Tokenized stock market capitalization surpasses $1.2 billion! Gate leads a new era of "On-Chain Wall Street"

Early morning at 3 a.m., Argentine traders are buying tokenized stocks of Nvidia via their phones, while on traditional exchanges, all of this will have to wait several hours to begin.

Historic Breakthrough

The global financial market landscape is quietly being reshaped by blockchain technology. According to Token Terminal data, the total market cap of tokenized stocks has surged to a record $1.2 billion by the end of 2025, marking the official entry of a new asset class into large-scale development. The market experienced two significant expansion waves in September and December of this year. Industry analysts keenly note that today’s tokenized stock market, much like the stablecoin market in 2020, is on the brink of explosive growth.

Stablecoins, which first emerged then, have now grown into a massive market exceeding $300 billion. Similarly, industry insiders compare the rise of tokenized stocks to the DeFi (Decentralized Finance) boom of early 2020, signaling enormous potential for bringing traditional stocks onto the blockchain.

Why the Market is Exploding

The essence of tokenized stocks is the digital representation of real company shares on the blockchain. Each token typically corresponds to one (or a fraction) of a real stock, fully backed by the underlying shares held by custodians.

Compared to traditional stock trading, tokenized stocks offer revolutionary upgrades:

• Liberation of time and space, 24/7 trading: Completely breaking the fixed trading hours of traditional exchanges (like NYSE), enabling global investors to trade and manage positions around the clock.
• Lower barriers, democratization of fractional shares: Thanks to blockchain divisibility, investors can buy fractional shares of high-priced blue-chip stocks like Apple and Tesla with as little as $1, greatly lowering participation thresholds.
• Instant settlement, efficiency leap: The T+2 (two business days) settlement mode of traditional markets is overturned; blockchain transactions can settle and confirm ownership in seconds.
• Integration with DeFi, unlocking new yields: Tokenized stocks can serve as collateral in various DeFi protocols for lending and borrowing, creating new income streams from traditional assets.

The core drivers behind this growth include not only market demand but also mature infrastructure and clearer compliance frameworks. High-performance blockchain networks like Solana and Ethereum Layer 2 provide near-zero-cost, lightning-fast transaction environments. Meanwhile, crypto-friendly regions such as Switzerland have clear regulatory environments that pave the way for professional institutions to participate.

Gate: Connecting Traditional and Future Financial Hubs

In this financial revolution led by tokenization, Gate has become one of the core portals for global investors to access “On-Chain Wall Street” with its forward-looking layout.

As early as July 2025, Gate officially launched the xStocks stock trading zone, covering spot and derivatives markets, becoming one of the first platforms worldwide to offer such services. Subsequently, Gate launched the Ondo spot trading zone, further expanding its tokenized asset matrix. The table below summarizes some of the main tokenized stock products on the Gate platform:

Gate’s innovation lies not only in product introduction but also in its systematic financial engineering. All listed tokenized stocks adopt the RWA (Real World Asset Tokenization) model, ensuring each on-chain token is fully collateralized by off-chain stock assets, achieving atomic value anchoring.

Future Development: The Beginning of a Trillion-Dollar Market

Although the market cap has reached a record high of $1.2 billion, the tokenized stock market is still widely regarded as being in the “early stage.” Its future growth potential is vast. Some industry research reports predict that if only 1% of the global stock market is tokenized, its market cap could exceed $1.3 trillion. Boston Consulting Group (BCG) data also indicates that by 2033, the total tokenization of real-world assets (RWA) could reach $16 trillion.

Future development will depend on several key factors: clearer regulatory frameworks, mature cross-chain interoperability technologies, and the development of richer DeFi application scenarios. As traditional financial giants like Nasdaq begin exploring stock tokenization on their platforms, mainstream institutional participation will become an irreversible trend.

How to Seize the Tokenized Stock Opportunities on Gate

For investors eager to participate in this wave, understanding and leveraging Gate’s platform features is crucial. Investors can directly trade various tokenized stocks using USDT in Gate’s spot market, enjoying 24/7 trading convenience. In the derivatives market, Gate offers leverage options from 1x to 10x, providing more strategic tools for experienced traders. More importantly, Gate’s platform grants these assets unprecedented interoperability.

Users can form liquidity pools with tokenized Nvidia stocks (NVDAx) and cryptocurrencies like SOL, or collateralize them in decentralized lending protocols to borrow stablecoins, truly integrating traditional assets with crypto liquidity.

Potential Targets and Real-Time Information

Currently, the tokenized stocks traded on Gate are mainly anchored to global tech giants and core indices, with prices closely linked to their US stock counterparts. Investors should focus on assets in the following directions:

• Tech Blue Chips: such as Apple (AAPLx), Nvidia (NVDAx), Tesla (TSLAx).
• Core Indices: such as S&P 500 ETF (SPYON/SPYx).
• Financial Innovation: such as Coinbase (COINX), MicroStrategy (MSTRx), and other companies deeply tied to the crypto industry.