A Comprehensive Understanding of Stock Tokenization: Who is Doing It, How to Buy, and What Are the Risks?

Author: Social Graph Ventures
Compiled by: Jiahua, ChainCatcher
In the past sixty days, the changes in the structure of the US capital market have surpassed those of the past decade. The SEC outlined the blueprint for tokenized securities. Nasdaq was approved to conduct token settlement transactions. DTC received a no-action letter. The New York Stock Exchange announced a partnership with Securitize to launch a tokenized platform.
@fundrise's closed-end fund VCX, which holds @AnthropicAI, @OpenAI, and @SpaceX, saw its premium soar to over 1900% of net asset value (NAV). Retail investors paid 26 times the actual value of the underlying assets to gain exposure.
This is not rational pricing; it is a failure of market structure. The global stock market is valued at about $140 trillion. And what about today's tokenized stocks? About $1 billion. The penetration rate is only 0.0007%.
How stocks are tokenized: four models, participants, and user paths
The SEC's statement in January 2026 not only reiterated that 'tokenized securities are still securities' but also laid out precise classifications regarding how tokenization actually operates. Researcher Borja Neira (@borjaneira_) created one of the clearest visual charts of this framework, depicting the evolution from issuer-sponsored to third-party synthetic.
Model A: Issuer-sponsored tokenized securities (direct registration)
How it works: The company integrates blockchain into its primary securities holder ledger. When tokens transfer on-chain, ownership on the official register is updated simultaneously. What you own are securities registered in your name, not claims, not equity certificates, but real stocks.
Who is doing this: Galaxy Digital is the first publicly traded company to tokenize its equity registered with the SEC. By partnering with the Opening Bell platform (as a registered transfer agent with the SEC), GLXY shareholders can now tokenize their shares on Solana, store them in their own crypto wallets, and even use them as collateral in DeFi protocols like Kamino.
Pain point: Model A requires issuers to actively choose to participate. Galaxy chose to do this for its own stock, but Apple, Tesla, and Nvidia did not. This is the fundamental limitation: Model A is only effective when the company itself decides to participate. You cannot tokenize someone else's stock under this model.
User path: You need to complete KYC (identity verification) on the Superstate platform. You verify your identity, connect your wallet, and then you can tokenize the GLXY shares you already hold (or have acquired). You can transfer them between whitelisted wallets and use them in permitted DeFi protocols.
Omnibus Account
Before explaining Models B, C, and D, it is necessary to understand the omnibus account, as it is the underlying core structure of most tokenized stock platforms today.
What is an omnibus account? In simple terms, it is a consolidation of multiple clients' assets into one account. Brokers or intermediaries hold this mixed asset on behalf of all clients, presenting it externally (and to custodians) as a large pooled fund, while internally keeping track of each client's individual shares.
Why this matters for tokenization: When platforms like @OndoFinance, @DinariGlobal, or @xStocksFi tokenize stocks, they typically buy the underlying shares, store them in the broker's or custodian's omnibus account, and then issue blockchain tokens representing each user's proportional indirect claim to that fund.
You hold the tokens, the platform holds the stocks, what you have is an indirect claim, not direct ownership.
Model B: Tokenized securities equity certificates (custodied / third-party)
How it works: A regulated third party (DTCC, broker-dealers, custodians) holds actual shares and issues blockchain tokens representing equity certificates (referred to by the SEC as 'digital custody receipts'). This token represents your indirect interest in the underlying securities through the intermediary chain.
There are two variants:
Variant (i): The blockchain itself is the record of ownership, directly integrated into the ledgers of equity holders.
Variant (ii): Records are kept in traditional databases off-chain, with tokens used to update that database.
Who is doing this: This is the direction of institutional infrastructure development. Nasdaq (approved for token settlement trading, expected to launch in Q3 2026), NYSE (partnering with Securitize to build a platform), and DTC (received no-action letter in December 2025) are all building Model B systems.
Your broker holds your stocks as usual, but the settlement layer has moved to the blockchain. Ownership structures remain unchanged, but settlements are faster.
User path: For institutional-level Model B, the experience will ultimately be exactly the same as purchasing stocks at Charles Schwab or Fidelity; you won't even know it settles on the blockchain.
