At a glance
- The study, titled Scaling Tokenization: New efficiencies and new vulnerabilities, examines the five most actively traded tokenized U.S. equities, including Tesla, Nvidia and Alphabet, plus index measures such as the Nasdaq 100, across both centralized and decentralized venues.
- More than half of tokenized-stock trading took place outside regular U.S. market hours, and about 80% of trades were for less than one share, the IMF found.
- Once U.S. markets opened, more than 85% of the overnight movement in tokenized shares was reflected in their traditional counterparts within five minutes, the IMF found.
Tokenized U.S. equities are roughly 1.5 times as volatile as the conventional shares they track and significantly less liquid, according to the International Monetary Fund's latest Global Financial Stability Report.
The study, titled Scaling Tokenization: New efficiencies and new vulnerabilities, examines the five most actively traded tokenized U.S. equities, including Tesla, Nvidia and Alphabet, plus index measures such as the Nasdaq 100, across both centralized and decentralized venues.
More than half of tokenized-stock trading took place outside regular U.S. market hours, and about 80% of trades were for less than one share, the IMF found. The report treats those figures as evidence that investors value 24/7 access and lower entry points.
Once U.S. markets opened, more than 85% of the overnight movement in tokenized shares was reflected in their traditional counterparts within five minutes, the IMF found.
The IMF estimates the tokenized real-world asset market at about $65 billion as of July 31, with tokenized equities accounting for roughly $2.3 billion of that, about 3.5% of the total. For scale, SIFMA puts 2025 global equity market capitalization at just under $160 trillion.
New tokenized stock venues
CoinDesk reported that Bullish, its Gibraltar-based parent company, introduced tokenized equity trading in August, and that OKX and Intercontinental Exchange, which owns and operates the New York Stock Exchange, filed plans earlier this month for a venue offering round-the-clock trading in tokenized U.S. shares. Coinbase Global, Kraken, Binance and Robinhood Markets also offer tokenized stock trading.
Tokenization, the IMF says, needs enough issuers, investors, trading venues and settlement assets on compatible systems to deliver its promised savings in cost and time. Today's market is split across private platforms.
This publication has argued that the tokenized-stock standard will be decided by who owns the register. The London Stock Exchange plans to list tokenized versions of the UK's 100 largest stocks as loan notes on a 24/5 venue.
Reported by the Tokenization desk from CoinDesk — Policy & Institutions. Published . Corrections