Encryption and the US stock market are moving in both directions, reviewing 8 major tokenization trading platforms.

Original | Odaily Daily Report (@OdailyChina)

Author｜Golem（@web3_golem）

Recently, the keywords "crypto" and "U.S. stocks" have been frequently linked. On the one hand, U.S.-listed companies have started a wave of buying crypto assets, and companies such as SharpLink and GameStop have relied on this strategy to raise their stock prices sharply in the short term. On the other hand, crypto companies have started the road to U.S. stock IPOs, with USDC stablecoin issuer Circle closing at $107.7 in its first week of listing on June 6, up 247.4% from its IPO pricing of $31. BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes also lamented that the Circle listing would be the start of a crypto IPO frenzy.

Such a fervent scene also makes the "crypto people who can't get the grapes" feel itchy, but if this is truly a new liquidity feast, how can crypto people be willing to miss it? Therefore, under such a trend, on-chain trading of US stocks has also become a hot topic.

Securities tokenization (STO) actually existed before the birth of RWA (real world assets), and FTX, Binance, etc. launched U.S. stock tokenization trading services during 2020-2021, but the crypto regulatory environment at that time was not friendly, and the securities tokenization trading business could not be continued. However, with the improvement of the crypto regulatory environment in the United States and the increasing integration of crypto and traditional finance, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Robinhood, etc. have also begun to enter the market to explore the tokenization business of U.S. stocks.

Under the right timing, favorable conditions, and human harmony, on-chain securities trading platforms in the market may become the next trend. Odaily will review the trading platforms available for purchasing U.S. stocks with crypto assets in this article for readers' reference.

Bybit

Centralized exchange Bybit launched USDT-based stock CFD (CFD) trading on its own TradFi platform on May 19. The Bybit TradFi platform is a multi-asset trading platform that enables traders to access the global financial markets using a single account. Users only need to create an MT 5 account to directly use USDT collateral to trade U.S. stocks, which currently include 78 stocks, including Apple (AAPL), Tesla (TSLA), and Nvidia (NVDA), Amazon (AMZN), Microsoft (MSFT), and Alphabet (GOOG), etc., see the official announcement for the full list of stocks.

Unlike stock spot trading, stock CFD trading does not involve the actual purchase of stocks, but rather trading directly based on price movements. When users open a CFD position on the Bybit TradFi platform, they are essentially entering into a contract with the platform, settling the difference between the opening and closing stock prices. Users can use up to 5x leverage.

Bybit charges a fee of 0.04 USDT per share, with a minimum trading size of 5 USDT.

MyStonks

MyStonks is a decentralized cryptocurrency trading platform created based on the CTO of the Meme coin Stonks community, where users can also purchase U.S. stocks in the Stonks 100 section of the platform, which includes 95 U.S. stocks such as AAPL, AMZN, DIS, GOOGL, META, MSFT, NFLX, NVDA, and 5 crypto and stock ETFs listed in the United States.

When users purchase US stocks on the MyStonks platform, MyStonks will mint a corresponding share of US stock tokens on the Base chain at a 1:1 ratio and distribute them to the user's on-chain wallet address; when users sell US stock tokens, the MyStonks platform will perform a reverse operation, converting the US stock tokens into stablecoins and transferring them to the user's account, while simultaneously destroying the corresponding US stock tokens at a 1:1 ratio. The buying and selling process uses ChainLink oracles as the price provider. Meanwhile, the platform charges a 0.3% transaction fee for US stock tokens.

MyStonks is not just a simple on-chain data platform. When users buy and sell US stock tokens on the platform, MyStonks will also buy and sell the corresponding US stocks off-chain at a 1:1 ratio, and the custody is handled by the global asset management giant Fidelity. The initial asset scale under custody by MyStonks reached 50 million dollars.

