Gate Tokenized Trading: Opening a 24/7 Global Stock Trading New Era

Late at night or on weekends, when traditional securities exchanges are closed, an uninterrupted financial market is actively operating on the Gate platform. Here, stock tokens of global giants like Tesla, Nvidia, and Apple are traded 24/7.

As a bridge connecting traditional finance and the crypto world, stock tokenization is fundamentally changing the way hundreds of millions of investors worldwide participate. This innovation not only breaks the time and geographic restrictions of trading but also reduces the high barriers to entry to nearly negligible levels.

01 The Prelude to Change: Tokenized Stocks Redefining Investment Rules

The global financial system is at the crossroads of tradition and innovation. Blockchain technology is entering the equity market in an unprecedented way, giving rise to the innovative product of tokenized stocks.

Simply put, tokenized stocks are digital representations of traditional stocks on the blockchain, with each token corresponding to actual shares in a company.

The core of this innovation lies in transforming real-world asset ownership into digital certificates that can circulate freely on the chain through technological means. Compared to traditional stocks, tokenized stocks exhibit distinctly different characteristics.

The differences are very clear. Traditional stock trading is usually limited to specific trading hours, such as 9:30 AM to 4:00 PM Eastern Time in the US stock market, and requires a T+2 (two business days) settlement cycle.

In contrast, tokenized stocks are entirely different; they offer 24/7 continuous trading and near-instant settlement. This means investors can trade on weekends, holidays, or even in the early morning, with funds settled almost in real time.

02 Operating Mechanism: How Gate Achieves Stock Tokenization

Understanding how tokenized stocks operate on the Gate platform is key to grasping this new investment opportunity. Currently, there are three main implementation paths in the market, and Gate adopts the one with higher transparency and security.

On the Gate platform, stock tokens are mainly realized through cooperation with compliant issuers like Backed Finance. These issuers hold actual shares of the target company as reserves and then issue corresponding tokens on the blockchain at a 1:1 ratio.

The entire process is protected by dual safeguards: first, an auditing firm verifies the authenticity of the stock reserves; second, oracles (such as Chainlink) continuously validate the off-chain assets against on-chain tokens. Gate is responsible for front-end trading display, user interaction, and trade matching, providing investors with a smooth trading experience.

This “third-party custody + exchange access” model ensures that tokens are tightly anchored to the underlying assets and also provides good trading depth through the liquidity pools of exchanges. For investors, this means they can enjoy the convenience of crypto trading while obtaining the same economic rights as traditional stocks.

03 New Investment Strategies: Unique Opportunities Brought by Stock Tokenization

Stock tokenization not only changes the way trading is conducted but also opens up various new strategies that are difficult to implement in traditional markets. Both professional investors and individual investors can find suitable opportunities in this emerging market.

For professional traders and quant teams, price discrepancies between markets create arbitrage opportunities. Due to trading hours and liquidity differences between tokenized stock markets and traditional stock markets, price deviations often occur.

A common strategy is hedging arbitrage between spot and token markets. For example, when Nvidia stock tokens (NVDAX) are quoted at $160.40 on Gate, while the spot market price is $160.00, arbitrageurs can buy the physical stock and short the token on Gate, waiting for the price to revert for profit.

For individual investors, the most direct benefit of stock tokenization is the possibility of fragmented investing. Taking Nvidia as an example, in traditional markets, you need to buy at least 1 share (currently about $162.88), but on Gate xStocks, the minimum can be as low as 0.001 shares, costing only about $0.16 to hold a tokenized stake in this tech giant.

04 All-Day Trading Advantage: Breaking Time and Space Barriers

The most significant difference from traditional financial markets is that Gate’s stock token trading truly achieves 24/7 nonstop operation. This feature has invaluable value in the fast-changing global markets.

When investors on the US East Coast finish their day, and Asian markets are just opening a new trading day, trading of stock tokens never stops. This continuity means that when major news, earnings reports, or global events occur, investors don’t have to wait for the market to open to adjust their positions.

The 24/7 trading window is especially suitable for exploiting “time zone arbitrage.” For example, if a company releases an unexpectedly strong earnings report after hours, traditional stock markets have closed, but the tokenized stock market remains open. Sharp investors can react immediately, establishing or adjusting positions before the traditional market opens.

This liberation of trading hours essentially democratizes market access, allowing investors from different time zones worldwide to participate on equal footing, no longer limited by geography or local exchange hours.

05 Cost and Efficiency: Lower Barriers and Improved Liquidity

In traditional stock trading, fees charged by intermediaries, high minimum investment thresholds, and lengthy settlement cycles create barriers for many retail investors. Stock tokenization leverages blockchain technology to significantly reduce these participation costs.

Regarding trading costs, decentralized platforms can charge as low as 0.025%, far below many traditional brokers. For frequent traders or small-scale investors, this cost saving accumulates significantly over time.

More importantly, liquidity is enhanced. In traditional markets, some small-cap or high-priced stocks may face liquidity shortages, but tokenized stocks, through fragmented ownership and global accessibility, gather demand from around the world, creating deeper and more sustained trading depth.

Settlement efficiency is even more striking: traditional stock markets typically require T+2 (two business days) for settlement, while blockchain-based tokenized stocks can settle almost instantly. This greatly improves capital utilization, allowing investors to reinvest their gains more quickly.

06 Regulation and Security: Asset Protection Under a Compliance Framework

As the market for tokenized stocks develops, regulatory frameworks are gradually improving. The European Crypto Asset Market (MiCA) regulation, fully effective by 2025, provides a comprehensive regulatory framework for digital assets, including tokenized stocks.

Gate, as an established trading platform, has made significant efforts toward compliance. In 2025, Gate obtained a MiCA license through its Malta entity, allowing it to operate legally across Europe.

Additionally, the platform has received full operational licensing from Dubai VARA, further consolidating its compliant status in key markets.

Asset security remains a core concern for investors. As early as 2020, Gate introduced a reserve proof mechanism, well before it became an industry standard. The platform uses Merkle trees combined with zero-knowledge proofs, enabling users to verify whether their assets are fully backed without exposing sensitive account information.

As of September 2025, Gate’s reserve proof covered approximately $12 billion in assets. For long-term holdings, Gate also offers insured vault accounts based on Multi-Party Computation (MPC) technology, preventing assets from being transferred without explicit user authorization.

07 Future Outlook: The Next Step in Financial Democratization

Stock tokenization is just the beginning of the wave of bringing traditional assets onto the blockchain. With technological development and clearer regulations, it is expected that by 2025, the total market cap of tokenized stocks will reach $20 billion. Although still small compared to the traditional stock market scale, the growth trajectory is very clear.

Gate founder and CEO Dr. Han pointed out that future development will focus on further lowering user participation barriers. He envisions simplifying trading processes through artificial intelligence, where users only need to express their investment intent, and the system automatically finds the best execution plan.

This “intent-driven” trading model could fundamentally change how ordinary investors participate in financial markets. Meanwhile, Gate is building Gate Layer (a Layer 2 network based on the Optimism stack) to support more complex on-chain financial products, further integrating centralized and decentralized finance.

Future Outlook

When a young investor in South Africa can buy Apple’s tokenized shares with just a few dollars, and a small asset management firm in Japan can adjust its global asset allocation while markets in Europe and America are closed, a new era of financial democratization has quietly arrived.

The walls of traditional exchanges are being dismantled by blockchain technology, and the era of seamless 24/7 global capital markets is no longer just a vision. On platforms like Gate, anyone, regardless of location or capital, can participate in the growth stories of the world’s best companies.