According to a Binance Research report, tokenized stocks are nearing a major inflection point reminiscent of the early days of decentralized finance.
On Wednesday, cryptocurrency exchange Kraken and tokenization platform Backed Finance announced an expansion of xStocks, a tokenized stock product offering, to the Tron blockchain. The move comes as real-world asset (RWA) tokenization, particularly within stocks, is taking hold.
According to the announcement, Backed will deploy the stocks as TRC-20 tokens. Previously, Kraken and Backed launched xStocks on Solana and BNB Chain. Debuted in late June 2025, xStocks has had more than $2.5 billion in combined DEX and CEX volume, according to a Kraken blog post.
“The enthusiasm developing in the RWA sector is more indicative of a growing institutional confidence in the utility of layer 1 blockchain networks like Tron,” a TronDAO representative told Cointelegraph. “As institutional blockchain continues to evolve, we plan to stay focused on building the infrastructure needed to support long-term adoption and real-world financial use cases.”
According to DefiLlama, the Tron blockchain has a $6.2 billion total value locked (TVL) as of Tuesday. This TVL ranks Tron fifth overall among all blockchains. TVL is a commonly used metric to determine the health of a decentralized finance ecosystem. However, Tron’s TVL on Jan. 1, 2025, was $7.3 billion, indicating that it has dropped 15% this year.
Ethereum still dominates DeFi activity with a TVL of $89 billion, accounting for 60% of TVL across all blockchains. On July 29, investing and trading platform eToro announced plans to tokenize 100 of the most popular US stocks on Ethereum. On June 30, Robinhood launched a layer-2 blockchain for trading of US assets in Europe.
Related: DeFi soars with tokenized stocks, but user activity shifts to NFTs: Report
RWA tokenization gains steam in 2025
RWA tokenization has gained momentum in 2025 as institutions warm up to putting assets like US Treasurys, private credit and stocks on the blockchain. According to RWA.xyz, the RWA tokenization market has grown to $26.4 billion as of last Tuesday, up from $15.6 billion on Jan. 1, 2025.
According to a Binance Research report shared with Cointelegraph, tokenized stocks are nearing “a major inflection point” and are seeing a growth rate similar to the early days of decentralized finance.
Nansen CEO Alex Svanevik wrote in an opinion piece for Cointelegraph that the real opportunity with tokenized stocks lies not in the public market but in the private, where there are deeper inefficiencies.
Magazine: TradFi is building Ethereum L2s to tokenize trillions in RWAs — Inside story
