Before 2020, on-chain markets had almost no access to equity assets. To purchase U.S. stocks, users had to open a securities brokerage account, trade only during exchange trading hours, and meet the geographical eligibility requirements set by brokers. During 2020–2021, several early attempts emerged but all failed—whether synthetic token solutions like Terra’s Mirror Protocol or custodial-backed tokens launched by exchanges such as FTX and Binance. By the end of 2022, this sector had largely gone dormant.

Four years later, the space has reemerged. As of October 2026, the top six issuers of on-chain tokenized equities collectively hold over $3.09 billion in circulating assets, with activity distributed across multiple issuers and several public blockchains, preventing any single platform from achieving monopoly dominance. Cross-chain competition is now a reality, with no clear market leader. Among nine common underlying assets jointly listed by the six platforms, four different business metrics are led by four distinct issuers. This report analyzes the competitive dynamics among these six issuers on five major public blockchains: Solana, Ethereum, BNB Chain, Robinhood Chain, and Base.

Key Takeaways

Blockchain-Specific Overview

As of the week ending October 18, 2026, the total market cap of tokenized equities across the five surveyed blockchains reached $3.09 billion—up 8x year-over-year, 2.81x in the past half-year, and up 58.47% quarter-over-quarter. BNB Chain leads with a 47.25% share ($1.46 billion), nearly 1.8 times the size of Ethereum ($810 million, 26.24%). Solana ranks third at $623.47 million (20.20%). Robinhood Chain, launched on July 1, 2026, has a market cap of $150 million; Base stands at $44.66 million. This ranking structure is relatively recent: Ethereum led from September 2025 until the week of July 26, 2026, when it was overtaken by BNB Chain.

Continuous growth in tokenized equity market caps across Base, Robinhood, Solana, Ethereum, and BNB Chain

Trading volume growth has outpaced market cap expansion. Since July 2025, DEX spot trading volume totaled $74 billion, with 88.24% occurring after June 2026. Monthly average trading volume post-June 2026 reached $14.46 billion—18.28x higher than the $790.91 million monthly average from July 2025 to May 2026. In September 2026 alone, trading volume hit $25.8 billion—2.97x the total volume of the entire prior period. On a blockchain level, cumulative trading volume is dominated by bStocks on BNB Chain, which accounts for $36.5 billion (49.32%); followed by Robinhood Chain ($17 billion, 22.97%) and Solana ($15.2 billion, 20.54%).

In the past quarter, trading leadership rotated among blockchains. As of August 23, BNB Chain maintained weekly trading share between 72% and 89%, peaking at $5.79 billion in the week of August 2. Subsequently, Robinhood Chain captured 69% of weekly volume in the week of September 6, setting a new record high of $7.7 billion. Starting late September, three blockchains took turns leading: in the week of September 27, Robinhood Chain and Solana tied at 33%; the following week, BNB Chain led with 34%; then Solana led again with 30%. Base's share rose from 2% at the start of September to 14%, largely due to declining overall volume boosting its relative share. Despite Ethereum’s second-place market cap, its on-chain DEX trading share never exceeded 3%, indicating that most tokenized equities on Ethereum are held long-term rather than actively traded on DEXs.

Weekly DEX trading volume of tokenized equities per blockchain

Holders data is highly sensitive to definition criteria. As of October 21, 2026, the six issuers collectively held 5.03 million token-holding wallets; under this method, each wallet is counted once per token held, including small "dust" accounts with balances below $1. Only 1.22 million wallets held assets worth at least $1. When applying a strict count—one wallet per issuer per user—the number of valid wallets drops to 791,715. The original total overestimates real holders by 6.35x.

By blockchain, after applying strict standards, Solana leads in holder count: 446,161 wallets with holdings ≥$1, and 282,785 unique wallets. BNB Chain follows closely with 421,636 and 269,494, respectively; Robinhood Chain reports 357,260 and 188,121. After deduplication, Robinhood Chain shows the largest proportional decline—its wallets hold more tokens on average: 1.9 tokens ≥$1 per wallet, compared to 1.56 on BNB Chain and 1.53 on Ethereum.

