Tokenized stocks are successfully delivering two of cryptocurrency’s long-promised benefits—round-the-clock trading and fractional share ownership—according to a new comprehensive study published by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). However, the global financial institution cautions that blockchain-based equities remain markedly less liquid and more volatile than the traditional securities they track, highlighting structural gaps in current market infrastructure.
The findings form a core part of the IMF’s latest Global Financial Stability Report, titled Scaling Tokenization: New efficiencies and new vulnerabilities. The research specifically examines the five most actively traded tokenized U.S. equities, including technology giants Tesla (TSLA), Nvidia (NVDA), and Alphabet (GOOG), alongside major market measures such as the Nasdaq 100 Index, across a variety of centralized and decentralized trading venues.
A Growing Appetite for 24/7 Access and Fractional Shares
According to the IMF’s data, investor demand for blockchain-based equities is driven largely by accessibility. More than half of all trading activity in the study took place outside of regular U.S. market hours, illustrating a clear appetite for continuous market access. Furthermore, approximately 80% of individual trades were executed for less than a single share, demonstrating how tokenization lowers financial barriers to entry for retail and institutional participants alike.
The study also shed light on the predictive nature of overnight price action. Researchers found that overnight movements in tokenized stocks often carry valuable information regarding the underlying traditional shares. Once traditional U.S. markets opened for the day, more than 85% of the overnight price movement observed in tokenized shares was successfully reflected in their conventional counterparts within a five-minute window.
Bitget CEO Gracy Chen noted the broader operational implications of this trend, observing that moving assets on-chain is merely the initial phase of a larger evolution. The critical challenge, she suggested, lies in optimizing capital efficiency once those assets reside on distributed ledgers.
The Scale of Tokenized Assets Versus Traditional Markets
While the use cases for tokenized equities are gaining traction, the IMF’s analysis emphasizes that the market remains in its relative infancy. The report estimates that the broader tokenized real-world asset (RWA) market has expanded rapidly, reaching approximately $65 billion as of July 31. Within that broader ecosystem, tokenized equities accounted for roughly $2.3 billion.
When measured against the broader global financial landscape, however, these figures remain modest. Data from the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA), the trade group representing the U.S. securities industry, put the global equity market capitalization at just under $160 trillion in 2025.
Despite the nascent stage of the market, development and institutional interest continue to accelerate. In August, Gibraltar-based crypto firm Bullish—the parent company of CoinDesk—introduced tokenized equity trading on its platform. Early in October, digital asset exchange OKX and Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the parent company and operator of the New York Stock Exchange, filed plans to launch a dedicated venue offering round-the-clock trading in tokenized U.S. shares.
These firms join a growing roster of established platforms offering tokenized stock products. Major crypto exchanges, including Coinbase Global (COIN), Kraken, and Binance, already support similar trading mechanisms, alongside retail-focused brokerage Robinhood Markets (HOOD).
Despite this expanding infrastructure, the IMF’s quantitative findings revealed that tokenized stocks traded at roughly 1.5 times the volatility of equivalent shares on traditional trading venues, while suffering from significantly lower liquidity profiles.
Infrastructure Gaps and Regulatory Preparedness
The core challenges facing the tokenized equity sector extend beyond mere market capitalization. The IMF notes that successful tokenization requires a synchronized ecosystem consisting of a critical mass of issuers, investors, trading venues, and settlement assets operating on fully compatible technological systems in order to realize promised savings in cost and time.
At present, the market remains heavily fragmented. Activity is split across private platforms, public blockchains, various custodians, and differing settlement tools that frequently lack interoperability.
The IMF highlighted that tokenization holds genuine potential to streamline back-office operations. It could theoretically replace manual reconciliation work, automate routine administrative tasks such as dividend distributions, and accelerate the transfer of collateral between counterparties. At the same time, the report issued a warning: features such as automated margin calls, algorithmic liquidations, rapid collateral movement across disparate platforms, and continuous 24-hour trading could amplify market stress and make systemic shocks significantly harder to contain.
While systemic risks remain contained due to the current small scale of tokenized markets, the IMF’s report stresses that foundational upgrades are necessary. Policymakers, developers, and financial institutions must refine legal frameworks governing digital ownership, establish robust safeguards for market liquidity, ensure seamless connectivity between disparate systems, and harmonize settlement arrangements before the sector scales to systemic proportions.
