Tokenized Stocks Surge to $3.3B, Mostly Traded After Hours
Tokenized equities have hit nearly $3.3B in value, with most trading on Solana and BNB Chain happening outside US market hours.
If you've ever wished you could trade Apple or Tesla shares at 2 a.m. on a Sunday, the crypto world is already way ahead of you. Tokenized stocks — essentially blockchain-based versions of real equities — have ballooned to nearly $3.3 billion in total value, according to Cointelegraph, and a big chunk of that action is happening when traditional Wall Street traders are fast asleep.
Most of this trading is flowing through two blockchain networks you might recognize: Solana and BNB Chain. Both have become popular venues for tokenized equities, partly because they're fast, relatively cheap to use, and — crucially — never close. That last point matters a lot, because the data shows most of the trading volume on these platforms occurs outside standard US market hours, which run 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Eastern Time, Monday through Friday.
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So who's doing all this after-hours trading? Think international investors in time zones far removed from New York, plus crypto-native traders who are simply used to markets that never sleep. Traditional stock exchanges shut down at the closing bell, but tokenized versions of those same stocks keep trading on blockchains around the clock, giving global participants access they couldn't otherwise get.
The nearly $3.3 billion figure signals that tokenized equities are no longer a niche experiment — they're becoming a real corner of the financial landscape. Whether regulators will eventually clamp down on this round-the-clock trading or embrace it as the future of capital markets is a question that's very much still open. For now, though, the demand is clearly there, and blockchain networks are happily filling the gap traditional exchanges leave behind.
Continue reading at Cointelegraph