It is not yet available for retail investors. When Nasdaq launches token settlement trading in Q3 2026, it will be a seamless experience for existing brokerage clients.
Model C: Linked securities (omnibus account model / structured notes)
How it works: A third party issues a financial instrument, usually structured notes, debt instruments, or contractual claims, linked to the referenced stock's value. You do not own the stock; you have a promise from the third party to pay you based on stock performance. No voting rights, no direct claim to the underlying asset.
Most of the currently operating tokenized stock platforms fall into this category. They purchase stocks, store them in a pooled fund, and issue tokens representing your claim to the fund.
Who is doing this:
Ondo Global Markets (@OndoFinance) is a leader by market cap (with a total market cap exceeding $650 million across Ethereum, BSC, and Solana). It offers over 200 tokenized U.S. stocks and ETFs, including Walmart, Tesla, Visa, United Health, and more.
User path: Requires KYC, open to non-U.S. users, tokens are ERC-20 tokens tradable on DEX and can be used in certain DeFi protocols. Ondo holds the underlying assets in a pooled structure through licensed partners.
xStocks (@xStocksFi) is the second-ranked platform, with a market cap of $205 million, operated by infrastructure associated with Kraken. Over 100 tokenized assets, having processed over $25 billion in cumulative trading volume, capturing 95-99% of all tokenized stock trading activity on Solana.
User path: Requires KYC, uses Solana wallet, buys and sells on Jupiter DEX.
Dinari (@DinariGlobal) is the first registered broker-dealer specifically targeting tokenized stocks. Over 200 types of dShares assets. Collaborating with Flow Traders to provide liquidity for institutions. Built on Avalanche.
User path: KYC, connect wallet, purchase dShares tokens, 24/7 trading.
Backed Finance (@BackedFinance) focuses on the EU, regulated in Switzerland. Tokenizes stocks (bTSLA, bNVDA, bGOOGL) and ETFs into ERC-20 tokens on Ethereum. Target audience is institutions/accredited investors.
Robinhood EU (@RobinhoodApp) offers around 500 tokenized U.S. stocks on Arbitrum. Limited to EU regions. On-chain market cap of $11.6 million. Important note: these are clearly derivatives contracts, not equity. No voting rights.
User path: Use the Robinhood app in Europe, tokens will appear in your crypto wallet.
The risks of Model C are real: if the platform collapses, you are a creditor, not an owner. Your claim is against the pooled fund of the tokenized issuer.
Most of these platforms do not have SIPC (Securities Investor Protection Corporation) insurance. The SEC's statement is also very clear, introducing significant counterparty risk that blockchain was supposed to eliminate.
Model D: Securities derivatives (pure synthetic)
How it works: A swap that provides pure synthetic exposure to referenced securities. (In simple terms, you and a counterparty agree: you receive the gains or losses from the price movements of this stock, the counterparty receives a fixed fee you pay, and both swap cash flows, but neither party actually holds the stock.)
No ownership. No voting rights. No information rights. No form of claim to the underlying asset. What you have is a bet on the price.
If the tool meets the SEC's definition of a swap, it can only be offered to qualified contract participants and must be traded on a national securities exchange.
Who is doing this: Mainly offshore platforms and crypto-native derivatives protocols. Ventuals is positioned here, built on @HyperliquidX's perpetual contracts, tracking private company valuations.
User path for Ventuals: No KYC, no verification. Log in with an email or social account, automatically generate a wallet, deposit stablecoins, and trade positions in OpenAI, SpaceX, xAI with up to 10x leverage.
Price discovery is conducted through 'optimistic oracles' (an optimistic oracle is a mechanism where 'the first number reported is taken as true unless someone stakes collateral to dispute it during the public period': it assumes that the submitted data is correct unless challenged). Anyone can propose valuations by staking collateral. Cumulative trading volume reached $200 million, with 5,342 independent traders.
Key warnings about Ventuals, funding rates: Like all perpetual contracts, Ventuals charges funding rates to anchor contract prices to reference valuations. When long demand overwhelmingly dominates (as is the case for companies like OpenAI and SpaceX), longs must pay fees to shorts.
