Author: Nomos Labs
Original Title: From MyStonks to Backed, Why US Stocks Are "Rushing" to Tokenization
US stock tokenization is unexpectedly becoming the focus of the global blockchain market in 2025. According to RWA.xyz data, the current market value of tokenized stocks is $422 million, with 50,000 addresses holding tokenized stocks, a nearly 2000% surge compared to 30 days ago.
If you have recently paid attention to platforms like MyStonks, Backed, Kraken, or even Web3 exchanges such as gate.io and Bybit, you have probably noticed that traditional US stock stars like Apple, Tesla, and Nvidia have been quickly brought on-chain, no longer limited to Wall Street trading windows, but circulating 24/7 among global investors.
This "rush" to tokenization is not just a technological breakthrough, but also an inevitable result of market demand and regulatory relaxation, accelerating the transformation of the global investment landscape.
I. Sudden Acceleration in 2025: Why Are US Stocks Migrating On-Chain?
The blockchain concept is not new to traditional finance, but why has US stock tokenization entered an explosive period in 2025? Technological progress, market demand, regulatory relaxation, and capital logic collectively form the underlying driving force of this trend.
First, technical bottlenecks have been gradually resolved. After years of development, mainstream public chains like Ethereum and Solana now have the capability to support large-scale asset tokenization. Ethereum provides the ERC-20 standard to ensure on-chain compatibility, while Solana, with its high throughput and low cost, has become a popular choice for exchanges like Kraken and Bybit. Meanwhile, the gradual maturity of cross-chain bridges (such as Wormhole) and decentralized identity (DID) mechanisms have lowered the barriers for traditional assets to enter the on-chain space.
More importantly, in 2025, global markets, especially emerging economies, have unprecedented enthusiasm for US stocks. However, traditional US stock trading channels have extremely high thresholds for overseas investors: complex account opening procedures, high fees, and limited trading hours significantly suppress overseas capital inflow. On-chain US stocks completely bypass traditional account opening and trading processes, allowing global users to easily invest in US assets directly using stablecoins. This 24-hour, low-threshold, low-cost investment channel quickly meets the long-accumulated global market demand.
A deeper driving force comes from the US dollar's global strategy. The stablecoin market created $27.6 trillion in transaction volume in 2024, even surpassing Visa and Mastercard. US stock tokenization provides a new value flow path for US dollar stablecoins, becoming another hidden channel for US capital's global return. The on-chain transformation of US stocks, seemingly a financial innovation, is deeply tied to the US dollar's internationalization strategy. Using stablecoins and on-chain US stocks as tools, US financial institutions and regulatory bodies are attracting global capital to US dollar assets in a more flexible manner.
Image source: Zhongguancun Internet Finance Research Institute
From technical feasibility to global capital flow, and then to the US dollar financial hegemony strategy, the acceleration of US stock tokenization is not a coincidental phenomenon, but a carefully planned financial ecosystem reconstruction. The on-chain "Apple" and "Tesla" are not merely digital copies of traditional stocks, but a structural change in global capital game rules.
However, the explosion of on-chain US stocks is just the surface. Behind this "rush" to tokenization, the real operators are the strategic games of exchanges and tokenization platforms.
II. Behind the Rise of On-Chain US Stocks: The Real Driving Forces of Exchanges and Platforms
The rapid development of on-chain US stocks is not the active choice of the US stock market itself, but the result of strategic promotion by on-chain asset platforms and exchanges. From MyStonks to Backed to Kraken, the rise of these platforms reveals the different demands and games of various market participants.
For professional asset tokenization platforms (like Backed and MyStonks), on-chain US stocks mean a new business model and regulatory arbitrage space. Taking Backed as an example, by collaborating with Interactive Brokers and European custody institution Clearstream, they can circumvent the SEC's ambiguous regulatory area, legally custody actual US stock assets as tokens in Europe, and sell them globally through on-chain platforms. This model not only reduces regulatory compliance costs but also opens more flexible investment channels for global users.
MyStonks, on the other hand, chose a more decentralized path, developing on-chain asset models based on ERC-20 and Non-Fungible Token standards, partnering with Fidelity for asset custody, emphasizing DID identity verification and transparency, attempting to build a completely new bridge between DeFi and traditional securities markets.
Kraken and other exchange platforms' participation is more like capturing the next narrative trend: expanding trading categories, enhancing user stickiness, and reducing the risk of user assets flowing to traditional financial institutions by introducing US stock tokens. This participation strategy is not only a natural extension of commercial expansion but also reflects on-chain exchanges' high expectations for "real asset access to Web3".
