Tokenized Stocks Hit $3.91 Billion, Up 842% Year Over Year

Tokenized stocks reached $3.91 billion on September 30, 2026, according to CoinShares’ Hybrid Finance Q3 2026 Update, produced with blockchain analytics company Token Terminal. The market’s value rose 842% from a year earlier, making tokenized stocks the fastest-growing tokenized asset class in the report.

That growth remains small beside traditional markets. Foreign investors hold $24.3 trillion in US equities, so tokenized stocks equal only 0.016% of that pool—roughly $1 in every $6,250. The contrast defines both opportunity and limit: percentage growth is rapid, while the absolute market remains negligible against conventional holdings.

How fast is the market growing?

CoinShares counted 4.88 million on-chain holder positions for tokenized stocks, an 8.5-fold increase since the end of June 2026. Activity therefore expanded faster than the market’s value during the third quarter.

The supply base broadened over the longer period. Since September 2025, the number of issuers with more than $1 million in tokenized stocks rose from 10 to 25, while the number of shares and ETFs exceeding $1 million in tokenized value increased from 83 to 172.

CoinShares’ year-over-year comparisons were:

• Tokenized commodities: up 267%.
• Tokenized funds: up 97%.
• Stablecoins: up 4%.

Tokenized stocks lead the asset classes on growth, but their adoption still rests on a much smaller issuer and security base than the headline suggests. The practical reading is that breadth is improving faster than absolute scale.

Who is driving demand?

87.2% of tokenized stock value tracks US-registered shares or ETFs, yet 85.4% of issuances explicitly exclude US persons. The structure therefore centers on American securities distributed through foreign channels, rather than serving primarily US buyers.

CoinShares attributes much of the growth to non-US investors seeking a “cleaner route” into US equities and ETFs. Exclusion clauses do not by themselves prove each buyer’s residence, so the report’s demand attribution is not a holder-level nationality census.

That structure makes tokenized equities, for now, an export product for global capital using blockchain rails. It does not make tokenized shares a domestic replacement for US brokerage infrastructure.

How concentrated is the custody layer?

Alpaca Securities LLC holds 81.3% of the underlying shares backing the market, down from 94.6%. The improvement indicates diversification, but one custodian still controls roughly four of every five shares.

CoinShares flags custody concentration as a key risk. An operational, legal or regulatory problem at Alpaca could ripple through the wider tokenized-stock market because the tokens depend on those conventional shares.

The update does not quantify potential losses or a disruption scenario; its warning identifies structural dependence rather than a forecast of failure. Concentration is easing, but the market still depends heavily on one intermediary.

Can perpetual futures absorb demand if rules tighten?

CoinShares expects tokenized-stock growth to continue even if the US introduces regulatory obstacles. Its argument rests on “adaptability”: demand can migrate from share-backed tokens toward instruments that require no custodied shares.

Perpetual futures track an asset’s price without an expiry, and traders do not own the underlying asset. On Trade.xyz, open interest stood at $1.51 billion, compared with CoinShares’ $3.91 billion tokenized-stock market.

The two figures indicate comparable scale, not equivalence. Open interest measures outstanding derivative exposure rather than asset value or ownership, so it does not prove token holders will migrate if regulators restrict share-backed products.

Perpetuals carry leverage and do not convey underlying ownership, according to the report. CoinShares does not tie its forecast to a named US agency, token standard or rulemaking deadline. Synthetic exposure could absorb some demand if restrictions arrive, but it does not reproduce the ownership characteristics of a share-backed token.

What should change next?

This is the third installment in CoinShares’ Hybrid Finance series; the two earlier editions covered tokenized assets more broadly. The series frames the convergence of traditional finance and blockchain rails as an ongoing structural shift, although this update does not provide a timetable for institutional migration.

The report identifies distribution, custody diversity and regulatory clarity as the main competitive variables. The issuer increase from 10 to 25 indicates a broader qualifying base, though it does not prove that 15 net-new companies entered.

Absent a specified US rulemaking deadline, the next quarterly data release is the practical test of whether Alpaca’s custody share keeps falling and whether perpetual-futures open interest gains ground. Until then, market structure remains a quarterly question, not a settled shift.