Original Author: Tyler
Have you ever traded US stocks on-chain?
Upon waking up, Kraken launched xStocks, initially supporting token trading for 60 US stocks; Bybit followed closely by listing popular stock tokens like AAPL, TSLA, and NVDA; Robinhood also announced support for US stock trading on the blockchain and plans to launch its own blockchain.
Regardless of whether the tokenization wave is just old wine in new bottles, US stocks have indeed become the "new darling" on the chain overnight.
However, upon careful consideration, this new narrative woven by US dollar stablecoins, US stock tokenization, and on-chain infrastructure seems to be dragging Crypto into financial narratives and geopolitical games, inevitably sliding towards a new role positioning.
US Stock Tokenization Is Not New
US stock tokenization is not actually a new concept.
In the previous cycle, representative projects like Synthetix and Mirror had already explored a complete on-chain synthetic asset mechanism, a model that not only allows users to mint and trade "US stock tokens" like TSLA and AAPL through over-collateralization (such as SNX, UST), but even covers fiat currencies, indices, gold, crude oil, and almost all tradable assets.
The reason lies in the synthetic asset model, which tracks the underlying asset through over-collateralization for minting synthetic asset tokens: for example, with a collateralization rate of 500%, it means users can pledge $500 worth of crypto assets (like SNX, UST) into the system, thereby minting synthetic assets anchored to the asset price (such as mTSLA, sAAPL) for trading.
Since the entire operating mechanism adopts oracle pricing + on-chain contract matching, with all transactions completed by internal protocol logic, there are no real counterparties, which theoretically provides a core advantage: achieving infinite depth and zero slippage liquidity experience.
So why hasn't this synthetic asset model achieved large-scale adoption?
Ultimately, price anchoring ≠ asset ownership. In the synthetic asset model, minting and trading US stocks do not represent actual ownership of the stock in reality, but merely "betting" on the price. Once the oracle fails or the collateral assets collapse (Mirror fell victim to the UST crash), the entire system would face risks of liquidation imbalance, price de-anchoring, and user confidence collapse.
Additionally, an easily overlooked long-term factor is that US stock tokens in the synthetic asset model are destined to be a niche market in Crypto—funds only circulate within the on-chain closed loop, with no institutional or brokerage participation, meaning it remains forever at the "shadow asset" level, unable to integrate into the traditional financial system, establish true asset access and funding channels, and rarely attracting derivative product development or incremental capital inflow.
So, although they were once popular, they ultimately failed to truly take off.
New Architectural Approach to US Stock Capital Inflow
This time, US stock tokenization has changed its approach.
Taking the US stock token trading products launched by Kraken, Bybit, and Robinhood as examples, based on disclosed information, it's not price anchoring or on-chain simulation, but actual stock custody, with funds flowing into US stocks through brokers.
Objectively speaking, in this model of US stock tokenization, users only need to download a crypto wallet and hold stablecoins to easily buy US stock assets on DEX anytime, anywhere, bypassing account opening barriers and identity verification, with no US stock account, no time zone differences, and no identity restrictions, directly channeling funds into US stocks on-chain.
From a micro perspective, this allows global users to buy and sell US stocks more freely, but from a macro view, it's actually the US dollar and US capital market using Crypto as a low-cost, high-elasticity, 7x24 pipeline to attract global incremental funds—after all, in this structure, users can only go long, cannot short, and lack leverage and non-linear return structures (at least for now).
Imagine this scenario: A non-Crypto user from Brazil or Argentina suddenly discovers they can buy US stock tokens on-chain or CEX, they just need to download a wallet/exchange, convert local assets to USDC, and with a few clicks, buy AAPL or NVDA.
Eloquently speaking, it simplifies user experience, but in reality, it's a "low-risk, high-certainty" US stock capital inflow structure for global funds, allowing hot money from Crypto users worldwide to flow into the US asset pool with unprecedented low friction and cross-border accessibility, enabling people worldwide to buy US stocks anytime, anywhere.
