Equities

Market state

RWA.xyz recorded $1.94bn of distributed value in tokenised stocks on 22 July 2026, up 20.38% over 30 days, with monthly transfer volume of $7.90bn, up 25.25%, and 683,350 holders, up 78.35%, across 2,713 assets. This is the fastest-growing class by both value and holder count, and the only one where monthly turnover is several times the outstanding value - $7.90bn of transfers against $1.94bn of value - which reflects genuine trading rather than holding.

The largest single entries are issuer-sponsored: Figure Technology Solutions' FGRS at $218.6m on Provenance and Securitize's SECZ at $185.2m. Third-party wrappers follow: xStocks' Strategy variable share token at $127.8m, Ondo's Circle Internet Group token at $105.2m and Ondo's iShares Core S&P 500 ETF token at $68.2m. By breadth, Ondo listed 406 assets and xStocks 282.

Ondo said it had more than $1bn of tokenised stocks and ETFs across more than 430 securities when it launched tokenised iShares Core S&P 500 ETF and Micron Technology shares on 2 July 2026 - the first production use of a third-party custodial model aligned to SEC staff guidance from January 2026, using Ondo's SEC-registered transfer agent Oasis Pro TA on Ethereum with Broadridge handling proxy voting and shareholder communications. The product was not available to US investors at launch.

The Securities Transfer Association, petitioning the SEC on 13 July 2026, put the tokenised stock market at approximately $2bn, consistent with the tracker data.

Market structure

The three models differ in what the holder actually owns, and the distinction is now the central regulatory dispute in the class.

In the third-party custodial model - xStocks, Dinari, Ondo Global Markets - a platform holds the underlying share with a conventional custodian and issues a token representing a one-for-one entitlement. The holder has a contractual claim on the platform, not a share. These tokens trade continuously, including when the primary market is closed, and are typically unavailable to US persons.

In the issuer-sponsored model the token is the security: Figure's FGRS and Securitize's SECZ are registered shares whose transfer agent register is a blockchain. Holders have full shareholder rights.

The exchange model approved for Nasdaq on 18 March 2026 keeps tokenised and conventional shares on one order book with the same CUSIP and symbol, identical rights, identical execution priority and existing T+1 settlement, with participation limited to DTC pilot members and an opt-in tokenisation flag at order entry. It adds a settlement representation rather than a new trading venue.

Ondo's July 2026 launch is a hybrid: a third-party custodial structure operated through an SEC-registered transfer agent with Broadridge providing proxy and disclosure services, designed to give wrapper holders something closer to shareholder treatment.

Risks

In wrapper models the holder bears platform credit, custody and operational risk and does not hold the share. Voting, corporate actions and class-action standing are contractual at best. The Securities Transfer Association's 13 July 2026 petition to the SEC argued precisely this - that only an issuer-sponsored token is an actual share - and cited blurred investor rights, weakened shareholder protections and market fragmentation as the principal harms.

Continuous trading against a closed primary market creates gap risk: tokens quote overnight and at weekends while creation and redemption of the underlying is unavailable, so the token can trade away from fair value with no arbitrage channel until the exchange reopens.

Liquidity is shallow relative to the reference market. A $1.94bn market referencing multi-trillion-dollar equity markets cannot absorb size, and per-name depth across 2,713 listed assets is minimal.

US persons are excluded from most wrapper products, so the growth in holders is concentrated in jurisdictions with lighter distribution rules, raising the question of what happens to those positions if a host jurisdiction changes its treatment.

Projections circulating in the market - including a Citi base case of $5.5trn of tokenised assets and $2.6trn of tokenised stocks by 2030, cited in the STA petition - are third-party forecasts, not observed data, and should not be used as a baseline.

Regulatory treatment

United States: the SEC's 2026 sequence has been permissive but conditional. Staff granted no-action relief to the Depository Trust Company's tokenisation pilot in December 2025; staff guidance in January 2026 set out how a third-party custodial tokenisation model could comply with existing securities law; and the Commission approved Nasdaq's tokenised-securities rule change on 18 March 2026, restricted to Russell 1000 constituents and major S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 tracking ETFs, requiring fungibility, shared CUSIP and identical shareholder rights. A broader innovation exemption for tokenised stocks has been discussed but was delayed during 2026.

The open contest is between issuer-sponsored and third-party tokens. The Securities Transfer Association petitioned the SEC on 13 July 2026 for preferential treatment of issuer-sponsored tokens and for modernisation of the Direct Registration System to support them.

European Union: tokenised shares are MiFID II financial instruments; trading and settlement fall under the DLT Pilot Regime. The Commission's 4 December 2025 proposal would remove the €500m issuer market-capitalisation limit that had excluded large-cap shares, raise the platform issuance ceiling from €6bn to €100bn and extend eligibility to all MiFID II securities - the changes that matter most for this class.

Distribution of wrapper products has concentrated in jurisdictions outside the United States, and several products explicitly exclude US persons.