Why are MyStonks and Backed in a hurry for tokenization of US stocks?

Author: Nomos Labs Source: mirror

The tokenization of U.S. stocks is unexpectedly becoming the focus of the global blockchain market in 2025 at an astonishing pace. According to data from RWA.xyz, the current market value of tokenized stocks is $422 million, and there are 50,000 addresses holding tokenized stocks, which represents an increase of nearly 2000% compared to 30 days ago.

If you have recently followed platforms like MyStonks, Backed, and Kraken, or even on Web3 exchanges like Gate and Bybit, you might have noticed that traditional US stock stars like Apple, Tesla, and Nvidia have been quickly brought onto the chain, and are no longer limited to the trading windows of Wall Street, but are circulating among global investors 24/7.

This wave of urgent tokenization is not only a breakthrough in technology but also an inevitable result of market demand and regulatory easing, accelerating changes in the global investment landscape.

1. The Sudden Acceleration of 2025: Why Are US Stocks Starting to Migrate On-Chain?

The concept of blockchain has not been combined with traditional finance for the first time, but why is it that the tokenization of US stocks is entering a period of explosive growth in 2025? Technological advancements, market demand, regulatory relaxation, and capital logic together constitute the underlying driving forces of this trend.

First, the technical bottlenecks have been gradually overcome. After years of development, mainstream public chains like Ethereum and Solana now possess the capability to support large-scale asset tokenization. Ethereum provides the ERC-20 standard to ensure on-chain compatibility, while Solana has become a popular choice for trading platforms like Kraken and Bybit due to its high throughput and low costs. Meanwhile, the gradual maturation of cross-chain bridges (such as Wormhole) and decentralized identity verification (DID) mechanisms has lowered the barriers for traditional assets to enter the blockchain.

More importantly, in 2025, investors in the global market, especially in emerging economies, will have an unprecedented enthusiasm for investing in US stocks. However, traditional trading channels for US stocks have very high barriers for overseas investors: the account opening process is complicated, fees are high, and trading hours are limited, significantly suppressing the inflow of overseas funds. On-chain US stocks completely bypass the traditional account opening and trading processes, allowing global users to easily participate in investment transactions of US assets using stablecoins. This 24-hour, low-barrier, low-cost investment channel quickly meets the long-standing demand in the global market.

The deeper driving force comes from the global layout strategy of the US dollar. The stablecoin market has generated $27.6 trillion in transaction volume in 2024, surpassing both Visa and Mastercard. The tokenization of US stocks is providing a new value flow pathway for US dollar stablecoins, becoming another covert channel for the global return of US capital. The on-chain integration of US stocks appears to be financial innovation, but it is deeply tied to the internationalization strategy of the US dollar. Using stablecoins and on-chain US stocks as tools, US financial institutions and regulatory agencies are attracting global capital to concentrate on 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 strategy of US dollar financial hegemony, the acceleration of US stock tokenization is not a coincidence, but a carefully planned financial ecosystem reconstruction. The on-chain “Apple” and “Tesla” are not merely digital replicas of traditional stocks, but rather a structural change in the rules of the global capital game.

However, the surge of on-chain US stocks is merely a facade. Behind this movement of rushing to tokenize, the real players are the strategic games of exchanges and tokenization platforms.

II. The Rise of On-Chain US Stocks: The Real Drivers Behind Exchanges and Platforms

The rapid development of on-chain US stocks is not an active choice of the US stock market itself, but rather the result of strategic promotion by on-chain asset platforms and exchanges. From MyStonks to Backed to Kraken, the rise of these platforms highlights the different demands and games of various market entities.

For professional asset tokenization platforms (such as Backed and MyStonks), on-chain US stocks represent new business models and regulatory arbitrage opportunities. Taking Backed as an example, by collaborating with Interactive Brokers and the European custodian Clearstream, they can navigate the ambiguous regulatory gray areas set by the SEC and compliantly custody actual US stock assets in the form of tokens in Europe, facilitating global sales through their on-chain platform. This model not only reduces regulatory compliance costs but also opens up more flexible investment channels for global users.

MyStonks has chosen a more decentralized path, developing an on-chain asset model based on the ERC-20 and NFT standards, combined with Fidelity’s asset custody, emphasizing DID identity verification and transparency, attempting to build a new bridge between decentralized finance (DeFi) and the traditional securities market.

The participation of trading platforms like Kraken is more like catching the next narrative trend: by introducing US stock tokens to expand trading categories, enhance user stickiness, and reduce the risk of user assets flowing to traditional financial institutions. This participation strategy is not only a natural extension of business expansion but also reflects the high expectations of on-chain exchanges for “real asset access to Web3.”