At a typical rate of 0.05% per 8-hour interval, holding a long position of $10,000 costs about $15 per day, or $450 per month, accounting for 4.5% of your position, annualized around 54%.
Holding long positions in private companies through Ventuals quietly erodes all returns, just from the funding rates alone. It is a trading tool, not an investment tool.
User path: How does an average person buy tokenized stocks?
This is the most important question, but the answers across platforms vary widely.
The most objective assessment: for most retail users today, the entry point is Model C. You conduct KYC on platforms like Ondo or Dinari, deposit stablecoins, and then exchange them for tokenized stock tokens.
It is usable, fast, but what you own is an indirect claim to the pooled fund, not actual shares, and the DeFi composability is still in development. If you are a U.S. citizen, most platforms are not open to you.
A different path: Berry
One platform worth noting is Berry (@berryinvesting), one of the companies in our portfolio. Today, Berry operates under model C, but will shift to a model with a key distinction: each user owns shares in a separate brokerage account registered in their name, rather than in a pooled fund.
Each account comes with independent SIPC coverage and excess SIPC insurance. The on-chain tokens issued by Berry (beTokens) serve as proof of actual brokerage holdings, not synthetic claims.
It adopts a deeper issuer-first integration strategy, similar to the collaboration between Galaxy and Superstate, which may involve direct equity tokenization partnerships with companies at the transfer agent level, covering a broader stock pool. If successful, it would scale the protection level of Model C up to Model A.
On-chain data rankings
The Dune Analytics dashboard from Gate Research reveals the true state of affairs through on-chain data.
Market caps of various platforms (April 2026)
Total: approximately $890 million, a significant increase from nearly zero in January 2025.
Trading volume and trading activity
Market cap data tells only half the story. Trading volume reveals the real usage:
xStocks (Solana): Cumulative trading volume of over $25 billion across more than 100 assets. It accounts for 95-99% of all tokenized stock trading on Solana. This is clearly a retail trading venue.
Ondo Global Markets: Dominates in terms of TVL (Total Value Locked) / market cap, but with lower trading speed, resembling a 'hold' type product rather than an active trading venue.
Robinhood (Arbitrum): Despite offering around 500 tokenized stocks, the on-chain market cap is only $11.6 million. The gap between media reports and actual usage is quite pronounced.
Ventuals: Achieved a cumulative trading volume of $200 million in about 4 months, with 5,342 independent traders. Smaller in scale but extremely active, the average position size indicates that most are seasoned traders.
PreStocks (Solana): $13.4 million market cap, currently growing. Offers tokens for xAI, Kalshi, Polymarket, OpenAI, Anduril, SpaceX, and Anthropic.
Assets that have actually been tokenized
Dune's data reveals interesting patterns about which assets are being tokenized:
ETFs: SPY, QQQ, etc.
Large tech stocks: TSLA, NVDA, GOOG, etc.
Crypto-native stocks: CRCL, COIN
Long-tail assets: Robinhood has a longer asset tail.
The current competitive landscape has consolidated into what analysts call a 'de facto duopoly': Ondo Finance (approximately 58% of total market cap) and xStocks (around 24%), with Backed, Robinhood, and others dividing the remaining approximate 18%.
What this number means: a market penetration rate of 0.0007%.
Private equity: where the real excitement is
Public stock tokenization upgrades the underlying trading infrastructure. Private stock tokenization opens up a whole new market.
The private equity and venture capital market is worth $7 trillion, yet it keeps the vast majority of people out due to ten-year lock-up periods, million-dollar entry barriers, and cumbersome annual tax filings. However, the market's desire for these private entry tickets has never been crazier than today.
Fundrise case study: proof of a failing market structure
When Fundrise went public with VCX on the NYSE, the market made a move that made every financial planner alert while exciting every tokenization builder: the stock opened at $42, while its net asset value (NAV) was only $19.
It briefly touched $540 (a premium of 1900%), and even after Citron Research shorted it and the stock price plummeted by 50%, it was still trading at several times its actual asset value.
Why? Because the top three holdings of VCX, Anthropic, Databricks, and OpenAI account for 48.3% of its assets. These are the most coveted private companies on earth, and retail investors have virtually no access to them.
