Opening Bell currently chooses to first establish on Solana (with plans for Ethereum and other chains later), interacting with USTB and USCC issued by Superstate, and the company's shares will be recorded and tokenized by Superstate's SEC-registered, blockchain-enabled share registration agent. Unlike other "mirror tokens", this form will not be a synthetic exposure or wrapped token, but the company's actual shares truly on-chain for the first time. Notably, similar to Nasdaq, Superstate stated that they will synchronously ring the bell at their New York headquarters when the company goes public from Opening Bell.
For already listed companies, Opening Bell provides a "virtual cross-chain bridge" from reality to Crypto, while for unlisted companies, it is more like Nasdaq or NYSE's "Pre Market", offering the ability to open shares to crypto users in the native crypto market and providing different funding exposure for future "official listing".
Can Opening Bell Really Save "Crypto Stock Concepts"?
Currently, whether it's Upexi, SOL Strategies, or other crypto-buying companies, their per-share NAV's core support almost entirely comes from the market value of held SOL. Many in the community are concerned whether they will use a nested path to create a "crypto stock bubble", using PIPE or convertible debt financing to purchase SOL, then tokenizing company stock on-chain, and subsequently using the stock as collateral in DeFi for lending, thereby releasing new investable capital and achieving a "buy SOL - collateralize - reinvest" flywheel structure.
However, the stock issuance and trading on the Opening Bell platform remain within a strict regulatory framework. The platform requires investors to pass KYC certification and complete related education before storing "Token Shares" in pre-approved whitelisted wallets. Currently, only existing shareholders, investors who have passed Superstate KYC certification, and compliant "KYC" partner wallets have whitelist rights. In other words, on-chain stock trading is currently limited to approved accounts, and investors cannot freely deposit tokenized stocks into any DeFi protocol for collateralization and lending.
Meanwhile, Superstate and institutions like the Solana Policy Institute have submitted a pilot proposal to the SEC called "Project Open". The proposal envisions allowing some U.S. companies to natively issue, register, and trade their stocks on public chains like Solana within a restricted issuer range. The trading process still needs to be completed in approved whitelisted wallets, with provisions for regulatory intervention and modification. If the SEC ultimately approves, this means stocks can be settled globally and in real-time like cryptocurrencies; if not, traditional trading models will continue.
Superstate's CEO Robert Leshner stated in an interview that he is betting on a new generation of crypto-priority investors. "This is a massive capital wave. They don't care about brokerage accounts, only blockchain wallets. They want to trade in their familiar way. I truly believe this is an entirely new capital market, ready to welcome corporate participation." He added that "hedge funds and venture capital firms globally have fallen in love with crypto-native channels", pointing out that Superstate has 150 institutional clients worldwide, including well-known institutions like Arrington Capital, BitGo, CoinFund, Flowdesk, and ParaFi.
This pathway undoubtedly provides more entry channels for institutional investors. However, whether it can sustainably support asset net value premium still depends on the underlying asset's sustainability. Unlike Bitcoin with strong consensus, SOL as a yield-oriented asset relies more on staking, DeFi usage, and other scenarios to maintain its value anchor. If on-chain stocks cannot be quickly absorbed by the DeFi ecosystem and embedded, unable to effectively enter lending markets or become market-making base assets, such companies will more likely be viewed by the market as a "knockoff MicroStrategy", with their valuation system quickly reverting to the old path of "SOL position discount + traditional business discount", rather than entering a new paradigm of "asset tool enterprises".
Upexi has already listed its stock on Webull Corporate Connect and initiated Nasdaq derivative trading, while simultaneously laying out the Opening Bell tokenization path. Its dual-market trading structure means its stock fluctuations depend not only on company fundamentals and SOL price but also on on-chain settlement and leverage squeeze-out factors. Such high-leverage structures might attract crypto arbitrageurs and professional DeFi users' attention in the short term, bringing periodic capital inflow and valuation leaps, but it also means stock prices will become "crypto-fied", with volatility potentially far exceeding what traditional market investors can tolerate.
Once on-chain leverage becomes too high and asset prices fluctuate dramatically, reverse liquidation mechanisms might quickly transform "stock price surge" into "stampede crash". For companies attempting to extend NAV premium through "on-chain extension", this is a double-edged sword. Without forming a real on-chain financial closed loop, such companies' pricing will likely be re-anchored to the "crypto position + revenue discount" model, and the originally hoped-for valuation imagination space might be compressed.
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