Tokenization of the US stock market from a "conspiracy theory" perspective, a mild global "dollar harvest"?

From USD stablecoins to US stock tokenization, Crypto bless America may not just be a joke.

Written by: Tyler

Have you traded U.S. stocks on the blockchain?

Waking up, Kraken launched xStocks, the first batch supports trading of 60 US stock Tokens; Bybit quickly followed by listing popular stock token pairs such as AAPL, TSLA, NVDA; Robinhood also announced that it will support US stock trading on the blockchain and plans to launch its own public chain.

Whether the wave of tokenization is just old wine in a new bottle or not, U.S. stocks have indeed become the “new favorite” on the blockchain overnight.

However, upon careful consideration, this new narrative woven by USD stablecoins, tokenization of US stocks, and on-chain infrastructure seems to be making Crypto deeply entangled in financial narratives and geopolitical games, inevitably sliding towards a new role positioning.

Tokenization of US stocks is not a new thing.

The tokenization of US stocks is actually not a new concept.

In the previous cycle, representative projects such as Synthetix and Mirror have explored a complete set of on-chain synthetic asset mechanisms. This model not only allows users to mint and trade “US stock Tokens” like TSLA and AAPL through over-collateralization (such as SNX and UST) but also covers fiat currencies, indices, gold, and crude oil, almost encompassing all tradable assets.

The reason lies in the fact that the synthetic asset model is to mint synthetic asset tokens by tracking the underlying assets and over-collateralization: for example, a collateralization rate of 500% means that users can stake $500 worth of crypto assets (such as SNX, UST) into the system, and then mint synthetic assets (such as mTSLA, sAAPL) that are pegged to the price of the underlying asset and trade them.

The entire operating mechanism uses oracle pricing + on-chain contract matching, with all transactions completed by the internal logic of the protocol, which means there is no real counterparty. This theoretically provides a core advantage, allowing for an infinite depth and a no-slippage liquidity experience.

So why is this synthetic asset model moving towards large-scale adoption?

Ultimately, price anchoring ≠ asset ownership. The minting and trading of synthetic assets in the stock market do not represent true ownership of the stocks in reality; it is merely a “bet” on the price. Once the oracle fails or the collateral assets break down (Mirror fell victim to the collapse of UST), the entire system faces risks of liquidation imbalance, price decoupling, and a collapse of user confidence.

At the same time, an easily overlooked long-term factor is that the US stock tokens under the synthetic asset model will inevitably remain a niche market in Crypto—funds circulate only within the on-chain closed loop, with no institutions or brokers involved. This means it will always stay at the level of “shadow assets,” unable to integrate into the traditional financial system, establish real asset access and funding channels, and few are willing to launch derivative products based on this, making it difficult to leverage structural inflows of incremental funds.

So, although they were once popular, they ultimately did not catch on.

The capital drainage structure of the US stock market under the new framework.

This time, the tokenization of U.S. stocks has changed to a new approach.

Take the stock token trading products launched by Kraken, Bybit, and Robinhood as an example. From the disclosed information, it is not price pegging, nor on-chain simulation, but actual stock custody, with funds flowing into US stocks through brokerage firms.

Objectively speaking, under this model of US stock tokenization, any user only needs to download a cryptocurrency wallet and hold stablecoins to easily buy US stock assets anytime and anywhere on a DEX, bypassing account opening thresholds and identity verification. Throughout the entire process, there are no US stock accounts, no time zone differences, and no identity restrictions, allowing funds to be directly transferred on-chain into US stocks.

On a micro level, this allows global users to trade US stocks more freely, but from a macro perspective, it is actually the US dollar and the US capital markets leveraging Crypto as a low-cost, high-elasticity, 24/7 channel to attract incremental global capital—after all, under this structure, users can only go long, cannot go short, and there is no leverage or non-linear return structure (at least as of now).

Imagine a scenario where a non-Crypto user in Brazil or Argentina suddenly discovers that they can buy U.S. stock tokens on-chain or on a CEX. They just need to download a wallet/exchange, convert their local assets into USDC, and with just a few clicks, they can buy AAPL or NVDA.

What sounds nice is simplifying the user experience, but in reality, it is a “low-risk, high-certainty” structure designed for attracting global funds to the U.S. stock market. The hot money from Crypto users around the world can flow into the U.S. asset pool with unprecedented low friction and cross-border ease, allowing people from all over the world to buy U.S. stocks anytime and anywhere.

