Author: Social Graph Ventures

Compiled by: Jia Huan, ChainCatcher

In the past sixty days, the structure of the U.S. capital markets has changed more than in the past decade. The SEC outlined a blueprint for tokenized securities. Nasdaq received approval to conduct token-settled trading. The DTC received a no-objection letter. The NYSE announced a partnership with Securitize to launch a tokenization platform.

VCX, a closed-end fund managed by @fundrise that holds shares in @AnthropicAI, @OpenAI, and @SpaceX, saw its premium surge to over 1900% of its net asset value (NAV). Retail investors paid 26 times the actual value of the underlying assets to gain exposure.

This isn't rational pricing; it's a market failure. The global stock market is worth approximately $140 trillion. And what about tokenized stocks today? About $1 billion. A penetration rate of only 0.0007%.

How Stocks Are Tokenized: Four Models, Participants, and User Paths

The SEC's January 2026 statement not only reiterated that "tokenized securities are still securities," but also established a precise classification of how tokenization actually works. Researcher Borja Neira (@borjaneira_) created one of the clearest visualizations of this framework, showing the evolution from issuer-sponsored to third-party synthesized tokenization.

Model A: Issuer-sponsored tokenized securities (direct registration)

How it works: The company integrates blockchain technology into its primary security holder register. As tokens are transferred on-chain, ownership on the official register is updated simultaneously. What you own are securities registered in your name—not claims, not certificates of rights, but actual shares.

Who's doing this: Galaxy Digital is the first publicly traded company to tokenize its SEC-registered equity. Through a partnership with the Opening Bell platform (acting as an SEC-registered transfer agent), GLXY shareholders can now tokenize their shares on Solana, store them in their own crypto wallets, and even use them as collateral on DeFi protocols like Kamino.

The pain point: Format A requires the issuer to actively choose to participate. Galaxy chose to do so for its own stock, but Apple, Tesla, and Nvidia did not. This is the fundamental limitation: Format A only works if the company itself decides to participate. You cannot tokenize someone else's stock under this format.

User path: You need to become an investor on the Superstate platform and complete KYC (Know Your Customer) verification. After verifying your identity and connecting your wallet, you can tokenize the GLXY shares you already own (or have acquired). You can then transfer these tokens between whitelisted wallets and use them in permitted DeFi protocols.

Omnibus Account

Before explaining patterns B, C, and D, it is necessary to understand the integrated account, as it is the core architecture underlying most tokenized stock platforms today.

What is a syndicated account? Simply put, it's an account where the assets of multiple clients are combined into one. The broker or intermediary holds this syndicated asset on behalf of all clients, presenting it externally (and to the custodian) as a large pool of funds, while internally recording each client's individual share.

Why this is important for tokenization: When platforms like @OndoFinance, @DinariGlobal, or @xStocksFi tokenize stocks, they typically purchase the underlying stock, hold it in a consolidated account with a brokerage or custodian, and then issue blockchain tokens representing each user's proportional indirect claim to that pool of funds.

You hold tokens, and the platform holds shares. What you possess is an indirect claim, not direct ownership.

Model B: Tokenized Security Equity Certificates (Custodian/Third Party)

How it works: A regulated third party (DTCC, broker-dealer, custodian) holds the actual shares and issues blockchain tokens representing the securities' equity (i.e., what the SEC calls "digital custody receipts"). This token represents your indirect interest in the underlying securities through the intermediary chain.

There are two variants:

• Variant (i): The blockchain itself is a record of ownership, directly integrated into the ledger of the equity holder.
• Variant (ii): Records are kept in a traditional database off-chain, and tokens are used to update that database.

Who's doing this: This is the direction institutional infrastructure is heading. Nasdaq (approved to conduct token-settled trading, expected to launch in Q3 2026), NYSE (building a platform in partnership with Securitize), and DTC (receiving a no-objection letter in December 2025) are all building Model B systems.

Your broker holds your shares as usual, but the settlement layer has moved to the blockchain. The ownership structure remains the same, and settlement is faster.

User journey: For institutional model B, the experience will ultimately be exactly the same as buying stocks at Schwab or Fidelity, and you won't even know it's settled on the blockchain.

It's not yet available to retail investors. For existing brokerage clients, it will be a seamless experience when Nasdaq launches token-settled trading in Q3 2026.

Model C: Linked Securities (Comprehensive Account Model / Structured Notes)

How it works: A third party issues a financial instrument, typically a structured note, debt instrument, or contractual claim, whose value is linked to underlying stock. You do not own the stock; you own a promise from the third party to pay you based on the stock's performance. You have no voting rights and no direct claim on the underlying assets.

Most tokenized stock platforms operating today fall into this category. They buy stocks, hold them in a unified liquidity pool, and issue tokens that represent your claim to that pool.

Who is doing this?

• Ondo Global Markets (@OndoFinance) is the leading market capitalization holder (with a combined market cap of over $650 million on Ethereum, BSC, and Solana). It owns over 200 tokenized U.S. stocks and ETFs, including Walmart, Tesla, Visa, UnitedHealth Group, and more.

• User access path: KYC required, open to non-US users, the token is an ERC-20 token that can be traded on a DEX and is usable in certain DeFi protocols. Ondo holds the underlying assets in a comprehensive structure through licensed partners.