As AccessIPOs records, the fund's holdings list reads like a who's who of late-stage AI projects: Databricks ($28 million, via DBH1 LP), OpenAI ($25.5 million, via Quiet OA Access, LP), Service Titan ($21.3 million), dbt Labs ($15 million), Anthropic ($7 million, via SaxeCap Advisors VIII, LP), Anduril ($6.8 million, via 8VC ANSES PV), Canva ($6.2 million).
Please note that every holding in a private company is wrapped in an SPV, even public funds require intermediary vehicles.
@NoLimitGains and @AccessIPOs have been closely tracking VCX's movements — this is an extremely real case study: what happens when massive demand encounters artificially limited supply.
The LP market is differentiating
The dynamics at the fund level are similarly failing. As Allocate CEO Samir Kaji (@Samirkaji) described: the LP (limited partner) market is rapidly differentiating.
The demand for follow-on investment in late-stage AI projects is limitless, but it is rife with unauthorized SPVs and extremely high fees that can destroy returns — one observed example is: 15% upfront fee + 20% carry + 30% on returns exceeding double.
Meanwhile, the top 10-20 multi-stage brand funds are oversubscribed. For emerging fund managers without a flashy background or strong operator influence, this is the toughest fundraising environment in a decade.
Molly O'Shea (@MollySOShea), a former venture capitalist turned podcast host, also emphasized similar dynamics present in the entire private market environment.
Challenges of SPVs
SPV (Special Purpose Vehicle) is an independent legal entity established specifically to hold a certain asset, typically a limited liability company (LLC) in Delaware.
You can think of it as a 'shell company,' whose sole purpose is to hold a certain stock or investment and then package that asset to sell to multiple investors. What investors buy is not the stock itself, but shares (LP interests) in that shell company.
SPVs are ubiquitous in venture capital: co-investing on AngelList is an SPV; access funds are SPV stacked within SPVs; every layer of the private market stack relies on them.
SPVs are ubiquitous: even within public funds
Look at the holdings of Fundrise VCX, and you'll see how deep the SPV hierarchy is. Among the fund's approximately 25 portfolio positions, at least 7 are held via SPV packaging rather than directly:
This means that about $77.6 million in assets held by VCX, close to half of the fund, is wrapped inside SPV packaging. Each layer of packaging adds a layer of fees, a layer of counterparty risk, and increases opacity between investors and the underlying companies.
And this is a public fund with SEC reporting obligations. Imagine how deep the nested layers of private tools without disclosure obligations would be.
The SPV market is exploding
The number of secondary SPVs has grown by 545% in the past two years, with total capital raised through them increasing by 1000%. This is a service market exceeding $14 billion, projected to reach $27 billion by 2035.
Every year, thousands of SPVs are formed, and platforms like AngelList, Sydecar, and Allocations make the creation process nearly frictionless.
Who created the SPV and why
The most common use case for VC Syndicates. Co-investing lead investors look for deals, create an SPV on AngelList or Sydecar, and invite their networks to co-invest. Lead investors typically charge 20% carry.
Selling pre-IPO stock by employees is a use case that most people are unaware of. Startup employees with vested options wishing to gain liquidity cannot sell directly on Robinhood.
Instead, a group of investors forms an SPV to purchase these stocks. Employees contribute their shares to the LLC and may retain some upside. This keeps the company's capital structure tidy, resulting in only one entity appearing, rather than 30 new individual shareholders, and helps keep the company below the historical threshold of 500 shareholders that triggers public reporting requirements.
Access fund managers who have allocations in hot rounds (Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceX) will create SPVs to provide co-investment channels for their LP networks. This is where fee layering can be most extreme.
Companies managing their equity structure Some companies prefer the SPV structure in secondary market transactions because it consolidates shareholders and gives the company more control over who can enter the shareholder register.
Standard SPV fees: digital breakdown
The costs of operating an SPV are significant, and they compound over the entire lifecycle of the vehicle:
Ongoing annual costs:
Standard carry structure:
Carry is the share of profits that fund managers take from investment gains, which is the core incentive mechanism in the VC/PE industry. For example, 20% carry means: if you invest $1 million and ultimately earn $2 million, $200,000 of the $1 million profit goes to the fund manager, and $800,000 is yours.
