Tokenized Stocks Surge 5x as Wall Street Giants Race to On-Chain Infrastructure

Woofun AI reports that the tokenization of equities has emerged as a critical bridge between decentralized finance and traditional Wall Street, with major institutions including Coinbase, DTCC, the New York Stock Exchange, and Robinhood rapidly deploying on-chain infrastructure. This acceleration marks a structural shift in how real-world assets are accessed, traded, and utilized as collateral within the digital asset ecosystem.

The total market capitalization of tokenized stocks reached approximately $1.7 billion by the end of June, representing a more than five-fold increase from the $329 million recorded a year prior. Within the broader category of Real World Assets (RWA), this segment stands out for its velocity of growth. Unlike traditional equity markets, these digital representations offer distinct operational advantages: they can be held in self-custodied wallets, transferred without permission, traded continuously, and deployed as collateral in on-chain financial protocols. This utility has attracted significant attention from both retail participants and institutional players seeking greater liquidity and composability.

A critical question arises regarding the source of this expansion: is the growth driven by the appreciation of underlying stock prices or by the minting of new tokens? While stablecoins offer a transparent metric where one token equals one dollar, tokenized stocks complicate this analysis because their market cap conflates new issuance with the repricing of existing holdings.

However, evidence strongly suggests that new issuance is the primary driver. More than half of the current market capitalization consists of assets that were not present on-chain a year ago. The remainder largely comprises assets that were tokenized only mid-year, a period by which the annual price fluctuations of the underlying equities had already been realized. This indicates that the surge is fundamentally a function of supply expansion rather than speculative price appreciation.

The internal composition of the tokenized stock market has undergone a dramatic reshaping over the past twelve months. Crypto-related assets, which once dominated the landscape with a 79% market share a year ago, have seen their influence contract sharply to just 21% by June. In their place, the 'Others' category—comprising hundreds of smaller, diverse assets—has expanded its share from 15% to 35%. This diversification signals a maturation of the sector, moving away from a narrow focus on native crypto equities toward a broader representation of global markets.

Woofun AI data shows that further structural shifts are evident in the rise of specific asset classes. The share of tech giants with market capitalizations exceeding $100 billion grew from 0.6% a year ago to 10.6% in June. Similarly, ETFs and index products saw their representation increase from 4.5% to 17.3% during the same period. The most explosive growth, however, is observed in the AI and chips sector. In June 2025, this category’s scale was negligible, standing under $1 million and accounting for only 0.3% of the market. Just one year later, it surged to represent 15.5% of the total tokenized stock market, highlighting a rapid pivot toward high-growth technology sectors.

On-chain activity metrics reflect this expanding adoption. In June, the monthly transfer volume of tokenized stocks hit $9.22 billion, a stark contrast to the $53 million recorded in the same period last year. This figure encompasses all forms of on-chain circulation, including peer-to-peer trading, wallet-to-wallet transfers, and deposits into DeFi protocols for use as collateral. The magnitude of this increase underscores the growing utility of tokenized equities as liquid assets within the decentralized finance ecosystem.

Institutional infrastructure development is accelerating in parallel with market growth. The DTCC recently completed its first production environment transactions for tokenized U.S. Treasuries and stocks on Digital Asset’s Canton Network. A more comprehensive tokenization service is scheduled to launch in October, which will provide Wall Street with direct access to approximately $114 trillion in assets currently held by the DTC. This move represents a pivotal step toward integrating traditional clearing and settlement systems with blockchain technology.

Competitive dynamics are intensifying as major players launch their own platforms. In early July, Robinhood launched its public chain mainnet, aiming to unify traditional markets, crypto assets, and real-world assets on a single open network. On June 22, Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, announced a joint venture with OKX to offer tokenized NYSE-listed stocks to users, pending regulatory approval. These initiatives highlight a strategic race to control the infrastructure layer of the tokenized asset economy.

Coinbase joined this trend on June 16, announcing that it would offer U.S. stock tokens fully backed 1:1 to non-U.S. users. These tokens include dividends, full shareholder rights, and 24/7 trading capabilities. Binance had launched a similar product just days earlier. While the current volume of tokenized stocks remains small compared to the hundreds of trillions traded in traditional markets, the trajectory is unmistakable. The convergence of institutional infrastructure and decentralized technology is creating a new paradigm for equity ownership, one that promises greater accessibility, liquidity, and integration with the broader digital asset ecosystem.