Author: Castle Labs
Translation: Sam, Techub News
"Tokenization is… the most critical infrastructure trend of the next 25 years."
This was the statement from Bullish CEO Thomas Farley after the digital asset platform acquired global transfer agent Equiniti for $4.2 billion. In the same week, Securitize, Jump, and Jupiter Exchange launched fully on-chain, regulated tokenized equity trading; Republic Crypto launched tokenized Animoca Brands shares on Solana, custodied by BitGo, with execution via INX Group.
These developments each open new pathways into on-chain tokenized equity that did not exist before. We all know "asset tokenization" is coming, and the RWA (Real World Assets) sector charts are trending upward, but "tokenized equity" has clearly been lagging behind.
To date, the performance of stocks and private equity has struggled to keep pace with other risk-weighted asset classes.
So far, stocks and private equity have struggled to keep pace with the overall momentum of the broader RWA category. The three announcements above indicate that the infrastructure needed to support large-scale growth is being built on multiple levels, especially in the US, a key region that many implementation paths had previously deliberately avoided. Before this, although xStocksFi had surpassed $25 billion in cumulative trading volume and Ondo Finance was growing rapidly, they had all steered clear of opening access to US users.
Bullish's acquisition of Equiniti aims to create a transfer agent for tokenized securities and "position Bullish at the forefront of leading the transformation of capital market infrastructure towards blockchain native." Transfer agents maintain registers of security holders, record stock holdings, assist in distributing dividends, and act as intermediaries between the company and its shareholders.
The collaboration between Securitize / Jump / Jupiter combines Securitize's compliance and regulatory infrastructure, Jump's liquidity provided via a proprietary AMM, and Jupiter's distribution capabilities through its interface, to offer an equity trading experience comparable to traditional brokerages. Securitize CEO and co-founder Carlos Domingo stated: "The question is no longer whether assets can be brought on-chain, but whether they can be traded at scale in a manner consistent with public market standards." Securitize itself is an SEC-registered agent, so the on-chain token is itself the legal record of ownership, granting holders voting and dividend rights, which differs from many existing products.
The tokenized equity of Animoca Brands was launched via Republic's secondary market, using regulated securities market infrastructure, not merely a simple on-chain issuance layer. This move aims to broaden investor access and open up secondary trading opportunities for existing Animoca Brands shareholders.
It should be noted that both types of products will likely require KYC and whitelisting to ensure execution within a regulated framework and legally recognized ownership.
However, these steps are necessary prerequisites to ensure these products are fully compliant under SEC regulation.
But why are they each important?
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Securitize / Jump / Jupiter: Before this week, all "credible on-chain equity trading venues" were designed to actively exclude US users; this is the first path open to US users where the on-chain token itself is the "legal share," not a wrapper layer or derivative rights certificate.
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Bullish / Equiniti: Bullish controlling Equiniti means companies can almost frictionlessly plug a "tokenized representation" directly into the official shareholder register, paving the way for "on-chain representation equals legal shares" (not wrappers or derivative rights).
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Republic / Animoca: So far, the main focus of putting equity on-chain has been on "listed stocks"; this targets shares that have never traded on public markets, bridging a different access gap and targeting a completely different audience.
Plus two "embedded" tokenized equity players
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Ondo Global Markets: The dominant off-shore platform, which just surpassed $1 billion in TVL yesterday, offers over 260 tokenized US stocks and ETFs across Solana, Ethereum, and BNB Chain, and is bridged to HyperEVM (with Felix Protocol as a primary distribution path). Each token is a "senior secured structured note" issued by Ondo Global Markets (BVI) Limited, with the underlying stocks custodied at Alpaca.
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xStocks (Backed Finance, now acquired by Kraken): Since its launch in June 2025, it has been deployed across six chains including Ethereum, BNB Chain, Solana, Ink, TON, and Mantle. Current Assets Under Management (AUM) is $424 million, with 120,743 on-chain holders, and it holds 8 of the "top 11 spots by number of unique holders in tokenized equity."
Each xStock is a bearer debt instrument issued by Backed Assets (JE) Limited (a Jersey SPV vehicle), issued under a prospectus approved by the Liechtenstein FMA. Holders are creditors of the issuer, with a "bankruptcy remote" claim on the fair value of the underlying stocks custodied at Alpaca and InCore Bank.
Over the past year, nearly all growth in this sub-category can be attributed to "public equities / stocks".
More Reading & Research
In a recent report, we analyzed these projects and the broader "asset tokenization" landscape. Check out our related research.
