作者： @BlazingKevin_ ，the Researcher at Movemaker
Reprinted by: White55, Mars Finance
Amidst the anticipated deregulation efforts of Trump, the long-dormant tokenized stock market is reigniting its momentum in 2025 with the new guise of RWAs. Bringing the world's most liquid asset—US stocks—to the crypto industry, enabling crypto users around the world to trade anytime, anywhere, is undoubtedly a grand and alluring narrative.
However, this road hasn't been smooth. From the early days of the STO concept, to the synthetic asset experiments of DeFi Summer, to the brief forays by FTX and Binance, the history of tokenized stocks has been fraught with twists and turns. Now, with subtle shifts in the regulatory landscape, a new round of competition has begun.
In this competition, three forces are emerging, representing three completely different paths: the "dimensionality reduction attack" of the internet brokerage giant Robinhood, the "open Lego" of DeFi native xStocks (issued by Backed Finance and distributed by Kraken and others), and the "hybrid model" of the mysterious newcomer StableStocks backed by institutions such as Matrix Partners.
This article will provide an in-depth analysis of these three players, detailing their legal core, business models, and core differences, and explore who is most likely to come out on top in this high-stakes game.
1. Four Waves of Tokenized Stocks
To understand today’s competitive landscape, we must look back at history. The development of tokenized stocks has roughly gone through four stages:
STO embryonic stage (2017-2018): The concept of STO (Security Token Offering) emerged, aiming to bring traditional securities onto the blockchain in a compliant manner. However, due to the lack of unified standards, high compliance costs, and a lack of secondary market liquidity, this attempt quickly fizzled out.
Synthetic Asset Experimentation (2020 DeFi Summer): Projects like Synthetix and Mirror Protocol attempted to mint "synthetic assets" pegged to US stock prices by overcollateralizing crypto assets. This model circumvented the regulatory challenges of directly holding stocks, but ultimately failed due to a failure to find a profitable market capitalization (PMF). Lack of on-chain trading demand led to a lack of incentives for market makers and a depletion of liquidity. Ultimately, most projects delisted their assets, citing "regulatory concerns."
CEX Trial Period (2020-2021): Centralized exchanges like FTX and Binance partnered with licensed financial institutions to launch centrally managed tokenized stocks. This model attracted significant trading volume (FTX's monthly trading volume reached $94 million in October 2021). However, due to its direct competition with traditional exchanges like Nasdaq, it soon faced significant regulatory pressure. Binance ceased operations after just three months, and FTX's business also ended with the collapse of its empire.
The RWA Renaissance (Current): Under new regulatory expectations, the market has restarted. This time, the core narrative has become RWA, emphasizing the issuance of tokens backed 1:1 by real stocks through compliant legal structures, and prioritizing asset security and transparency.
II. Overview of the Current Market Landscape
According to RWA.xyz, the current total issuance volume of the equity RWA market is approximately $374 million, but growth is slow. The market landscape is characterized by fragmentation:
Exodus (EXOD): This has the largest market capitalization (approximately $258 million), but its model is more symbolic. Users can migrate their NYSE-listed EXOD shares to the Algorand chain, but this is merely a "digital clone" that carries no on-chain rights and cannot be traded on the chain.
Dinari: This is a prime example of compliance exploration. The company is registered in the US and has obtained a valuable broker-dealer license. However, to meet strict regulatory requirements, the dShares it issues cannot be freely traded on-chain; all purchases and sales must be conducted through its official website during US stock trading hours. This makes its product experience less advantageous than traditional brokerages like Futu, and more like a traditional brokerage that uses cryptocurrency as a deposit channel, thus limiting its market reach.
Montis Group: Montis Group is a UK-based digital asset issuer with a market capitalization of approximately $55 million. It focuses on bringing real-world assets, such as European stocks and bonds, to blockchain. However, similar to Exodus, Montis has currently only tokenized its own shares, and these tokens are not freely tradable on-chain. For Web3 investors seeking liquidity and composability, this model currently offers limited practical value.
It is in this context that the entry of Robinhood, xStocks and StableStocks has brought three more imaginative paradigms to the market.
3. Troika: A Deep Deconstruction of Three Models
We will analyze these three players from three dimensions: legal core, business model and composability.
1. Robinhood: Derivatives Contracts + B2C + Controlled Ecosystem
Legal Core and Compliance Path: While many companies around the world are exploring the "crypto + stock" integration path, Robinhood's approach stands out. Rather than directly issuing tokens representing stock ownership, it adopted a more flexible approach to the market: mapping the underlying assets through derivatives. The products launched in Europe are not essentially securities transactions, but rather over-the-counter financial contracts issued under the EU's MiFID II framework. In other words, users aren't purchasing "stock tokens" but rather digital certificates that track specific stock price fluctuations. This legal design allowed Robinhood to circumvent complex securities compliance barriers and enter overseas markets with minimal resistance.
