Tokenized Stocks Surpass $48.7B in DEX Trading Volume
The trading volume of tokenized stocks on decentralized exchanges (DEXs) has surged by a staggering 10,163.7% over the past year, reaching a total of $48.7 billion, according to on-chain data. Uniswap led the pack with $17.1 billion in trading volume across its v3 and v4 pools.
While this significant increase in trading activity suggests that tokenized stocks are becoming more than just assets existing on-chain, it's essential to note that a high trading volume does not guarantee ownership or liquidity. The figure of $48.7 billion represents trading activity, not the actual amount of tokenized stocks in existence.
According to RWA.xyz, the distributed value of tokenized stocks is $3.20 billion as of October 3. Binance Research estimated the market size of on-chain equities to be $4.43 billion as of September 15, representing a remarkable growth of 390.4% this year.
The concentration of trading activity in a few tokens is a concern, with ETF-linked products accounting for 44.0% of trading by reference stock, followed by NVDA at 10.0% and SPCX at 7.3%. The dominance of QQQb, with 28.9% of DEX volume, highlights the importance of individual assets in the market.
Derivatives trading, specifically equity perpetuals, has seen even more significant activity, with $67.8 billion traded in June, compared to $4.2 million in tokenized-equity spot trades. This suggests that many traders are more interested in betting on stock-price moves than in owning the tokenized shares.
Despite these concerns, the growth of tokenized stocks is attributed to their advantages, including fractional ownership, near-instant settlement, potential 24/7 trading, and DeFi utility. Exchanges have expanded their offerings, and the SEC has issued a temporary Innovation Exemption allowing tokenized securities venues to trade tokenized NMS stocks.