Ondo Finance

Ondo Finance, a decentralized institutional-grade financial protocol that has partnered with the Trump family project WLFI, is a popular target for the "U.S. coin" concept. As early as February 5, Ondo Finance announced the upcoming launch of Ondo Global Markets (Ondo GM), an RWA tokenization trading platform that allows users to buy and sell stocks, bonds, and ETF tokens backed by real-world assets 1:1. However, this service is not available to users in the United States.

All RWA tokens of Ondo Global Markets will be natively issued on Ondo Chain, and users can also interact with other chains through the built-in cross-chain functionality of Ondo Chain. Ondo Global Markets is planned to be launched later this year, but the exact date has not been officially announced.

Backed

Backed is a Swiss asset tokenization issuer, primarily dedicated to tokenizing stocks and ETFs. Backed has launched 10 types of US stock tokens such as bCOIN, bCSPX, bTSLA, bNVDA, and bMSTR on multiple chains, but Backed itself has not launched a trading platform for US stock tokens. Users can directly trade the US stock tokens it has launched through on-chain DEXs, such as CoW swap, 1inch, etc.

Backed complies with the Swiss DLT Act regulatory framework and is one of the few tokenized platforms for US stocks with compliance qualifications. Backed also adopts a 1:1 collateral system, where every time a US stock token is minted on the chain, the corresponding US stock is purchased in the secondary market. The US stock assets are managed by a Swiss custodial bank, which regularly publishes reserve proofs.

Backed completed a $9.5 million funding round on April 30, 2024, led by Gnosis VC, with participation from cyber Fund, Blockchain Founders Fund, Stake Capital, and others. Recently, Backed partnered with the centralized exchange Kraken to launch a brand new stock tokenization trading platform called xStocks, with the specific launch date yet to be announced.

Dinari

Dinari is a compliance infrastructure platform focused on tokenizing traditional securities assets such as stocks, bonds, and ETFs. Users can trade nearly a hundred US stocks on its US stock token trading platform dShare, including Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Coinbase. However, users must complete KYC to trade, and currently, the platform only supports KYC for users in the United States and Canada. Users need to provide government-issued identity documents (driver's license, passport, etc.) and proof of residence (current utility bill, bank statement showing address, etc.).

On Dinari, US stocks exist in the form of dShares, which are ERC-20 tokens on Arbitrum One. dShares are minted only when stocks are purchased from the exchange, implementing a 1:1 collateral system. Dinari is a compliant stock transfer agent registered with the US SEC, therefore the US stock assets backed by dShares are managed by it.

Users trade USDT and other stablecoins on-chain for US stock tokens, and holding the tokens also allows them to receive dividend payouts. Dividends are distributed to users by Dinari, and holders of US stock tokens will receive dividends in the form of USD+ on Arbitrum One, where USD+ is a stablecoin asset issued by Dinari. Additionally, there will be a fixed fee of $10 for each order traded on the Ethereum mainnet, while trading on L2 will incur a fixed fee of $0.2 per order.

Dinari has clearly stated that it will not launch the Dinari token. On May 1, 2025, Dinari completed a $12.7 million Series A funding round, led by Blockchange and Hack VC, with participation from Blizzard Fund, VanEck, F-Prime Capital, Factor Capital, Arete Capital, GSR Ventures, and Silvermine Capital.

Helix

Helix is a decentralized cryptocurrency exchange built on Injective, primarily for trading cross-chain spot and perpetual contract markets. It also supports trading some US stocks using USDT, including 13 US stocks such as META, TSLA, NVDA, MSTR, and COIN.

U.S. stocks on Helix exist in the form of iAssets, which are derivatives of real-world assets (RWA) that bring traditional markets (such as stocks, commodities, and forex) to Injective in a fully on-chain, composable, and capital-efficient manner. iAssets do not require pre-funding or wrapping of the underlying assets; instead, they exist purely as synthetic derivatives, with no underlying custodial U.S. stock assets.