Technical Architecture and "Walled Garden":
Underlying Chain Selection: Robinhood chose Arbitrum as its underlying network. Compared to the Ethereum mainnet, it offers higher performance and lower transaction costs while retaining the proven security of Ethereum. The efficiency advantage is clear, with hundreds of tokens deployed at a mere few dollars in gas costs.
Access Control: However, this system isn't an open DeFi paradise. Strict whitelisting rules are embedded in the smart contracts, and all transactions require verification that the recipient has passed Robinhood's compliance certification. In other words, this is a classic "controlled zone," requiring users to complete KYC before entering. The ecosystem is tightly controlled by Robinhood, sacrificing interoperability with the external DeFi world.
Future Ambitions: Even more intriguing is Robinhood's next move. The company is planning to launch its own Layer 2 network, Robinhood Chain, based on the Arbitrum technology stack. This move isn't simply about reducing costs; it sends a stronger signal: Robinhood aims to seize control of the underlying technology and provide a tailored environment for future, large-scale RWA strategies.
Strategic Depth and Vision: To simply interpret this model as a "walled garden" underestimates Robinhood's ambition. CEO Vlad Tenev has repeatedly stated the company's vision is "Capital as a Service." Tokenization isn't a gimmick; it's a crucial tool for Robinhood to advance financial democratization, particularly targeting illiquid assets long locked up in the hands of high-net-worth individuals. Imagine if ordinary users could indirectly gain equity exposure to private giants like SpaceX or OpenAI through derivative tokens. The power structure of the capital market would be reshuffled.
Of course, the reality isn't entirely rosy. Top private equity firms often have ample funds, making it nearly impossible for them to proactively invite retail investors in. This means tokenization solutions must bypass traditional issuance logic to reach ordinary investors. However, this model also carries hidden risks. After Robinhood launched OpenAI-related tokens, the company immediately issued a statement clarifying its involvement, which also exposed a potential gap in information transparency and investor understanding within the derivatives model.
Compared to other platforms, Robinhood's approach differs from traditional on-chain securities attempts (such as Synthetix's synthetic assets or Polymarket's prediction markets). Rather than emphasizing the complete openness of DeFi, it instead captures the market through a combination of strong compliance and excellent user experience. Its logic is more like an extension of fintech platforms rather than a complete on-chain fundamentalism.
If regulators acquiesce or even gradually accept it, Robinhood will be the first to establish a super entrance covering retail investors, compliance and RWA, and may even become the first stop for European and American retail investors to enter tokenized finance.
One-sentence commentary: Robinhood's attempt isn't simply to "put stocks on the blockchain," but rather an experiment in leveraging cryptography to reshape the traditional derivatives distribution model. Its use of blockchain to improve product delivery and compliance efficiency extends far beyond the crypto world itself, aiming to redefine the entire global financial system.
2. xStocks: Asset-backed Tokens + B2B2C + Full Composability
Legal core and compliance path: In the tokenized stock track, xStocks' positioning is quite unique. Unlike some derivatives platforms that only provide price mapping, it takes the path of complete mapping of physical assets. The entire architecture was built by the Swiss compliance team Backed Finance, following the Swiss DLT legal framework, and using a special purpose vehicle (SPV) established in Liechtenstein to custody real stocks. This SPV is only responsible for one thing-holding the underlying assets themselves, and is legally completely isolated from the issuer and the trading platform. In other words, even if there is a problem with the operator, investors' rights and interests can be independently protected. What investors get is not a "contract paper", but a priority secured debt certificate corresponding to the real assets.
Technical Architecture and Transparency:
Underlying Chain Selection: Technically, xStocks chose Solana for its token issuance. The reasoning is easy to understand: high throughput, low costs, and extremely low confirmation latency make it a natural fit for frequent trading and DeFi strategies.
Transparency cornerstone: To ensure investors trust that its tokens are backed by real reserves, xStocks has introduced Chainlink’s Proof of Reserves. Anyone can verify the reserve status on-chain at any time, which adds a layer of transparency to its “asset tokens.”
Open Contract: On the other hand, as a standard SPL token, the xStocks token can circulate freely on Solana and can be easily connected with native DeFi protocols such as Jupiter and Kamino, making it fully composable.
