Crypto.com Launches Tokenized Stocks for 1,500 US Equities

Summary

• Crypto.com launched tokenized derivatives tracking roughly 1,500 US stocks and ETFs for users outside America.
• The product relies on a MiFID license secured through the acquisition of Foris Capital and custody with Alpaca.
• Kraken, Binance, Robinhood, OKX and Hyperliquid already run competing tokenized equity products with different structures.
• Regulators shut down a similar Binance and FTX attempt in 2021 within three months of launch.

Crypto.com opened access on Wednesday to a new product line called Tokenized Stocks, a set of derivatives that mirror the price of about 1,500 US-listed equities and exchange-traded funds. The rollout targets users in the European Economic Area and other approved jurisdictions outside the United States, letting them buy fractional exposure to names like Apple, Nvidia and Tesla, as well as commodity funds such as SPDR Gold Shares, starting from $1. The exchange built the offering on a Markets in Financial Instruments Directive license it picked up through its acquisition of Foris Capital, and it settles trades instantly on-chain rather than through the traditional two-day clearing window.

A $1 Token Buys Price Exposure, Not a Share Certificate

The product does not hand buyers real shares. Each token is a derivative contract that tracks price movement without transferring legal or beneficial ownership, voting rights or any say in corporate governance. Holders can still receive dividend-equivalent payments that mirror the underlying company’s cash distributions, even though they hold no equity stake. Collateral backing the tokens sits with Alpaca, a US self-clearing broker-dealer that already underpins more than 90% of the tokenized US stock market industry-wide. Depending on where a user is based, the legal issuer is either Foris Capital CY Limited in Cyprus or Foris Capital MU Ltd, and the Cyprus arm operates under supervision from the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission.

Trading runs continuously, including weekends, and the promotional fee structure currently sets commissions at zero, though the exchange notes that other platform charges may still apply. CEO Kris Marszalek tied the launch to a $400 million investment from Citadel Securities that valued Crypto.com at $20 billion, framing the funding as proof that markets “shouldn’t have to sleep.”

Crypto.com Tracks Prices, Some Rivals Put the Real Share on Chain

Crypto.com’s approach sits on one side of a structural split that now defines the tokenized equity market. Synthetic or derivative models, which Crypto.com and Kraken both use, map the price of a stock without putting the actual security on-chain. Issuer-sponsored models instead aim to register real common shares as blockchain assets, giving holders an actual claim on the company. If an issuer like Crypto.com or Kraken runs into financial trouble, a synthetic-token holder has a claim on collateral held by a custodian like Alpaca, not a direct claim on the underlying shares the way a real shareholder would.

BaFin Shut This Down Once Already, in Three Months Flat

This is not the industry’s first run at putting Wall Street on-chain. Binance and FTX both launched fractional stock tokens in April 2021, covering names like Tesla, Apple and Coinbase, through partnerships with European firms CM-Equity and Digital Assets AG. Neither exchange filed the securities prospectuses regulators expected, and Germany’s BaFin along with the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority moved quickly. Binance pulled the product just three months after it went live.

The current wave looks different on paper. Crypto.com built its launch around an actual MiFID license and regulated custody, and Kraken’s perpetuals run under similar regulatory cover. BaFin’s 2021 objection centered on the absence of a prospectus, not the token mechanism itself; Crypto.com’s MiFID license and Kraken’s regulated derivatives venue are built to satisfy that specific requirement.

Weekend Token Prices Called 92% of Monday’s Gaps

Binance’s own research points to something specific: more than 90% of on-chain bStocks trading volume happens while US markets are shut. The exchange’s data found that weekend token pricing correctly anticipated 92% of the Monday morning gaps that later showed up on Wall Street. On-chain volume peaked between 20:00 and 24:00 ET, the start of the Asian trading day, while activity on Binance itself clustered around the US pre-market open. They are running continuous price discovery on assets that traditional exchanges only reopen five days a week, and traders elsewhere are watching those weekend moves for signals.

Hyperliquid pushes the same idea further. Its Layer-1 chain processes roughly 200,000 actions per second and lets external developers list perpetual contracts on equity indices, commodities and even pre-IPO companies through tools like trade.xyz. Synthetic trading for SpaceX tracked closely with the eventual valuation the company reached at its June 2026 listing, giving retail traders a way to price a private company months before it reached a public exchange. Hyperliquid cleared more than $633 billion in trading volume in the first quarter of 2026 alone and now competes with Binance for the position of the world’s second-largest perpetuals venue by open interest.

A $2.49 Billion Market Now Splits Five Ways Between Rivals

The tokenized equity market has grown roughly sixfold over the past year to reach a $2.49 billion valuation, and Citigroup expects the broader tokenized securities category to reach $5.5 trillion by 2030, with $2.6 trillion of that coming from tokenized equities specifically. Crypto.com now competes directly with Kraken, Binance, Robinhood and OKX for retail flow in this category, and each platform is betting on a different structure to win users. Investors comparing these products need to look past headline asset counts and check whether they are buying a synthetic price tracker or something closer to real ownership, since the two carry different risk profiles if a platform runs into trouble. Regulatory scrutiny is also likely to intensify as volumes rise, given how quickly authorities acted the last time exchanges tried this without a full licensing framework behind them.