Industry standard carry: 20% of net profits
Setup/management fees passed on to investors: 0-2% of committed capital at closing
Some platforms will also layer their own cuts on top (AngelList charges an additional 5%)
Minimum viable SPV size: $200,000-$500,000, to keep fee drag under 3%. Below $200,000, fixed costs (setup fee + annual management fee) consume too high a percentage of your returns.
Problems with traditional SPVs
Fee layering. When capital flows into the SPV through the parent fund and then into the co-investment vehicle, the fee layers can be devastating. The worst case is a 15% upfront fee + 20% carry + 30% on returns exceeding double, which means investors in a three-layered SpaceX SPV may need 3-4 times the return to break even.
Platform fees (AngelList's $8,000 + 5% carry) are still layered on top of the lead investor's 20% carry.
Pricing is opaque. When you buy into an SPV holding SpaceX stock, what is the actual price you are paying per share? The SPV manager sets the terms, there is no public order book, no price discovery mechanism, you are completely trusting the intermediary.
Lack of liquidity. Once you enter an SPV, you are locked in. Most SPV interests have no secondary market. If you need liquidity in the third year of a 10-year vehicle, your choices are limited to 'painful discounts' or 'not being able to sell at all.'
Unauthorized vehicles. Many SPVs circulating around hot companies have not received the company's own approval. OpenAI publicly opposed Robinhood's tokenized product in June 2025, stating that these tokens 'do not represent equity in OpenAI.' Similar dynamics play out across the SPV landscape, where the hottest companies often have the most unauthorized tools circulating.
How fees truly destroy returns
The fee structure in SPV transactions can quietly destroy your returns.
The math is very straightforward: in this layered structure, a company's valuation must increase fivefold for your investment to yield a threefold return. A strong threefold venture capital exit, after deducting fees, will only net you about 2.17 times — just slightly better than public index funds, but to achieve this return, you bear the risks of illiquidity and highly concentrated single-company exposure.
Worse still, the multilayered SPVs add opacity at every level, making it more difficult to verify whether genuine equity exists at the bottom of the structure.
The structure itself is part of the investment; this statement is not rhetorical here. If you do not evaluate fee layering structures as rigorously as you assess the companies themselves, you have not truly completed due diligence.
How people are actually buying private stocks today
The same questions exist for public stocks, but with starkly different answers. Here are the real experiences of various private equity acquisition channels:
Tokenized platforms offer instant, low-cost access, but ownership claims are weaker, and regulatory uncertainty is real. Synthetic assets like Ventuals give you price exposure, but funding rates make long-term holding costs prohibitively high.
Traditional secondary markets
Forge Global (@Forge_Global) (acquired by Charles Schwab)
Forge is the most recognized name in the secondary market for private stocks — facilitating over 27,000 trades across more than 600 private companies. It is now owned by Charles Schwab, allowing it to reach millions of brokerage clients.
How it actually works: The entire process is completed online on Forge's marketplace platform. You create an account, verify your accredited investor status (annual income over $200,000 or net worth over $1 million), and then enter the marketplace.
The platform displays real-time buy and sell quotes, provides historical pricing through its proprietary Forge Price index, and contextual market signals. You can submit bids for specific companies, negotiate directly with counterparties (anonymously), and track progress within the platform.
Who are the counterparties? Mainly employees with vested stocks, early angel investors, and venture capitalists seeking partial liquidity. Sellers list stocks at asking prices. Buyers place bids. Forge matches and facilitates.
Friction is real: settlement takes 30-45 days after terms are agreed upon, which includes the company's right of first refusal (ROFR) period during which the company itself can choose to repurchase the stock instead of allowing transfers. Fees range from 2-4% depending on the size and number of trades. Typically, the minimum threshold is over $100,000, and all parties must be accredited investors.
Who sets the price? There is no central exchange. Pricing is driven by negotiations between buyers and sellers, referencing Forge's proprietary data (latest matched trades, bid-ask spreads, historical trends). It is more akin to real estate transactions than stock trading. Forge provides data and a venue, but prices are determined by the market.
