Author: Tyler
Have you traded US stocks on-chain?
After waking up, Kraken launched xStocks, the first batch supports trading of 60 US stock tokens; Bybit quickly followed with popular stock tokens like AAPL, TSLA, NVDA; Robinhood also announced it will support US stock trading on the blockchain and plans to launch its own public chain.
Whether the wave of tokenization is a new bottle for old wine or not, US stocks have indeed become the 'new favorite' on-chain overnight.
However, upon reflection, this new narrative woven from dollar stablecoins, tokenization of US stocks, and on-chain infrastructure seems to be plunging crypto into financial narratives and geopolitical games, inevitably sliding into a new role positioning.
Tokenization of US stocks is not a new thing.
Tokenization of US stocks is actually not a new concept.
In the last cycle, representative projects like Synthetix and Mirror have already explored a complete set of on-chain synthetic asset mechanisms. This model not only allows users to mint and trade 'US stock tokens' like TSLA and AAPL through over-collateralization (such as SNX and UST), but can also cover fiat currencies, indices, gold, and crude oil, almost encompassing all tradable assets.
The reason lies in the fact that the synthetic asset model mints synthetic asset tokens by tracking underlying assets and over-collateralizing: for example, with a collateralization rate of 500%, this means that users can stake $500 worth of crypto assets (like SNX or UST) into the system to mint synthetic assets (like mTSLA or sAAPL) that are pegged to the price of the underlying asset and trade them.
Since the entire operational mechanism uses oracle pricing + on-chain contract matching, all transactions are completed by the internal logic of the protocol, there are no real trading counterparts, which theoretically gives it a core advantage of achieving infinite depth and no slippage in liquidity experience.
So why is this synthetic asset model moving towards large-scale adoption?
Ultimately, price anchoring ≠ asset ownership. The US stocks minted and traded under the synthetic asset model do not represent true ownership of the stock in reality; they are merely 'betting' on the price. Once the oracle fails or collateral assets collapse (as Mirror did during the UST crash), the entire system will face risks of clearing imbalance, price decoupling, and loss of user confidence.
At the same time, an easily overlooked long-term factor is that US stock tokens under the synthetic asset model are destined to be a niche market in crypto—capital only circulates within the on-chain closed loop, with no institutional or brokerage participation. This means it will always remain at the 'shadow asset' level, unable to integrate into the traditional financial system, establish a true asset access and capital pathway, and few people are willing to launch derivative products based on this, making it difficult to leverage structural inflows of incremental capital.
So, although they were once popular, they ultimately did not take off.
The structure for attracting US stock capital under the new framework.
This time, the tokenization of US stocks has changed its gameplay.
Taking the US stock token trading products launched by Kraken, Bybit, and Robinhood as an example, from the disclosed information, it is not price anchoring, nor is it on-chain simulation, but rather real stock custody, with funds flowing into US stocks via brokerages.
Objectively speaking, under this model, any user can download a crypto wallet, hold stablecoins, and easily buy US stock assets anywhere on a DEX without the barriers of account opening or identity verification. The whole process involves no US stock accounts, no time zone differences, and no identity restrictions, directly channeling funds into US stocks on-chain.
Microscopically, this allows global users to buy and sell US stocks more freely, but from a macroscopic perspective, it is actually the US dollar and US capital markets, leveraging crypto as a low-cost, high-elasticity, 7×24 channel to attract incremental global capital—after all, under this structure, users can only go long, unable to short, and there is no leverage or non-linear yield structure (at least up to now).
Imagine such a scenario: a non-crypto user in Brazil or Argentina suddenly discovers they can buy US stock tokens on-chain or through a CEX. They would just need to download a wallet/exchange, convert their local assets into USDC, and with a few clicks, they can buy AAPL or NVDA.
To put it nicely, it simplifies the user experience, but in essence, it is creating a 'low-risk, high-certainty' structure for attracting US stock capital for global funds. The hot money of crypto users worldwide can flow into the US asset pool through crypto's unprecedented low friction and cross-border access, allowing people around the world to buy US stocks anytime and anywhere.