Especially as more and more L2s, exchanges, wallets, and other native infrastructures connect with these “US stock trading modules,” the relationship between Crypto and the US dollar, Nasdaq will become more obscure and more solid.

From this perspective, a series of “new/old” narratives surrounding Crypto is being designed as a set of distributed financial infrastructure, specifically for U.S. financial services:

US Treasury stablecoin → Global Currency Liquidity Pool

Tokenization of US stocks → Entry point for Nasdaq traffic

On-chain transaction infrastructure → Global hub for US securities brokers

This may be a flexible global capital siphoning method, and regardless of how conspiracy-theory-laden it is, at least Trump or the new American decision-makers after him may fall in love with this new narrative of “tokenization of US stocks.”

How should we view the pros and cons of “tokenization of US stocks”?

From the perspective of the Crypto circle, is there any attractiveness to the tokenization of the US stock market, or what potential impacts could it have on the on-chain cycle?

I think we need to view it dialectically.

For users lacking access to US stock investment channels, especially Crypto natives and retail investors from third-world countries, the tokenization of US stocks equals an unprecedented low-threshold pathway, which can be described as “asset equality” that breaks down barriers.

After all, as a super market where superstar stocks like Microsoft, Apple, Tesla, and Nvidia have emerged one after another, the “historic long bull market” of the US stock market has always been a topic of discussion in the investment community and is one of the most attractive asset classes globally. However, for the vast majority of ordinary investors, the barriers to participating in trading and sharing dividends have always been relatively high: account opening, deposits and withdrawals, KYC, regulatory restrictions, time zone differences… Various barriers have discouraged countless people.

And now, as long as you have a wallet and a few stablecoins, even in Latin America, Southeast Asia, or Africa, you can buy Apple, Nvidia, and Tesla anytime and anywhere, achieving the democratization of dollar assets for global users. In short, for those underdeveloped regions where local assets cannot outperform US stocks or even keep up with inflation, the tokenization of US stocks undoubtedly provides unprecedented accessibility.

On the contrary, within the Crypto circle, especially among trading users represented by the Chinese-speaking region, the overlap with the US stock investment circle is quite high. Most people already have US stock accounts and can easily access the global financial system through banks and overseas brokers like Interactive Brokers (I personally use a combination of SafePal/Fiat24 + Interactive Brokers in my daily routine).

For these users, the tokenization of U.S. stocks seems a bit half-hearted—only long positions are allowed, there are no derivative products, not even basic options or margin trading, which really cannot be considered trader-friendly.

As for whether the tokenization of US stocks will further siphon off the crypto market, don’t be too quick to dismiss it. I think this might be a new opportunity window for “asset Legos” after the DeFi ecosystem clears out low-quality assets.

After all, one of the biggest problems in on-chain DeFi is the severe lack of quality assets. Besides BTC, ETH, and stablecoins, there are not many assets with genuine value consensus, and many altcoins have questionable quality and are highly volatile.

If in the future these real stock custodianship and on-chain issued US stock Tokens can gradually penetrate into DEX, lending protocols, on-chain options, and derivatives systems, they can completely become new underlying assets, supplementing on-chain asset portfolios and providing more certain value materials and narrative space for DeFi.

Moreover, the current U.S. stock tokenization products are essentially spot custody + price mapping, lacking leverage and non-linear return structures, and inherently lack deep financial tool support. It depends on who can first create strong composability and good liquidity products, and who can provide an integrated on-chain experience of “spot + short selling + leverage + hedging.”

For example, in lending agreements as high-credit collateral, in options agreements to create new hedging targets, and in stablecoin agreements to form a composable asset basket. From this perspective, whoever can first achieve an integrated on-chain trading experience of spot + shorting + leverage + hedging is expected to create the next on-chain Robinhood or on-chain Interactive Brokers.

For DeFi, this may be the real turning point.

It all depends on who can reap the benefits of on-chain products from this new narrative.

Written at the end

Starting from 2024, the question of whether “Crypto can still disrupt TradFi” will no longer be a topic worth discussing.

Especially since the beginning of this year, the penetration of stablecoins through traditional financial channels has bypassed geographical restrictions, sovereign barriers, tax obstacles, and identity checks, ultimately establishing a new dollar channel with Crypto. This has become a core narrative of many recent discussions led by compliant dollar stablecoins.

Crypto bless America may not just be a joke.