Especially as more L2s, exchanges, and wallets integrate these "US stock trading modules", the relationship between Crypto, the US dollar, and NASDAQ will become more covert and more stable.
From this perspective, a series of "new/old" narratives around Crypto are being designed as a distributed financial infrastructure, specifically serving US finance:
US Treasury Stablecoins → Global Currency Liquidity Pool
US Stock Tokenization → NASDAQ Traffic Entry Point
On-chain Trading Infrastructure → US Brokerage Global Transit Station
This might be a soft global capital siphoning method. Without delving into conspiracy theories, at least Trump or subsequent US leadership might love this new narrative of "US stock tokenization".
How to View the Pros and Cons of "US Stock Tokenization"?
From a pure Crypto perspective, does US stock tokenization have any appeal, or what potential impacts might it have on the on-chain cycle?
I believe it requires a dialectical view.
For users lacking US stock investment channels, especially Crypto natives and retail investors from third-world countries, US stock tokenization opens an unprecedented low-barrier pathway, akin to "asset democratization".
After all, as a super market continuously producing star stocks like Microsoft, Apple, Tesla, and NVIDIA, US stocks' "historically long bull market" has long been celebrated in the investment world, being one of the most attractive asset classes globally. However, for most ordinary investors, participating in trading and sharing dividends has always had relatively high barriers: account opening, fund transfers, KYC, regulatory restrictions, trading time differences... various barriers have deterred countless people.
Now, with just a wallet and a few stablecoins, even in Latin America, Southeast Asia, or Africa, you can buy Apple, NVIDIA, or Tesla anytime, achieving US dollar asset universalization for global users. In short, for underdeveloped regions where local assets can't outperform US stocks or even inflation, US stock tokenization undoubtedly provides unprecedented accessibility.
In contrast, within the Crypto circle, especially among Chinese-speaking trading users, the overlap with the US stock investment circle is quite high, with most already having US stock accounts accessible through overseas brokers like banks and Interactive Brokers (I personally use a SafePal/Fiat 24 + Interactive Brokers combination).
For these users, US stock tokenization seems half-baked—only allowing long positions, lacking derivative products, without even basic options or short selling, hardly trading-friendly.
As for whether US stock tokenization will further drain the crypto market, don't rush to deny it. I think this might be a window of opportunity for a new round of "asset Lego" after DeFi ecosystem purges.
After all, one of the biggest current issues in on-chain DeFi is a severe lack of quality assets. Beyond BTC, ETH, and stablecoins, there are few assets with genuine value consensus, with numerous Altcoins of questionable quality and extreme volatility.
If in the future, these stock-backed tokens issued on-chain can gradually penetrate DEX, lending protocols, on-chain options, and derivatives systems, they can completely become new underlying assets, supplement on-chain asset portfolios, and provide more deterministic value materials and narrative space for DeFi.
Moreover, the current stock tokenization products are essentially spot custody + price mapping, lacking leverage and non-linear yield structures, and naturally lacking in advanced financial instrument compatibility. It depends on who can first create a highly composable and liquid product, and who can provide an integrated on-chain experience of "spot + short + leverage + hedging".
For example, serving as high-credit collateral in lending protocols, constructing new hedging targets in options protocols, forming a composable asset basket in stablecoin protocols. From this perspective, whoever can first create an integrated on-chain trading experience of spot + short + leverage + hedging will likely build the next on-chain Robinhood or on-chain Interactive Brokers.
For DeFi, this might be the real turning point.
It depends on who can benefit from this new narrative.
In Conclusion
From 2024 onwards, "Can Crypto still revolutionize TradFi" is no longer a topic worth discussing.
Especially this year, using stablecoins to penetrate traditional financial channels, bypassing geographical restrictions, sovereign barriers, tax obstacles, and identity verification, ultimately establishing a new type of dollar channel through Crypto, has become a core narrative line led by compliant dollar stablecoins.
Crypto bless America, perhaps it's not just a joke.