Strategic Depth and Vision: From a business perspective, xStocks is not a closed-loop model directly targeting consumers, but rather employs a B2B2C distribution model. Token subscriptions and redemptions in the primary market are handled by Backed Finance for institutions, while secondary market trading relies on exchanges such as Kraken and Bybit. This approach attracts both professional institutions and a large number of retail investors through established exchanges, ultimately unlocking liquidity within an open ecosystem. Data has proven the potential of this model: after gaining support from mainstream platforms, its daily trading volume exceeded $6 million. The longer-term vision is to develop this model into "tokenization as a service," providing financial institutions with standardized tools for on-chain asset transfers.
xStocks's approach stands in stark contrast to Robinhood's. Robinhood's model is more like "digital financial derivatives," relying on a controlled whitelisting mechanism to lock in users. xStocks, on the other hand, puts real assets on-chain and maintains full interoperability with DeFi. This makes it a natural fit for Web3's "open LEGO" narrative, but it also faces the regulatory gray areas and risk spillover issues inherent in an open environment.
Whether this model can work depends on two points:
1. Whether deep liquidity can be truly established. If tokenized assets are only issued in one direction and lack sufficient counterparties and arbitrage mechanisms, their market significance will be very limited.
2. Can it gain long-term regulatory tolerance? While the current SPV structure is legally isolated, there is still uncertainty around how countries define "tokenized securities." If regulatory conflicts arise, the ecosystem could experience significant disruption.
Notably, the xStocks model may inspire a wider range of application scenarios. For example, it provides a replicable paradigm for "asset-backed tokens" beyond stablecoins, particularly suitable for the tokenization of bonds, ETFs, and even art funds. Unlike "controlled tokens" launched by a single exchange, it emphasizes the free compatibility with DeFi modules, injecting a new source of liquidity into the entire crypto ecosystem.
In a nutshell: xStocks isn't reinventing exchanges, but rather providing a new underlying asset base for DeFi. It seeks to bring the value of traditional finance to the blockchain in an authentic and transparent manner, shaping a new market ecosystem through open integration. If Robinhood's approach is to "move business onto the blockchain," xStocks's logic is more like "move assets onto the blockchain."
3. StableStocks: Proxy Stockholding + B2C + Platform Combination Mechanism
Legal Core: StableStocks adopts a unique "proxy shareholding + beneficiary" model. The platform establishes a dedicated SPV and partners with licensed brokerages (such as Australia's Habit Trade) to open institutional accounts, which actually purchase and hold the shares. Ultimately, investors do not directly hold shares, but rather enjoy corresponding rights as beneficiaries. This arrangement allows StableStocks to operate under the compliance systems of its partners without directly holding a full brokerage license, balancing compliance with flexibility.
Business Model: StableStocks is positioned as a typical B2C model, integrating deposits, trading, custody, and derivatives within its own platform. Unlike some B2B2C solutions, StableStocks prioritizes direct service to end users. Ecosystem-wide, it is closely integrated with Binance and the BNB Chain.
Composability: StableStocks' core differentiator lies in its focus on building an internally composable closed-loop system, rather than pursuing fully open external composability. Users can deposit their equity tokens into the platform's "StableVault," where they can then mint yield-generating stStocks. This creates a "walled financial playground"-style experience with limited gameplay and a more controllable experience.
From a more systematic perspective, the StableStocks model chain can be broken down into five key links:
Stock Acquisition and Sources
Real stocks from licensed brokers:
Australia's Habit Trade (70% stake) is responsible for US stock channels
Traditional banks (such as ANZ and DBS) provide fiat currency settlement and funding channel support.
The stock source is real and is not a synthetic asset.
Settlement and custody mechanism
The stocks are centrally managed by the SPV to isolate risks;
Cooperate with Nasdaq's clearing house to ensure the compliance and stability of the underlying asset flow.
Ensure a 1:1 correspondence and reduce counterparty default risk.
Tokenization and on-chain issuance
StableStocks maps custodial stocks into stock tokens;
Token issuance runs on BNB Chain and is supported by the Binance wallet and trading ecosystem;
Each token is backed by actual assets and is a standard asset-backed token.
Stablecoins and cryptocurrency entry
Connected to Coinbase’s stablecoin channel, users can directly redeem stock tokens with USDC;
It solves the barrier of fund conversion between fiat currency users and crypto users.
User-side usage and extension
Stock tokens can be held and traded in the Binance wallet;
In addition to the investment itself, it can also be embedded in StableStocks' self-built DeFi module (staking, yield enhancement).
The user experience is closer to a combination of "Robinhood + DeFi-lite".
