A New Attempt at Tokenized Stocks: xStocks and Its Development Prospects

At the end of June 2025, several well-known cryptocurrency exchanges announced the launch of the xStocks product. This is a series of tokens backed 1:1 by real stocks, launched by a Swiss compliant asset tokenization platform, with the underlying assets held by regulated third-party custodians. These tokens are issued on the Solana public chain, supporting 24/7 trading and on-chain instant settlement, breaking the time and space constraints of traditional stock markets. Currently, this product is only available to non-U.S. users.

Project Background

The team behind xStocks had previously participated in a now-defunct DAO project. Although that project ultimately failed, it provided valuable experience. In 2021, the team launched a new project aimed at bringing traditional assets such as stocks into the blockchain system in a compliant manner. After more than two years of development, the project completed key steps such as feasibility validation, financing, and establishing partnerships, and the relevant products received regulatory approval from the EU. In April 2024, the project completed a $9.5 million Series A financing.

Product System

The platform currently offers on-chain tokenization securities services covering global blue-chip stocks, index funds, and short-term bonds. All tokens are backed by a 1:1 physical asset and have EU compliance approval. The products have been issued on multiple mainstream public chains and integrated with various DeFi protocols, supporting on-chain strategy deployment such as lending, market making, and arbitrage.

Structurally, the xStocks token is essentially a bond structure that tracks underlying assets. This design allows it to be freely transferred on-chain like a stablecoin, while avoiding issues such as registration and stamp duty involved in equity transfers.

Trading Status

Despite support from major trading platforms, the actual trading activity of xStocks remains highly concentrated on a few popular assets. On its first day, the on-chain trading volume was $1.338 million, which significantly increased to $6.64 million the next day. However, the on-chain trading of most assets is extremely limited, indicating a clear lack of liquidity.

In addition to on-chain transactions, xStocks can also trade through internal matching on the exchange, but it still faces challenges of insufficient liquidity. The overall trading experience still shows a significant gap compared to traditional contract-for-difference platforms.

Product Positioning and Advantages

xStocks primarily serves non-U.S. users who find it difficult to access U.S. stocks through traditional brokers, especially crypto-native users. Its advantages include support for stablecoin payments and small transactions, no need for a U.S. stock account, 24/7 on-chain matching and settlement, real asset custody, and compliance with EU regulations.

Future Development Direction

In light of the liquidity bottlenecks in the spot market, the industry has begun to focus on more trading-oriented derivatives paths, particularly perpetual contracts for stocks. These products combine high volatility and high leverage mechanisms, which may be more attractive to crypto users. Decentralized platforms may have greater flexibility in developing such products.

Another potential development direction is the tokenization of equity in unlisted companies. This may provide a more efficient and transparent structure for early equity circulation, particularly suitable for high-profile star enterprises. However, this path still faces regulatory and technical challenges.

Conclusion

xStocks provides a viable path for compliant asset tokenization, demonstrating strong product design capabilities. However, the limitations of the spot model are also quite obvious. In the future, innovations around perpetual derivatives and early-stage equity tokenization may become key to driving the development of on-chain securities markets.