Especially as more and more L2s, exchanges, wallets, and other native infrastructures connect with these 'US stock trading modules', the relationship between crypto and the US dollar and Nasdaq will become more secretive and more solid.
From this perspective, a series of 'new/old' narratives surrounding crypto are being designed as a distributed financial infrastructure, specifically tailored for US financial services:
US treasury stablecoins → World currency liquidity pool
Tokenization of US stocks → Traffic portal for Nasdaq
On-chain trading infrastructure → Global transfer station for US brokerages
This might be a flexible way of siphoning global capital, and regardless of how conspiratorial it sounds, at least Trump or the next new decision-makers in the US might love this new narrative of 'tokenization of US stocks'.
How should we view the pros and cons of 'tokenization of US stocks'?
If viewed purely from the perspective of the crypto circle, does the tokenization of US stocks have any attractiveness or what potential impacts might it have on the on-chain cycle?
I think it needs to be viewed dialectically.
For users lacking access to US stock investment channels, especially crypto natives and retail investors from third-world countries, the tokenization of US stocks equals an unprecedented low-barrier pathway, which can be seen as 'asset equality' that crosses barriers.
After all, as a super market where star stocks like Microsoft, Apple, Tesla, and Nvidia continue to emerge, the 'historic long bull' of the US stock market has always been a topic of fascination in the investment community, making it one of the most attractive asset classes in the world. However, for the vast majority of ordinary investors, the barriers to participation in trading and sharing dividends have always been relatively high: account opening, deposits and withdrawals, KYC, regulatory restrictions, time zone differences... various thresholds have deterred countless people.
And now, as long as you have a wallet and a few stablecoins, even in Latin America, Southeast Asia, or Africa, you can buy Apple, Nvidia, and Tesla anytime, anywhere, realizing the universal access of dollar assets among global users. In short, for those in underdeveloped regions where local assets cannot outperform US stocks or even inflation, the tokenization of US stocks undoubtedly provides unprecedented accessibility.
On the contrary, within the crypto circle, especially represented by the Chinese-speaking trading users, there is actually a high overlap with the US stock investment circle. Most people already have US stock accounts and can access the global financial system through banks and brokers like Interactive Brokers (my personal daily use is the combination of SafePal/Fiat24 + Interactive Brokers).
For these users, the tokenization of US stocks seems a bit half-baked—only able to go long, lacking derivative support, not even basic options or margin trading, which cannot be considered trading-friendly.
As for whether the tokenization of US stocks will further drain the crypto market, don't rush to deny it. I think this might be a window of opportunity for a new round of 'asset Lego' after the DeFi ecosystem clears out poor-quality assets.
After all, one of the biggest problems with current on-chain DeFi is the severe lack of quality assets. Besides BTC, ETH, and stablecoins, there aren’t many assets with real value consensus, and many altcoins have poor quality and high volatility.
If in the future these real stock custody and on-chain issued US stock tokens can gradually penetrate into DEX, lending protocols, and on-chain options and derivatives systems, they can completely become new underlying assets, supplementing on-chain asset portfolios and providing more certain value materials and narrative space for DeFi.
Moreover, the current products for tokenizing US stocks are essentially spot custody + price mapping, lacking leverage and non-linear yield structures, inherently lacking deep financial tool support. It depends on who can first create highly combinable and liquid products, who can provide an integrated on-chain experience of 'spot + shorting + leverage + hedging'.
For example, as high-credit collateral in lending protocols, constructing new hedging targets in options protocols, and forming a combinable asset basket in stablecoin protocols. From this perspective, whoever can first create an integrated on-chain trading experience of spot + shorting + leverage + hedging will likely build the next on-chain Robinhood or on-chain Interactive Brokers.
For DeFi, this might be the real turning point.
It's just a matter of who can benefit from the on-chain product dividends from this new narrative.
In conclusion
Starting from 2024, the question of whether 'crypto can still disrupt TradFi' will no longer be a topic worth discussing.
Especially this year, the penetration of stablecoins through traditional financial channels, bypassing sovereign barriers, tax obstacles, and identity checks, ultimately establishing a new channel for dollars with crypto has become a core theme of many recent narratives led by compliant dollar stablecoins.
Crypto bless America; perhaps it’s not just a joke.