StableStocks takes a middle path—neither closed to trading like Robinhood nor fully open to integration with the entire DeFi ecosystem like xStocks. Instead, it builds a semi-open system. For traditional financial investors, it offers a new way to enter the on-chain market; for crypto users, it provides convenient access to blue-chip stocks like Tesla, Apple, and McDonald's. Its core selling points are:
Compliance: Borrowing the licensed securities broker system;
Stability: Clearing house + SPV custody;
Ease of use: B2C closed loop;
Innovation: Internally composable DeFi-lite.
In a nutshell: StableStocks is a middle ground, attempting to strike a balance between the closed-off ease of Robinhood and the open complexity of xStocks. It's betting that users want a "DeFi-lite" experience—the enhanced returns of DeFi without the risks and complexities of open DeFi.
A Triangle Comparison: StableStocks vs xStocks vs Robinhood
IV. Insurmountable Structural Barriers
Despite their different models, all current stock tokenization solutions face several common structural obstacles that are difficult to resolve in the short term:
The conflict between value proposition and actual liquidity: All platforms currently face a classic "chicken and egg" dilemma. On the one hand, for users who already have convenient access to US stocks, the value proposition of tokenized stocks is unclear. On-chain trading not only fails to offer better fees, but also results in higher slippage due to a lack of liquidity, making the experience far inferior to that of established online brokerages. On the other hand, precisely because of the lack of a sufficiently strong value proposition to attract large-scale users and capital, on-chain liquidity has been slow to deepen, forming a self-reinforcing negative feedback loop: without users, there is no liquidity, and without liquidity, there is no chance of attracting new users. This impasse will be difficult to break unless existing users can be provided with irreplaceable new utility.
Structural Flaws: Current tokenized stocks are essentially digital twins of real stocks, but this replication is fundamentally flawed. First, the promise of 24/7 trading is largely illusory. When the underlying stock market (such as the Nasdaq) is closed, on-chain market makers are unable to hedge their exposure and are forced to resort to extreme spread widening or outright liquidity withdrawal, significantly reducing the effectiveness of weekend and after-hours trading. Second, these tokens strip away full shareholder rights. Users gain a claim to the economic value of the stock, not full ownership, including voting rights.
Centralization risks under the guise of "decentralization": Although operating on a decentralized blockchain, the trust foundation of these RWA models is highly concentrated in a series of off-chain entities. Whether it's the SPV issuing the tokens, the third-party bank responsible for asset custody, the brokerage firm executing trades, or the bridge connecting fiat and crypto, each link presents a potential point of centralized failure. If these centralized entities experience operational failure, legal disputes, or even bankruptcy, the on-chain tokens could instantly lose their value.
The potential paradox of DeFi composability: For open models like xStocks, the ultimate vision is to become the "money Legos" of the DeFi world. However, this composability faces a serious paradox. When a DeFi lending protocol considers accepting TSLAx as collateral, it must not only assess the price volatility risk of Tesla stock itself, but also the platform risk posed by its tokenized structure—the risk of default by the issuer, Backed Finance, or its custodian. This dual exposure to "asset risk + platform risk" makes DeFi protocols extremely cautious when integrating these RWA assets. Furthermore, the ambiguous legal status of these tokens has deterred DeFi protocols, fearing regulatory crackdowns for "illegal securities operations." This explains why no mainstream DeFi protocol has yet adopted them as core collateral, and the road to true composability remains long.
Conclusion: Which of the three models will win the future?
The outcome of this competition may not depend on whose legal structure is more ingenious, but on who can be the first to create irreplaceable value for users.
Robinhood’s path to victory lies in scale. If its goal is simply to bring a familiar asset class to tens of millions of existing users in a novel format, it will likely win in terms of user numbers.
xStocks' path to success lies in ecosystem development. If the "financial Lego" narrative holds true, and a large number of DeFi protocols use it as core collateral or underlying assets to build on-chain options, lending, and structured products, then it will win the future of Web3.
StableStocks' path to success lies in experiential learning. If it can prove that "DeFi-lite" is a real market, by providing a one-stop, low-barrier-to-entry "trading + yield" experience, it may carve out a niche between mainstream and hardcore DeFi users.
Fundamentally, the so-called "on-chain US stocks" is still in its experimental phase, currently more like a financial package operating under regulatory loopholes than a mature market tool. The true game-changer lies not in who first successfully executes a proof-of-concept, but in who can deliver a complete on-chain trading system integrating spot trading, short selling, leverage, and risk management. Only when the financial playability and functionality of on-chain stocks truly rival or even surpass those of established Wall Street brokerages will this transformation enter a substantive phase. For now, pioneers have only just put the wheels on the track; the real race is far from over.