The interaction of these multi-party driving forces ultimately formed an accelerating race of "on-chain US stocks". The mutual collaboration and competition between exchanges and asset tokenization platforms have shaped the on-chain US stock phenomenon in 2025 and laid the groundwork for the next evolution of the US stock tokenization ecosystem.
III. Different Path Explorers Trying to Answer How US Stocks Should Be On-Chained
MyStonks' approach is the most "native". It turns stocks into Non-Fungible Tokens and ERC-20 tokens, circulating on the Ethereum network. It also integrates a DID identity system, attempting to meet compliance requirements while protecting privacy. On MyStonks, users can not only trade stock tokens but also "own" them, just like a USDC in their wallet. However, this model also brings an old problem: Non-Fungible Token liquidity and composability remain limited, and on-chain trading efficiency and user experience are still in the early stages.
Backed takes a completely different approach. It's more like an extension of a compliant financial institution, custody real US stocks in a European regulated securities system, and then issue 1:1 anchored tokens. These tokens can be traded on-chain, but the core assets are more held by the platform than by users. Backed's value lies in lowering the threshold for traditional institutions to participate in Web3, but in this model, users' control over assets remains limited, and it's difficult to avoid the essential problem of "trust intermediaries".
Kraken positions itself as an "interface platform", without building its own token model, but directly integrating existing token products like Backed, providing traditional users with familiar interfaces and convenient trading experiences while maintaining basic compatibility with on-chain assets. This approach lowers user barriers but also means weaker on-chain attributes, still largely dependent on the platform's own credibility.
The three models emphasize different aspects: MyStonks emphasizes "assets belong to users", Backed emphasizes "assets are truly trustworthy", and Kraken emphasizes "trading is convenient". They are three paths, also answering a common question: Can the core assets of traditional finance have their own "universal expression" on-chain, like USDT?
Behind this is not actually a technical route dispute, but a design problem of "who trusts whom": Do users trust the code? Trust the platform? Or trust the brokers and custodial institutions behind it? These three parties are participating in an experiment of future standards with different answers.
IV. Trend Significance and Impact: How is On-Chain US Stocks Reshaping Financial Landscape?
On-chain US stocks are changing more than just the trading method.
Its most intuitive change is transforming stocks that were previously only tradable during US stock market hours into assets that can be bought and sold 24/7. Whether in New York morning or East Asian midnight, users can place orders, match trades, and complete transactions. US stocks are no longer exclusive to "American daytime" but have become a globally available asset around the clock.
An even greater change is that it allows global ordinary users to "directly buy US stocks" for the first time. In the past, to invest in stocks like Tesla or Apple, one had to open a US stock account, exchange currencies, and clear compliance thresholds. Now, with just stablecoins, users can do it in one step. Cross-border investment has transformed from a complex process to a simple wallet operation.
For DeFi, on-chain US stocks bring not just a new asset class, but the first true entry of real financial assets into blockchain. These tokens have real enterprise support and cash flow, and can directly participate in liquidity pools, lending, and even derivative design, thereby providing DeFi with a credit foundation linked to real assets.
Image source: Token-based US stock issuance and trading process advocated by Project Open
These assets entering DeFi are no longer abstract "digital currencies", but operational financial tools with stable valuation anchors and regulatory endorsement. They can be combined, collateralized, split, and repackaged, gradually building a more mature on-chain financial ecosystem.
So when we ask "why are US stocks rushing to tokenize", we might see a trend or a wave. But looking deeper, it represents the re-dominance of US dollar assets in global liquidity, crypto platforms' active approach to real credit systems, and another milestone for blockchain breaking dimensional barriers.
Conclusion
From MyStonks to Backed, to Kraken, these seemingly different product solutions actually reflect blockchain's strong desire for real assets. In the past few years, we've witnessed how stablecoins became a new carrier of US dollars, and now US stock tokenization is walking the same path - not to replicate traditional finance, but to introduce a more credible, familiar, and liquid asset anchor for on-chain markets.
That's why we say the "urgency" of US stock tokenization isn't because US stocks are anxious, but because the on-chain market desperately needs a more stable, authentic, and easily understood physical asset.
This tokenization trend appears to be the "tokenization of traditional assets", but it's actually Web3 actively seeking an asset logic that can support trading, liquidity, and user trust. Especially when crypto native assets are highly volatile and DeFi TVL growth is slowing, US stocks as "high-quality targets from the real world" are quickly introduced into the Web3 ecosystem, becoming a traffic tool that exchanges compete for and the starting point of a new narrative.
From 24-hour non-stop trading to cross-border investment bypassing brokers, to stablecoins as settlement channels, the changes brought by US stock tokenization have long since transcended the product itself.