Therefore, the trading method of iAssets is exactly the same as that of other on-chain perpetual contract tokens, with 24/7 trading available. Users use USDT or other stablecoins as margin, with a leverage of 25 times available for US stocks. Positions are settled in USDT rather than physical delivery. The contract order fee and order taking fee are 0.005% and 0.05%, respectively.

Currently, Helix has launched a trading points program, but the rebate rewards are still in the internal testing phase.

Swarm

Swarm is a compliant DeFi infrastructure for token issuance, liquidity, and trading, allowing users to trade U.S. stock tokens and gold through its launched DEX dOTC, including 12 U.S. stock tokens such as AAPL, NVDA, MSFT, COIN, and TSLA. Swarm supports users in purchasing U.S. stock tokens with stablecoins like USDC on the Ethereum mainnet, Polygon, and Base, with a trading fee set at 0.25%.

The US stock tokens on Swarm are issued by SwarmX GmbH, which is a subsidiary of Swarm. The US stock tokens on Swarm are also 100% backed by physical stocks, with the underlying US stock assets held by institutional custodians and verified by the token trustees. The reserve asset information is publicly disclosed every month.

DigiFT

DigiFT is a Singapore-compliant RWA crypto exchange, licensed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) as a Recognized Market Operator (RMO) and a Capital Markets Services (CMS) provider. On February 28, 2023, DigiFT completed a $10.5 million Pre-A round of financing, led by Shengda Group, with participation from HashKey Capital, Hash Global, Xin Enterprise, and Beituo Capital.

DigiFT currently offers two products, namely the structured note iSNR linked to the performance of Invesco's U.S. Senior Loan Strategy, and the token UMINT for the UBS-USD Money Market Investment Fund. Users who have completed KYC verification can use stablecoins such as USDC to purchase these two products on the Ethereum mainnet.

Although DigiFT has not yet directly launched tokenized US stock products, mainly focusing on funds, bonds, and other RWA assets, it may open the tokenization market for US stocks and other securities in the future.

The true explosion of the US stock tokenization market requires finding a new PMF fit.

U.S. stock tokenization does have multiple advantages such as breaking geographical and KYC restrictions, supporting 24/×7 trading, allowing non-US users to hold U.S. assets at low cost, and avoiding high cross-border fees. However, although institutions have predicted that the tokenization of U.S. stocks will bring about a trillion-dollar RWA market, according to RWA.xyz data, the size of the entire RWA is only about $23 billion, of which tokenized stocks account for only $313 million, and the market size is far from the height imagined.

! Crypto and U.S. stocks go both ways, inventory of the 8 major securities tokenization trading platforms

The root cause lies in the fact that, on one hand, most US stock token trading platforms have immature compliance models, facing issues such as "data manipulation" and lack of transparency, and may even lack qualifications; on the other hand, platforms that have established complete compliance qualifications impose KYC/AML restrictions on users that are close to or even exceed those of traditional brokers, resulting in many crypto users not experiencing substantial convenience.

On the other hand, the U.S. stock market itself has a mature, transparent and compliant secondary market around the world, and for those users who really want to trade U.S. stocks, the entry threshold is not significantly different from that of traditional brokerages, and even more cumbersome in some links, failing to bring substantial convenience to users. More importantly, for crypto-native users who pursue high-frequency, high-volatility arbitrage, the volatility range of U.S. stock targets is still too narrow, far less exciting than crypto contracts or on-chain meme coins. James and Liangxi can only be born in the crypto market, not in the US stock market.

It seems that simply putting US stocks "on the chain" is not enough to trigger a collective influx of crypto funds. To truly ignite the market with the tokenization of US stocks, platforms and project parties need to find new PMF fit points.

However, looking ahead, the tokenization of US stocks still has vast imaginative potential. Once the core needs of crypto users are grasped and true PMF is found in product design, on-chain US stock trading will no longer just be a gimmick, but will become a bridge for the organic integration of global capital markets and the Web3 world.