Comparison of tokenized equity holder accounts and unique wallets per blockchain, showing over 70% of wallets hold only a single stock token, indicating minimal cross-asset diversification.

The vast majority of holders own just one stock token. Across all blockchains, over 70% of wallets hold only one token. Average single-token holdings: $303 on Robinhood Chain, $23,534 on Ethereum. However, median holdings across all blockchains range only between $3 and $14—indicating that Ethereum’s high average is driven by a few whales, while retail positions remain modest. Among wallets holding multiple tokens across issuers, the percentage is low: 11.6% on Solana, 7.9% on BNB Chain, and just 1.7% on Ethereum.

Issuer-Level Analysis

Based on launch timeline, the six issuers fall into two groups. Legacy players launching in 2025: xStocks and Ondo. Both natively support multi-chain DEX trading: xStocks spans over a dozen chains including Solana, Ethereum, and BNB Chain; Ondo Stocks is deployed on Solana, Ethereum, and BNB Chain.

The remaining four launched within a three-month window in 2026: Backpack launched on Solana on June 12; bStocks launched on BNB Chain the same day; Robinhood launched on Robinhood Chain on July 1; Coinbase launched on Base in August. Their entry coincided perfectly with the trading surge beginning in June 2026.

Ondo boasts the largest product library: expanded from 104 products in October 2025 to 458, 2.36x larger than Robinhood’s 194. Ondo and Robinhood are the only two issuers not limited to individual stocks. Ondo includes 117 ETFs (bonds, commodities, crypto funds) plus 8 portfolios; Robinhood offers 12 ETFs, 5 commodities, and U.S. Treasury products. The other four primarily list single-name equities.

Data Source: Birdeye Peak; Note: Snapshot taken on October 21, 2026

On market cap, three platforms dominate. bStocks, Ondo, and xStocks each have cross-chain market caps near $1 billion, with bStocks slightly ahead at $1.11 billion; Robinhood at $156 million; Backpack at $37 million; Coinbase at $34 million. bStocks achieved this in just over four months since launch on June 12.

Growth trajectories of tokenized equity market caps across issuers xStocks, Ondo, bStocks, with Ondo consistently commanding the largest share and overall market cap trending upward.

Trading volume leadership rotates monthly. In June 2026, xStocks led with $2.34 billion; July saw bStocks reach $9.72 billion, followed by $10.51 billion in August; September brought Robinhood’s record-breaking $11.96 billion in monthly volume. Market cooling in October is evident in two key players: as of October 21, Robinhood’s daily volume dropped 70.36% from September, bStocks declined 43.53%; Backpack and Ondo remained stable; Coinbase actually grew 30.35%.

Monthly trading volume share changes across issuers: early dominance by xStocks and Ondo, followed by gradual entry of bStocks, Robinhood, Backpack, and Coinbase, leading to increasingly diversified market share distribution.

New entrants in 2026 experienced explosive account growth. Under raw counting (including wallets with < $1 balance and counting each wallet per token), Robinhood (1.55 million) and bStocks (1.48 million) ranked first; bStocks had only 49,000 wallets three months prior. Next came xStocks (903,000), Backpack (513,000), Ondo (506,000), and Coinbase (74,000). This raw count includes dust wallets and inflates totals via multi-token repetition per wallet.

Switching to stricter criteria—only wallets with ≥$1 holdings, one entry per wallet per issuer—reorders rankings. As of October 21, independent wallets: bStocks (217,216) first, xStocks (194,951) second, Robinhood (188,121) third. Robinhood remains top in ≥$1 holder count but drops in rank post-deduplication due to higher average token holdings per wallet (1.9 vs. bStocks’ 1.46). xStocks sees the biggest improvement in ranking, jumping from third to second. Coinbase averages 1.85 tokens per wallet; Backpack lowest at 1.3.

