On-chain tokenized equity holders have reached a record $1.9 million as demand for blockchain-based access to traditional stocks grows.
The number has increased 134% month over month and 1,360% since the start of the year, according to data cited by The Kobeissi Letter. Furthermore, just ten months ago, fewer than 100,000 people held tokenized assets.
Kobeissi said the rise in adoption is tied to a combination of several companies like SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic launching their IPOs, and growing demand for markets that remain open around the clock.
Jupiter, the largest on-chain trading platform on Solana, has also had 61% of its tokenized equity volume occur during traditional market off-hours, with its active traders also increasing by 46% monthly.
The data suggests tokenization is creating a 24-hour layer around equity markets, changing how prices are formed, and liquidity is maintained when underlying markets are closed.
What Happens When Stocks Trade Outside Traditional Market Hours?
Traditional stock markets usually operate within fixed trading sessions, meaning investors cannot trade the underlying stocks once exchanges close. Tokenized markets remove that restriction by allowing equity exposure to continue trading outside conventional market hours.
Trading beyond those hours affects how prices are formed because tokenized stocks can continue trading overnight and through weekends while their underlying securities remain closed, leaving arbitrageurs and liquidity providers to connect the two markets.
A study published in June found that tokenized stocks have fairly modest price discovery during the week, while weekend pricing was more predictive of some assets. To be reliable sources of price information outside of traditional trading hours, researchers said they would need deeper participation, greater institutional liquidity and less reliance on broader crypto market sentiment.
A separate one found that early digital stock markets suffered from low liquidity, high price impact and significant price dislocations from their underlying shares. However, in some circumstances, automated market makers can lower transaction costs.
But the bigger structural change will also depend on whether that access will extend to issuer-based ownership.
From Exposure to Ownership
Haider Rafique, managing partner at OKX, linked the growth of tokenized equities to a broader global demand, saying “More people around the world want access to US stocks and to always open markets.” He explained that this has helped drive equity perpetuals and non-issuer-based tokenized stocks, while issuer-based tokenized equities remain the longer-term goal for the market.
While some products offer only exposure to a stock’s price, firms such as Securitize, Jump Trading and Jupiter are building regulated infrastructure to make tokenized markets more closely resemble actual share ownership.
Traditional exchanges are moving in the same direction, with the London Stock Exchange Group announcing this week that it plans to introduce UK tokenized equity structures. The platform also said it’s partnering with Payward, the parent company of Kraken, to explore tokenized public equity markets.
Elsewhere, LSEG is also developing digital settlement infrastructure designed to support 24-hour movement of assets, which matters because trading 24/7 without settlement 24/7 creates a structural gap.
The evidence shows that tokenized equities are already pushing stock trading beyond traditional market hours, as investors continue trading when regular exchanges are closed. But for these markets to truly become a 24-hour version of the stock market, investors will need deeper liquidity, reliable price discovery, 24/7 settlement, and the same ownership rights as the underlying shares.
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