Securitize Opens Trading in 12 Tokenized US Stocks on Solana
Securitize opened trading in tokenized US equities on Thursday, and it built them as securities instead of price exposure. Securitize Stocks launched with tokens covering 12 companies by the firm's own count, among them Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Tesla, Circle and Strategy, each backed one-for-one by a share held through its registered brokerage. Trades run on Solana and settle in USDC, with Jump Trading making markets on an automated pool. Eligible investors in the US, the EU and other permitted markets can buy during extended US hours for now. Holders are not registered shareholders unless they convert, and the companies involved have not endorsed the product.
What the entitlement gives a holder
The wrapper has a name and a legal basis. Securitize calls it a convertible entitlement token, and its release describes each one as a security entitlement under Article 8 of the Uniform Commercial Code. Dividends and corporate actions pass through, as do voting rights where the share class carries them. The shares behind the tokens are not lent out. Conversion into direct ownership on an issuer's register becomes possible only once that issuer adopts a sponsored tokenization model with Securitize. None of the twelve has. The Block names the structure as the release does; Unchained does not use the label.
"Tokenized stocks should give investors more than a price on a wrapper that tracks a stock and is only offered offshore," Carlos Domingo, Securitize's chairman and chief executive, said in the announcement.
That sentence is printed three ways. Unchained carries it as the release does. The Block has Domingo saying tokenized stocks should give investors more than a price that happens to track a stock, and CoinDesk prints a third opening about bringing equities onchain without leaving ownership and investor protections behind. The three do not reconcile, and no outlet says it cut the line.
Four accounts, four lists
Which stocks were live on Thursday is unsettled. The release lists twelve tickers at launch, covering Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Alphabet, Tesla, Meta, Amazon, Netflix, Circle, SpaceX, Strategy and Palantir. CoinDesk also says twelve and names eleven of them. Unchained says twelve and names seven. The Block counted seven live at launch, with SpaceX, Palantir, Circle and Strategy still expected, and its own summary box narrows that to three. We could not establish from any account which of the twelve were tradable when the market opened.
Where it is meant to trade next
Two venues are in the plan and neither exists. The tokens are expected to list on the NYSE's planned round-the-clock digital platform, which Securitize was hired to help build, and on the OKXICE Tokenized Securities Venue, a joint venture of Intercontinental Exchange and OKX. CoinDesk says the venture filed this week; Unchained dates its 24/7 venue plan to 4 October, and those are not descriptions of the same event. Both still need regulatory clearance, and the release says trading on them may never happen. Securitize knows the listed route: its own stock has traded on the NYSE since July, after it came to the exchange through a $400 million merger.
What is not in place yet
The legal opening came first. The SEC's exemption for tokenized stock venues is what lets fully backed share tokens trade this way. CoinDesk dates it to September, while Unchained puts the term at five years and says synthetic tokens are excluded from it, a reading no other account carries. RQD handles clearing, custody and settlement on CoinDesk's and Unchained's accounts, and The Block names no clearing firm at all. Ripple Prime says it plans to support the tokens.
What the launch does not come with is a published fee schedule, a date for 24/7 trading, or an issuer willing to put its own register onchain. Securitize manages about $5 billion in assets as of September, large in tokenized funds and small against any equity venue it wants to reach. The Block alone puts the onchain value of tokenized stocks past $3 billion. The conversion promise is the part to watch. Until an issuer takes it up, every holder owns an entitlement and not a share.