covering 724 names, including the full S&P 500, targeting qualified US investors and over 85 other jurisdictions, with tokens designed to carry voting rights, dividends, and company actions; US retail opens in August 2026. Some respondents anticipate larger opportunities in the private market, as clearly packaged legal private credit delivered on-chain represents an evident next step; buyers are expected to be fund treasuries holding hundreds of millions in stablecoin reserves, aiming for yields higher than those of tokenized treasuries.

The report modeled potential paths observed over fifteen months, projecting by December 31, 2027, median addresses holding over $10: bear market scenario approximately 1.32 million, baseline approximately 1.98 million, bull market approximately 2.5 million; corresponding median holding values approximately $4.26 billion, $6.24 billion, $7.81 billion; cumulative on-chain transaction median approximately $437 billion, $709 billion, $1.03 trillion. The upper limit assumes that eventually, 0.5%, 2.0%, or 8.0% of global retail investors have held tokenized stocks. These are simulations, not predictive commitments.

Note: Data as of September 13, 2026, covering five issuers: Ondo Stocks, xStocks, bStocks, Robinhood, Backpack, across four chains: Ethereum, Solana, BNB Chain, Robinhood Chain, with on-chain measured scale at $2.29 billion. Contributors include rwa.xyz, CoinList, Dune, Allium, CoinGecko, RWA Foundation, Green Dots Research, @ZeusRWA, @stacy_muur.