Gate Institute: Thoughts on the On-Chain Issuance of Tokenized Stocks by Exodus

Summary

• Event Review: Stock tokenization became a market hotspot in the second half of 2025, with Robinhood and xStocks driving a surge in trading volume and increasing narrative heat. Exodus Company received SEC approval in December 2024 to transition from the OTC market to the New York Stock Exchange, significantly enhancing liquidity through its tokenized stocks on the Algorand public blockchain. In December 2024, the market size for tokenized stocks jumped from 5 million dollars to over 200 million dollars.

• Technical Implementation: Exodus chooses to issue tokenized stocks on the Algorand public blockchain, leveraging its advantage of over 6,000 transactions per second and latency of less than 5 seconds to ensure efficient circulation. Algorand does not require complex smart contracts, allowing standardized assets to be created with just key parameters, simplifying the deployment process. The Goal command set further reduces code complexity, enables quick asset on-chain completion, and saves development time. Tools like the JavaScript SDK provide diversified deployment methods, enhancing the convenience of on-chain asset management.

• Policy Regulation: Exodus completed tokenized financing through Regulation A exemptions, but this mechanism is less efficient, achieving only 33% of the target financing amount between 2015 and 2024, with financing falling below $1 billion in 2024. The US crypto-friendly policies and the regulatory sandbox promoted by the Trump administration offer new opportunities for stock tokenization. Hester Peirce, head of the SEC's crypto group, proposed establishing a regulatory sandbox to allow companies to innovate in a controlled environment, supporting on-chain issuance of tokenized securities by listed companies.

• Tokenization of Shares: Tokenized financing spans all stages of a company's lifecycle from startup to IPO, with the Exodus case demonstrating the feasibility of IPO tokenization. The pro-crypto policy in the U.S. in 2024 is expected to drive large-scale applications in this field. Early companies like Quadrant Biosciences raised over $13 million through tokenized equity. During the Series C to Pre-IPO stage, Robinhood unauthorizedly tokenized equity of unicorn companies such as SpaceX, which could lead to valuation volatility. IPO tokenization requires SEC approval, and Exodus completed the process with the help of Securitize. Platforms like Backed Asset have tokenized stocks of companies like Tesla through SPV, and stock tokens are circulating on the Solana chain, but price dislocation may increase the risk of stock price volatility for listed companies.

• Future Trends: The open U.S. crypto policy promotes the development of stock tokenization, allowing listed companies to issue additional stocks or convertible bonds on-chain to supplement liquidity, supporting business expansion and mergers. In 2024, the refinancing scale of the U.S. stock market will reach $135.9 billion, far exceeding the $40.7 billion in IPOs, indicating huge market potential. Investors can subscribe to tokenized stocks at a discount price and stake them on DeFi platforms to earn interest, attracting long-term investors. In 2025, cryptocurrency merger and acquisition transactions will surge, such as Coinbase acquiring Deribit for $2.9 billion, and tokenized financing may help facilitate industry consolidation.

Disclaimer Investing in the cryptocurrency market involves high risks. Users are advised to conduct independent research and fully understand the nature of the assets and products they are purchasing before making any investment decisions. Gate shall not be liable for any losses or damages resulting from such investment decisions.