Tokenized stocks are emerging as one of crypto’s clearest entry points into Wall Street, according to a new market overview from a16z Crypto. These blockchain-based tokens represent real-world equities, ETFs, and index products.
Compared with traditional shares, tokenized stocks can be self-custodied in wallets, transferred without permission, traded around the clock, and used directly as collateral in on-chain finance.
Market cap tops $1.7 billion
a16z Crypto said the total market capitalization of tokenized stocks stood at about $1.7 billion at the end of June, up from $329 million a year earlier. That is more than a fivefold increase, making it one of the fastest-growing categories within tokenized assets, or RWA.
The firm argued that market cap alone does not cleanly separate new demand from repricing in the underlying assets. Stablecoins are easier to read because one token generally maps to one dollar, so supply directly reflects demand. Tokenized stocks are different: their valuation also moves with the price of the underlying equities.
Even so, the available evidence points to issuance as the main driver of growth. More than half of the sector’s current market value comes from assets that were not on-chain a year ago. Most of the rest, a16z Crypto said, only came on-chain around midyear, after much of the annual move in the underlying stocks had already taken place.
Market structure is changing fast
The report said the internal makeup of the tokenized stock market has shifted substantially over the past year.
Crypto-linked names, which once dominated the category, fell from 79% of market cap a year ago to 21% in June. Taking their place was an “other” bucket made up of hundreds of smaller names, with its share rising from 15% to 35%.
Other segments expanded too. Mega-cap technology companies with market capitalizations above $100 billion increased their share from 0.6% a year earlier to 10.6% in June. ETFs and index products rose from 4.5% to 17.3% over the same period.
The fastest-growing group was AI and semiconductors. In June 2025, that category was still below $1 million in size and accounted for 0.3% of the market. One year later, its share had climbed to 15.5%.
Transfer volume jumps to $9.22 billion
On-chain activity rose alongside market value. Monthly transfer volume for tokenized stocks reached $9.22 billion in June, compared with $53 million in the same month last year.
a16z Crypto said this measure includes all on-chain movement, not only trading. It also captures wallet-to-wallet transfers and assets deposited into DeFi protocols as collateral.
DTCC, ICE, Robinhood, and Coinbase move ahead
The report also pointed to a string of recent developments involving Coinbase, DTCC, the New York Stock Exchange, and Robinhood, saying some firms are moving trading onto blockchains, some are building joint ventures, and others are launching their own chains.
Over the past month, DTCC completed its first production transactions for tokenized U.S. Treasuries and stocks on Digital Asset’s Canton Network. A broader tokenization service is scheduled to go live in October. According to the report, that would give Wall Street a direct channel into roughly $114 trillion in assets held in custody through DTC.
In early July, Robinhood launched the mainnet for its proprietary blockchain, aiming to place traditional markets, crypto assets, and real-world assets on the same open network.
On June 22, Intercontinental Exchange, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, said it had formed a joint venture with OKX. The plan is to offer tokenized NYSE-listed stocks, pending regulatory approval.
A week earlier, on June 16, Coinbase said it would offer fully backed 1:1 tokenized U.S. equities to users outside the United States, including dividends, full shareholder rights, and 24/7 trading. The report added that Binance had launched its own version days earlier.
Still small next to traditional equities
a16z Crypto said tokenized stocks remain small compared with the traditional equity market, where monthly trading volumes are measured in the tens of trillions of dollars.
Even so, the direction is clear in the firm’s account: more issuers and platforms are putting stocks on-chain, and the category is still expanding.