In 2024, Wall Street giants like BlackRock and Fidelity found a lucrative way to attract tens of billions of dollars in investment capital by wrapping cryptocurrency in a nice package suitable for traditional investors: publicly traded, spot bitcoin and ether exchange-traded funds.

Investors can bet on crypto without buying it.

This year a cast of crypto startups are pursuing the opposite: selling digital tokens which represent — or track — shares in publicly traded companies like Tesla, Apple, and Nvidia.

Crypto holders can bet on equities without leaving the blockchain.

"It's sort of foreshadowing what's to come, which is where the line between crypto and the real world begins to blend together," Plume Network co-founder and CEO Chris Yin told The Block. "Right now it's the access thing, both sides are getting a taste of something they couldn't do before."

Plume Network, which is set to launch its mainnet in the coming weeks, is a protocol focused on the tokenizing of real-world assets (RWAs), including stocks in large companies which trade on U.S. exchanges. Other companies offering the opportunity to buy tokenized shares — whether that's traditional companies or crypto-focused ones like Coinbase, Strategy and Marathon — include Backed and WhiteRock. This month, the Injective blockchain also launched a portfolio of tokenized shares that can be acquired using Helix's decentralized app.

Yin noted there are a lot of "crypto whales" that want to trade equities without having to go through the rigamarole of swapping digital assets for fiat. "There's a feel of folks onchain who just don't want to come off — that’s the initial audience."

A key value proponent of tokenized equities is that they bring stocks into the 24/7 nature of crypto trading. "Unlike traditional equity markets, which often rely on fragmented infrastructure and delayed settlement, tokenized equities offer a faster, more accessible, and more programmable alternative," said RippleX SVP Markus Infanger.

While blockchain companies are leading the charge when it comes to tokenized equities, they have caught the attention of the world’s largest asset manager BlackRock. In January, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said he’d like to see the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission move to "rapidly approve the tokenization of bonds and stocks." 

"That will simplify things, make things easier," Fink told CNBC. "BlackRock would never have to vote on a proxy vote anymore because every owner of record would be notified through a tokenization of equities ... those are the types of financial reforms we need."

Kevin Rusher, founder of the startup RAAC — the firm aims to give users access to a range of tokenized assets including gold and subsidized housing — noted the importance of BlackRock's interest in the sector. "The benefits of tokenization are finally escaping nobody, least of all BlackRock, which saw its tokenized treasury fund BUIDL surpass $1 billion," he said. "An asset based on a technology accessible by anybody across the globe from any number of access points is an opportunity that a global asset manager does not want to miss."

The total value locked (TVL) in RWA protocols exceeded $10 billion this month, according to DefLlama data. These are led by BlackRock's BUIDL, the RWA part of Sky (formerly MakerDAO) and Ethena's USDtb.

David Henderson, head of marketing at Backed — which launched tokenized Coinbase stock earlier this month — said, however, the TVL growth spurt can, to a degree, be misleading.

"Most of the growth in the RWA space is big institutions, and a huge amount of it is double counting. Chasing TVL growth only goes so far," Henderson told The Block. "We expect DeFi enabled tokenized stocks to reach between $1 billion and $2 billion by the end of the year."

Until the SEC takes some sort of definitive position on the trading of tokenized equities, early movers like Plume Network, Backed and Injective are targeting crypto investors outside the U.S.

"Anywhere that Robinhood does not service...there's always an edge for products offered by us," Injective CEO Eric Chen said, adding that his company’s data is showing "globalized demand."

According to an Injective spokesperson, after less than a month since launching the company has generated over $60 million in trading volume from its suite of tokenized RWAs which include equities like Robinhood, Strategy, Coinbase and even McDonalds. So far, much of the volume is originating in Southeast Asian nations like Singapore, Vietnam and Thailand.

Chen seemed grateful for the improved regulatory climate for crypto and what that means for his company’s ability to innovate within the arena of tokenized equities, but he expects some hiccups along the way. "We are going to see a lot of potentially opportunistic people, keep trying to launch random stuff to take advantage of the opportunity. And I think those people will definitely get penalized in the space long term."

Plume Network’s Yin argued it's a marathon not a sprint. "Stablecoin was the first sort of RWA … it's taken 10 years plus for people to get comfortable with stablecoins," he said while prognosticating about a great merging of traditional finance and crypto. 

"The line between these two things will continue to blur, at some point it will be indistinguishable,” said Yin. “At that point, crypto and tokens are just like anything else to everybody. And that to me is where it starts to get really interesting."

Disclaimer: The Block is an independent media outlet that delivers news, research, and data. As of November 2023, Foresight Ventures is a majority investor of The Block. Foresight Ventures invests in other companies in the crypto space. Crypto exchange Bitget is an anchor LP for Foresight Ventures. The Block continues to operate independently to deliver objective, impactful, and timely information about the crypto industry. Here are our current financial disclosures.

© 2025 The Block. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。