Currently, there are two main ways to trade U.S. stocks: direct brokerage integration and tokenization. Both have their pros and cons, but emotionally, I’m much more inclined toward the latter. The reason why everyone was so enthusiastic about RWA before is that tokenization doesn’t just solve the issues of U.S. stocks being unable to trade 24/7 and KYC requirements. More importantly, it integrates traditional stocks into the entire DeFi ecosystem, enabling new possibilities like collateralized lending and other combinations that empower traditional stocks with fresh gameplay. Plus, it brings new liquidity to the crypto space, which has been feeling stagnant. For example, any retail investor can use NVIDIA stock as collateral to borrow USDT—something almost impossible in the traditional financial system. And this is exactly the kind of innovation the crypto space excels at. Brokerage integration solves the problem of how crypto users can buy U.S. stocks, while tokenization solves the problem of how stocks can become crypto assets. However, tokenization—or what we might call version 1.0—has some obvious issues, such as unclear ownership, lack of transparency in assets (since they’re issued by third-party collateral), inability to distribute dividends, price de-pegging risks, and the need for separate liquidity injection. But if these issues can be resolved, from the perspective of the crypto space, tokenization is truly a great solution. As one of the earliest exchanges to venture into U.S. stocks, Bitget continues to push forward in the tokenization direction and has launched U.S. stock tokenization 2.0. This is independently issued through its proprietary compliant RWA protocol, Reality, which allows dividends to be automatically and instantly credited to accounts—solving the dividend distribution issue. According to the documentation, Bitget has designed a high-performance OTC system where orders placed on Bitget are directly routed to U.S. stock exchanges for real-time matching and execution. The underlying assets are still real U.S. stocks, ensuring liquidity. Additionally, since tokenized stocks are held on the exchange, there’s no asset type segregation issue, meaning unified accounts can be enabled. For example, NVIDIA stock can be used as margin for contracts. Both brokerage integration and tokenization can solve trading issues, but in the long run, the latter is a harder yet better direction to pursue.