1. The Three Paths to Fake US Stocks
The US stock trading products on crypto exchanges (CEX) are not real stock ownership. Users gain price exposure via three paths: traditional API access to brokers, tokenized synthetic assets, and perpetual swaps. These products provide only price exposure, grant no shareholder rights (e.g., voting), contractualize dividend payments, and are entirely unprotected by the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC).
2. Tokenized Five-Layer Structure: Where Rights Vanish
In the tokenized model, assets pass through five layers (issuer, custodian, market maker, clearing house, exchange) before reaching the user. Each layer intercepts some rights, ultimately eliminating voting rights entirely, converting dividends into contractual obligations, and nullifying bankruptcy protection. More dangerously, Alpaca monopolizes 94% of clearing and custody services, creating extreme liquidity concentration. If Alpaca encounters a failure or risk event, the entire system suffers a liquidity gap, and risks are rapidly passed downstream to end users.