Comparison of total token-holding accounts (red) versus unique wallets (cyan) across issuers, showing Robinhood has the highest total account count, with all issuers exhibiting multi-token holding behavior.

Launch Race Comparison

Aligning each issuer to its launch date allows comparison of growth curves at equivalent operational duration. At Day 30, Backpack and Coinbase led in cumulative on-chain volume: $1.52 billion and $1.21 billion, respectively. Subsequently, bStocks and Robinhood pulled ahead—Day 90 volumes reached $23.6 billion and $14.9 billion, respectively. Backpack’s growth slowed afterward. By Day 90, bStocks’ cumulative volume was 83.39x that of xStocks at the same stage. Coinbase, having launched 58 days ago, already surpassed all other issuers’ cumulative volume except bStocks.

Cumulative on-chain trading volume within 90 days of launch across issuers, with bStocks leading far ahead, followed closely by Robinhood.

Raw volume figures can be skewed by timing—this cohort launched precisely during the June 2026 market surge. To eliminate time bias, we compute each issuer’s past 7-day volume divided by the total weekly volume of all six issuers at the same point. xStocks had 100% market share in its first two months due to lack of competitors. At Day 60, bStocks captured 84% market share; Robinhood 41%. These shares are calculated based on total market size, indicating both were capturing existing market share rather than benefiting purely from macro growth. Backpack’s share fell to 3% by Day 90; Coinbase rose from 7% at Day 30 to 14% at Day 58.

Change in 7-day trading volume share over 30, 60, and 90 days post-launch across the six issuers, reflecting shifts in market share over time.

Account growth race is primarily contested between Robinhood and bStocks. Robinhood topped the raw account count on Day 9 and maintained the lead thereafter. bStocks started slower—only 52,820 accounts at Day 45, below xStocks and Coinbase—but then exploded: account growth surged 4.66x between Days 60–90, compared to Robinhood’s 1.9x. At Day 120, bStocks had 1.43 million raw accounts—19.04x xStocks’ 75,302. Backpack’s accounts grew 3.87x by Day 90 to 436,290, likely due to product expansion. Note: these numbers include dust accounts. Data as of October 21 shows 76.89% of Robinhood’s accounts and 78.53% of bStocks’ are below $1 balance—meaning much of the growth comes from micro or zero-balance addresses.

Cumulative growth in token-holding accounts since launch, with Robinhood fastest-growing and highest in total, followed closely by bStocks.

Nine Core Tokenized U.S. Equities

The previous section compared full product lists, but the pools of listed assets vary significantly. For fair horizontal comparison, a unified set of core assets is required. Nine stocks are fully listed by all six issuers: AMD, LLY, MRNA, MRVL, MSTR, NFLX, SNDK, SPCX, TSLA. This chapter focuses exclusively on these nine core assets, analyzing differences arising from issuance and trading patterns on identical underlying securities—not from differing asset counts.

The combined market cap of the nine core tokenized U.S. equities (Core9) is $721.1 million. bStocks leads at $307 million, followed by xStocks at $270 million, and Ondo at $93.5 million. Market cap is heavily concentrated in three assets: SPCX, MSTR, and TSLA—collectively accounting for 77.98% of Core9’s total. Leadership varies by asset: bStocks holds most SPCX; xStocks dominates MSTR and TSLA. bStocks’ overall advantage stems largely from SPCX and SNDK, which together make up 63.98% of its Core9 market cap.

Market cap of nine core tokenized U.S. equities issued by six platforms: left chart aggregates by issuer (bStocks, xStocks lead); right chart breaks down per asset (SPCX, MSTR, TSLA highest).

