Original post by Wu Says Blockchain, Wu Says Real, July 4, 2025, 09:01, Shandong

Author | Wu Says Blockchain

This article is for informational sharing only and does not constitute any investment advice. Readers are advised to strictly adhere to local laws and regulations and not engage in illegal financial activities.

Recently, the topic of stock tokenization on-chain has been hotly debated in the community, with xStocks supported by Backed and Robinhood's model as representatives. In comparison, the stock on-chain model supported by xStocks has more significant openness and composability, allowing ordinary users to trade freely on-chain; while Robinhood, under compliance, only opens to users of exchanges in the EU with clear regulatory standards and does not allow transfers to non-compliant addresses. The following will explore these two models through multiple sets of data.

Backed and xStocks

(1) xStocks supports 61 stocks, of which 10 have generated trading volume on-chain

Although launched for only a few days, as of July 2, SPY, TSLA, CRCL, MSTR, and NVDA have accumulated over 1 million dollars in trading volume. Additionally, AAPL, GOOGL, QQQ, META, and AMZN have also generated user trading. Some meme trading platforms, such as GMGN, have also launched trading partitions for xStocks.

(2) After being supported by Bybit and Kraken, the trading volume of xStocks stock tokens has surged

After announcing support from Bybit and Kraken, xStocks trading volume increased significantly for two consecutive days, reaching $6.641 million on July 1, with more than 6.5k users and over 17,800 transactions, among which TSLA, SPY, and CRCL all exceeded $1 million in daily trading volume.

(3) 1 coin is pegged to 1 share

xStocks follows the logic of 1 token equaling 1 share of stock. Professional or compliant investors can apply for a Backed Account to purchase stocks through Backed, which assists these primary investors in purchasing through brokers. The purchased stocks are held by a third party, and the corresponding number of tokens is minted based on the purchased stock quantity and returned to the primary investors. Primary investors with a Backed Account can issue and redeem stock tokens at any time. Currently, among the 10 xStocks stock tokens that have been traded, NVIDIA, Circle, and Tesla stock tokens have the highest total quantity, each exceeding 10,000 tokens.

(4) Liquidity depends on exchange market makers

The issuance rights of stock tokens are concentrated in the hands of primary professional investors, but they issue stock tokens, raising the question of who provides liquidity. The significance of xStocks collaborating with exchanges lies not only in providing distribution channels for stock tokens but also in making exchanges a part of primary issuance, utilizing the market maker resources of exchanges to provide better liquidity. The activity of trading complements the depth of the liquidity pool; the more active the trading, the more liquidity providers are apparent, especially as the trading volume for SP500 (SPY) on-chain USDC liquidity reached 1 million dollars, exceeding the market cap of currently issued stock tokens. However, stock tokens with low trading volumes face the awkward situation of having no liquidity providers.

(5) Use third-party DeFi protocol tokens to guide and incentivize retail investors to provide liquidity for stock tokens

The xStocks stock tokens issued on Solana are expected to reference the bStocks issued on EVM networks, which are also supported by Backed. They aim to reach certain collaborations with public chains and mainstream DEXs, using these types of third-party protocol tokens to incentivize and guide liquidity for stock tokens. Currently, xStocks is also actively collaborating with DeFi protocols on Solana, known partners include DEX aggregator Jupiter and lending protocol Kamino.

Robinhood stocks on-chain

(1) Robinhood: The deployer has deployed 213 tokens or is testing stock tokens

Robinhood chose Arbitrum to issue its stock tokens, deploying 213 stock tokens at a cost of only $5.35, averaging just $0.03 per token. The low transaction fees are one of the important factors for Robinhood's choice of Arbitrum. Next, Robinhood will develop its proprietary chain, Robinhood Chain, based on Arbitrum.

(Source: @tomwanhh)

(2) Robinhood has minted 2,309 OpenAI (o) tokens

Robinhood announced that Robinhood EU will launch the world's first non-listed company stock tokens, including OpenAI and SpaceX tokens. Making crypto a high-value potential pre-market for non-listed company stocks is undoubtedly the most exciting aspect of Robinhood's stock on-chain efforts. In the future, crypto users may have access to and buy upcoming listed stocks earlier than traditional stock market investors. Currently, Robinhood has minted 2,309 OpenAI (o) tokens.

(3) Robinhood's stock token contracts are embedded with compliance requirements

Electric Capital researcher ren found that after reverse engineering Robinhood's stock token contracts, it is a closed system. Each transfer requires checking an approved wallet registry (KYC/AML). These tokens may not interact with DeFi, but CeFi with distribution capabilities might benefit. Even EU users purchasing stocks on-chain cannot transfer stock tokens to non-registered addresses, as such transfers will be blocked.

(Source: @0xren_cf)

(4) 79 stock tokens have set metadata and will soon go live

In addition to OpenAI, addresses related to Robinhood have set metadata for 79 deployed stock tokens, including stocks like Robinhood Markets, Trump Media & Technology Group, GameStop, as well as ETFs like Schwab US Dividend Equity ETF and Yieldmax MSTR Option Income Strategy. Some stock tokens with set metadata have undergone a small amount of minting.