The combined effect of these multiple driving forces has ultimately formed an accelerated competition for “on-chain US stocks.” The mutual cooperation and competition between exchanges and asset tokenization platforms have jointly shaped the phenomenon of tokenization of US stocks by 2025, laying the groundwork for the next evolution of the US stock tokenization ecosystem.

3. Explorers of Different Paths, Attempting to Answer How US Stocks Should Be On-Chain?

MyStonks’ approach is the most “native”. It turns stocks into NFTs and ERC-20 tokens, circulating on-chain through 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 your wallet. However, this model also brings an old problem: the liquidity and composability of NFTs remain limited, and the efficiency of on-chain transactions and user experience are still in the early stages.

Backed is taking a completely different path. It is more like an extension of a compliant financial institution, holding real US stocks in a regulated securities system in Europe, and then issuing tokens that are 1:1 pegged. These tokens can be traded on-chain, but the core assets are less about belonging to the users and more about being held by the platform on their behalf. The value of Backed lies in lowering the threshold for traditional institutions to participate in Web3, but under this model, users’ control over assets remains limited, and it is difficult to avoid the fundamental issue of “trust intermediaries.”

Kraken positions itself as an “interface platform” without its own token model, instead directly integrating existing token products like Backed to provide traditional users with a familiar interface and convenient trading experience, while maintaining basic compatibility with on-chain assets. This approach, while lowering the user threshold, also means that its on-chain attributes are weaker and more reliant on the platform’s own credibility.

The three modes emphasize different aspects: MyStonks emphasizes “assets belong to users”, Backed emphasizes “assets are truly credible”, and Kraken emphasizes “transactions are convenient enough”. They represent three paths, answering a common question: Can the core assets of traditional finance have their own “universal expression” on the chain, just like USDT?

The underlying issue is not a technical route dispute, but rather a design question of “who to trust”: Do users trust the code? Trust the platform? Or trust the brokers and custodians behind it? These three parties are participating in an experiment for future standards with different answers.

4. Significance and Impact of Trends: What Financial Patterns are Being Reshaped by On-chain US Stocks?

On-chain US stocks are changing not just the trading methods.

The most intuitive change is that stocks, which could originally only be traded during the opening hours of the US stock market, have become assets that can be bought and sold 24 hours a day. Whether it’s early morning in New York or late at night in East Asia, users can place orders, match, and complete transactions. US stocks no longer belong only to “American daytime,” but have become global assets that operate around the clock.

The bigger change is that it allows ordinary users around the world to “directly buy U.S. stocks” for the first time. In the past, if you wanted to invest in stocks like Tesla or Apple, you had to open a U.S. stock account, exchange currency, and go through compliance hurdles. Now, as long as you have stablecoins, you can do it in one step. Cross-border investment has transformed from a complex process into a simple wallet operation.

For DeFi, the on-chain US stocks bring not only a new type of asset, but also the first real entry of real financial assets into the blockchain. These tokens are backed by real enterprises and cash flow, allowing direct participation in liquidity pools, lending, and even derivatives design. As a result, DeFi has a credit foundation linked to real assets.

Image source: The tokenized US stock issuance and trading process advocated by Project Open.

Assets of this type entering DeFi are no longer abstract “digital currencies” but are operational financial instruments with stable valuation anchors and regulatory backing. 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 in a hurry to tokenize?” what we may see is a wave or a trend. But looking deeper, it reveals a re-dominance of dollar assets over global liquidity, an active alignment of crypto platforms towards the real credit system, and yet another milestone in blockchain breaking the dimensional wall.

Conclusion

From MyStonks to Backed and Kraken, these appear to be three different product solutions, but they actually reflect the strong desire of blockchain for real assets. Over the past few years, we have witnessed how stablecoins have become a new vehicle for the US dollar, and now the tokenization of US stocks is also following the same path—not to replicate traditional finance, but to introduce a more reliable, familiar, and liquid asset anchor point to the on-chain market.

That’s why we say that the tokenization of U.S. stocks is “urgent” not because U.S. stocks themselves are particularly anxious, but because the on-chain market really needs a more stable, more genuine, and more easily understandable physical asset.

This wave of tokenization appears to be the tokenization of traditional assets, but in reality, it is Web3 actively seeking an asset logic that can support trading, liquidity, and user trust. Especially amid the severe volatility of crypto-native assets and the slowing growth of DeFi TVL, U.S. stocks, as “high-quality targets in the real world,” have been rapidly introduced into the Web3 ecosystem, becoming a traffic tool that exchanges compete for and the starting point for a new narrative.

From 24-hour continuous trading, to bypassing brokers for cross-border investments, and stablecoins serving as settlement channels, the changes brought by the tokenization of US stocks have already surpassed the products themselves.