Trading volume rankings depend on the statistical window. Over the past 30 days, Coinbase’s volume ($794 million) slightly exceeds Robinhood’s ($743 million). Cumulative volume since launch, Robinhood leads at ~$3.1 billion, followed by bStocks and Backpack (~$2.4 billion each). These three achieved scale in roughly four months; xStocks took 16 months to reach $1.97 billion. Most Core9 trading centers on SPCX: 54.32% of all Core9 volume, 83.82% of bStocks’ Core9 trades, and 77.69% of Backpack’s. Leadership is fragmented by asset: five of six issuers lead in at least one asset—xStocks leads in TSLA and narrowly in MSTR; Ondo leads in MRVL, AMD, and NFLX.

Cumulative trading volume of nine core tokenized U.S. equities: left chart by issuer (Robinhood highest), right chart by individual asset (SPCX, TSLA most active).

Turnover rate helps identify transaction venues; short- and long-term trends align. Past 30 days, Core9 turnover: Coinbase 86x, Backpack 51x, Robinhood 27x; xStocks, bStocks, Ondo all under 3x. Full lifecycle turnover confirms leaders: Backpack leads at 182.43x, followed by Robinhood (110.93x), Coinbase (106.97x). Others max at 15.14x—even xStocks, operating 16 months, lags behind the top three (only ~4 months old). High-turnover issuers focus on on-chain DEXs; xStocks and bStocks’ large volumes occur on centralized exchange order books, excluded from DEX volume. Ondo is an outlier: not exchange-led, yet 30-day turnover is less than once. Thus, turnover reflects venue choice, not necessarily user trading intent.

Turnover rate (cumulative volume / market cap) of nine core tokenized U.S. equities: left chart by issuer (Backpack highest), right chart broken down per asset (LLY, MSTR, MRNA show extreme variation across platforms).

Holdings are highly concentrated in SPCX. Core9 has 1.13 million accounts, of which 622,022 (55.06%) hold SPCX—also the most-held Core9 asset across all six issuers. Together, SPCX and TSLA cover 77.51% of Core9 accounts.

Issuer rankings heavily depend on SPCX. bStocks leads in holders for SPCX, TSLA, and MRNA—but SPCX alone accounts for 66% of its Core9 holdings. For the remaining six assets, Robinhood leads in holder count. Excluding SPCX, Robinhood’s Core9 accounts are 1.36x those of bStocks. Backpack relies even more on SPCX, which makes up 78.30% of its accounts. xStocks concentrates on SPCX + TSLA, totaling 84.42% of its holdings. All statistics include sub-$1 dust accounts. Switching to strict criteria (≥$1 value, one wallet per issuer): bStocks leads with 71,866 wallets, followed by Robinhood (60,606), and xStocks (52,241). Coinbase shrinks most dramatically—from 20,571 raw accounts to 3,214 unique wallets.

Number of holder accounts for nine core tokenized U.S. equities: SPCX dominates, followed by TSLA and AMD; others have relatively fewer holders.

Conclusion

Four months after the first wave of new entrants launched in 2026, the tokenized equities market still lacks a dominant player, primarily because the six issuers follow divergent competitive rules. Five can be grouped into two models:

Ondo’s Independent Model: Asset scale rivals exchange-led players, but on-chain trading volume remains negligible. Business leans toward interfacing with real-world markets—focused on token minting and redemption.

This explains why, across the same set of Core9 stocks, four different issuers lead in four distinct metrics. Determining who leads depends entirely on whether you measure market cap, holder count, or trading volume.

Main data limitations: On-chain DEX data underestimates exchange-led issuers (most trading occurs off-chain); raw account counts inflate user base before filtering dust accounts and removing duplicate wallet entries.

An open question remains: Will these two business models converge? If on-chain-first issuers grow actual liquidity beyond circular trading in small-cap tokens, and if exchange-led issuers migrate more trading to DEXs, rankings across all indicators could align. Otherwise, the tokenized equities market risks becoming “a shared ticker name, but two disjointed markets.”

New entrants will continue reshaping the landscape. Securitize has launched tokenized equities on Solana, including four Core9 assets—though user adoption remains low. Backpack’s recent addition of TSLA signals potential further expansion of the shared asset pool.

Written by: Birdeye Data, Translated by: Saoirse, Foresight News