EquityZen (@EquityZen) (acquired by Morgan Stanley)
EquityZen adopts a fund structure: investors buy into an EquityZen fund holding shares of specific companies. Fees range from 2-2.5%, with a minimum threshold of $25,000. Morgan Stanley's acquisition sent a strong institutional signal: access to private equity is a huge market. It now sits within Morgan Stanley's institutional framework, with over 1,000 registered institutional clients.
Hiive (@Hiive_HQ)
Aiming to provide a private stock experience similar to public securities exchanges. Real-time quotes, anonymous buyer/seller matching. Displays real-time pricing: SpaceX ($678.65), Anthropic ($525.37), OpenAI ($608.06).
Minimum threshold of $25,000, sellers charge a 5% fee. Over 1,000 registered institutional clients. This is the most 'exchange-like' experience in the traditional private market, but still limited to accredited investors and requires manual settlement.
The bottom line for traditional platforms: they are effective, regulated, and institutional acquisitions (Charles Schwab's acquisition of Forge, Morgan Stanley's acquisition of EquityZen) validate the market.
But they are slow (30-45 days settlement), expensive (2-5% fees), have many restrictions (limited to accredited investors with a minimum threshold of $25,000), and are essentially manual operations.
Crypto-native methods
Ventuals (@ventuals) offers perpetual contracts based on private company valuations on Hyperliquid. Cumulative trading volume of $200 million, with 5,342 traders. No KYC, no verification, minimum threshold of $1. Up to 10x leverage.
The value of Ventuals: it provides price discovery and trading mechanisms for assets that previously lacked them. This is a tool that did not exist 18 months ago for venture investors looking to hedge portfolio positions or express views on Anthropic valuations.
But the issue of funding rates is real. When long demand overwhelms everything (which is always the case for OpenAI, SpaceX, and Anthropic), longs must continually pay fees to shorts.
At typical rates, the monthly cost of holding a long position is about 4.5% of the position, annualized around 54%. A $10,000 long position loses about $450 per month just in funding rates.
This makes Ventuals a short-term trading tool rather than an investment vehicle. You are paying a hefty premium for a synthetic exposure that erodes your returns every eight hours.
PreStocks (@PreStocks)
PreStocks is one of the most ambitious players in the field of tokenized private equity. Its model is to purchase actual pre-IPO stock, hold it in an SPV structure, and issue tokens on Solana pegged 1:1 to these stocks.
Currently supports 22 pre-IPO companies, including SpaceX, OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, Anduril, Neuralink, Discord, Kraken, and Epic Games.
How it actually works: You connect your Solana wallet, select a company, and then purchase tokens on Jupiter or Meteora DEX. There are no minimum investment restrictions. No management fees, and no cuts from your profits. 24/7 trading, instant settlement.
These tokens are fully composable in DeFi, meaning you can lend them, collateralize them, or provide liquidity in liquidity pools.
Specific data: cumulative trading volume exceeds $350 million, annual trading volume reaches $5 billion, over 1.5 million transactions, more than 115,000 token holders. On-chain market cap approximately $13.4 million.
PreStocks benefits from being rooted in the Solana ecosystem, where tokenized public stocks like xStocks already have frequent trading activity, and the trading infrastructure and liquidity pipeline are in place.
What you need to know: PreStocks tokens only allow you to follow price movements, not represent any equity. The platform's own disclaimer is very clear: tokens 'do not confer ownership, voting rights, dividends, information rights, or other legal rights' and 'may result in total loss.'
The identity of the underlying SPV operator is not publicly disclosed on the website, although the team states that they will publish regular external audit reports and provide personal position verification (for a fee), but detailed custody documents have not been made public. Not open to U.S. citizens.
The transparency gap is a focal point worth noting. Its product design is robust, fees are reasonable, and the composability of DeFi offers real advantages. However, for this model to gain true institutional trust, the underlying SPV operators must be named, audit reports must be published, and users need clear documentation of the entire custody chain from token to actual shares.
Jarsy (@JarsyInc)
Jarsy takes a slightly different approach. The core idea is the same, tokenization supported 1:1 by assets, but with more transparency in the acquisition process.
How it actually works: Jarsy assesses investor demand through pre-sale tokens. Once sufficient demand is gathered, they use the funds to acquire actual pre-IPO stock. If the acquisition is successful, the pre-sale tokens convert into official tokens. If the acquisition fails, funds will be returned. For each share of underlying stock acquired, a token will be precisely minted.
Custody and transparency: All assets are stored within the SPV structure and can be verified in real-time via reserve proof pages. Transaction records and holding records are all stored on-chain for auditing. Jarsy claims that investors can gain all relevant economic rights, including dividends and price appreciation, although the legal enforceability of such claims made through SPV packaging remains to be scrutinized.
Fees and access: no management fees or performance fees. Minimum investment of $10. No accredited investor qualifications for non-U.S. investors.
The challenge is scale. Current holding sizes are limited: approximately $350,000 in xAI, about $490,000 in Circle, and around $670,000 in SpaceX. This leads to a thin order book, where even moderately sized trades can significantly push prices.
Jarsy is in an earlier stage than PreStocks and needs to build significant liquidity to make the product viable for trades beyond small positions.
Tiger Research's report outlines the key differences between these platforms and traditional ones: Forge and EquityZen need to match buyers and sellers, settlement takes weeks. Tokenized platforms like PreStocks and Jarsy support liquidity pools and automated market makers.
This fundamentally provides better execution through continuous counterparties, which is why settlement times can be reduced from 30-45 days to immediate.
Important warning for all crypto-native private stock platforms: PreStocks and Jarsy tokens do not grant statutory voting rights and have not been endorsed by the companies they represent. U.S. users cannot access them. This is early infrastructure, and regulatory risks are real.
The quality of the underlying SPV, who operates it, how stocks are custodied, and whether the fee structure is transparent are factors that determine whether a platform is a legitimate access layer or just another opaque intermediary.
Our views and investment logic
Infrastructure is being rebuilt. On the exchange side, Nasdaq, NYSE, and DTC are all taking action; on the asset management side, BlackRock, JPMorgan, Franklin Templeton have also entered; Charles Schwab acquired Forge, and Morgan Stanley acquired EquityZen.
These giants are not experimenting; they are putting real money into it. When the underlying pipeline changes, everything flowing through it will change.
Infrastructure layout: Securitize ($1.25 billion SPAC, NYSE partnership) is the most influential private company in the field. Dinari has the first registered broker-dealer license. tZERO is building its own chain. All of these are bets on the 'shovel sellers' logic.
Ondo Finance (market cap over $650 million, more than 200 tokenized stocks) and xStocks (cumulative trading volume over $25 billion) are the leaders on-chain, having found product-market fit (PMF). The question is whether the omnibus account model can sustain itself and whether regulators will push toward independent custodian models.
Berry's logic: Berry's independent custody framework addresses the risks of omnibus accounts, a risk that is undermining the trust foundation of all other tokenized stock platforms. If the market moves toward requiring independent account protection (the SEC framework suggests it should), Berry's 'brokerage holding verification framework' will become the industry standard.
Their focus on the Latin American market opens up a massive, severely underserved market. The shift toward issuer-first integration is their path to scale up protection levels from Model C to Model A.
Access to the private market: Demand is forever unmet. The 1900% NAV premium of VCX proves this. Charles Schwab's acquisition of Forge and Morgan Stanley's acquisition of EquityZen validate this investment logic at the institutional level. The tokenization penetration of just 0.0007% in the $7 trillion private market is the largest incremental opportunity in fintech.
The logic behind PreStocks: we believe PreStocks is one of the more interesting models in tokenized private equity. The investment idea of participating in pre-IPO companies starting at $0.01, with zero management fees, fractionalized and instant settlement, is highly attractive. But the success of this model depends on the quality of the underlying SPV.
For PreStocks to truly scale, the SPV supporting each token needs to be managed by reputable operators, with a very low and transparent fee structure, clean legal documents, and clearly communicate to users what they actually own (LP interests in a Delaware LLC, not direct equity).
If they can nail down SPV quality, provide clarity on ownership structures, and establish trust around the custody chain, this could become a powerful access layer for retail investors who are traditionally shut out of the private market. We are optimistic about it. However, SPV governance is the ultimate breaking point.
The key issue is not whether stocks will be tokenized. The question is which model will prevail, which platforms will capture this value, and how quickly this migration will occur.