• xStocks (@xStocksFi) , the second-ranked platform with a market capitalization of $205 million, is operated by infrastructure associated with Kraken. It handles over 100 tokenized assets and has processed over $25 billion in cumulative trading volume, accounting for 95-99% of all tokenized stock trading activity on Solana.

• User path: KYC required, use Solana wallet, buy and sell on Jupiter DEX.

• Dinari (@DinariGlobal) is the first brokerage registration specifically for tokenized stocks. Over 200 dShares assets. Partners with Flow Traders to provide institutional liquidity. Built on Avalanche.

• User path: KYC, connect wallet, purchase dShares tokens, 24/7 transactions.

• Backed Finance (@BackedFinance) focuses on the EU and is regulated in Switzerland. It tokenizes stocks (bTSLA, bNVDA, bGOOGL) and ETFs as ERC-20 tokens on Ethereum. The target audience is institutional/accredited investors.

• Robinhood EU (@RobinhoodApp) offers approximately 500 tokenized US stocks on Arbitrum. EU region only. On-chain market capitalization: $11.6 million. Important note: These are explicitly derivative contracts, not equity. No voting rights.

• User path: Use the Robinhood app in Europe, and the tokens will appear in your crypto wallet.

The risk of Mode C is real: if the platform goes bankrupt, you are a creditor, not an owner. Your claim is against the overall liquidity pool of the token issuer.

Most of these platforms lack SIPC (Securities Investor Protection Corporation) insurance. The SEC's statement is also clear: this introduces significant counterparty risk that blockchain technology should have eliminated.

Pattern D: Security Derivative Contracts (Purely Synthetic)

How it works: A swap that provides pure synthetic exposure to a reference security. (Simply put, you and your counterparty agree that you receive the gains or losses from the stock's price fluctuations, while the counterparty receives a fixed fee from you. Both parties exchange cash flows, but neither actually holds the stock.)

You have no ownership. No voting rights. No access to information. You have no claim whatsoever on the underlying assets. What you possess is a bet on price.

If the instrument meets the SEC's definition of a swap, it can only be offered to eligible contract participants and must be traded on a national securities exchange.

Who's doing this: Primarily offshore platforms and crypto-native derivatives protocols. Ventuals is one such example; it's a perpetual contract built on @HyperliquidX that tracks private company valuations.

Ventuals user access path: No KYC required, no authentication required. Log in with your email or social media account, automatically generate a wallet, deposit stablecoins, and trade positions with up to 10x leverage based on the valuations of OpenAI, SpaceX, and xAI.

Price discovery is conducted through "optimistic oracles" (an optimistic oracle is a mechanism that assumes data is correct unless someone raises a margin call during the public comment period to disprove it). Anyone can submit a valuation by pledging collateral. Cumulative trading volume has reached $200 million, with 5,342 independent traders.

A key caveat regarding Ventures: Funding rates. Like all perpetual contracts, Ventures charge funding rates to anchor the contract price to a reference valuation. When long demand overwhelmingly dominates (as was the case for companies like OpenAI and SpaceX), longs must pay shorts.

Based on a typical rate of 0.05% per 8-hour interval, the cost of holding a $10,000 long position is approximately $15 per day, or $450 per month, which is 4.5% of your position and about 54% annualized.

Holding long-term bullish positions in private companies through Ventures can have all returns silently eaten up by funding costs alone. It's a trading instrument, not an investment instrument.

User journey: How exactly does an ordinary person buy tokenized stocks?

This is the most important question, but the answers from different platforms vary greatly.

The most objective assessment: For most retail investors today, the entry point is Model C. You complete KYC on platforms like Ondo or Dinari, deposit stablecoins, and then exchange them for tokenized stock tokens.

It works and is fast, but you only have an indirect claim to the overall liquidity pool, not actual shares. DeFi composability is still developing. If you are a US citizen, most platforms are not open to you.

A different path: Berry

One platform worth watching is Berry (@berryinvesting), a company in our portfolio. Berry currently operates under Model C, but is transitioning to a model with a key difference: each user will have shares registered in their own separate brokerage account, rather than in a consolidated pool.

Each account comes with independent SIPC coverage and excess SIPC insurance. Berry's on-chain tokens (beTokens) serve as proof of a user's actual brokerage holdings, rather than as synthetic claims.

It employs a deeper issuer-first integration strategy, similar to Galaxy's partnership with Superstate, potentially collaborating directly with companies on equity tokenization at the transfer agent level, but covering a broader pool of stocks. If implemented, it would represent a significant upgrade from the protection level of Model C to that of Model A.

On-chain data ranking

The Dune Analytics dashboard from Gate Research reveals the true state of affairs through on-chain data.

Market capitalization of each platform (April 2026)

Total: Approximately $890 million, a significant increase from near zero in January 2025.

Trading volume and trading activity

Market capitalization data only tells half the story. Trading volume reveals the true usage:

• xStocks (Solana): Over $25 billion in cumulative trading volume across more than 100 assets. It accounts for 95-99% of all tokenized stock trading on Solana. It is a definitive retail trading venue.
• Ondo Global Markets: Dominates in terms of TVL (Total Value Locked)/market capitalization, but has a slower trading speed and is more like a "hold" product than an active trading venue.
• Robinhood (Arbitrum): Despite offering approximately 500 tokenized shares, its on-chain market capitalization is only $11.6 million. The gap between media coverage and actual use is very significant.
• Ventuals: Accumulated trading volume of $200 million in approximately four months, with 5,342 independent traders. Small in scale but extremely active, the average position size indicates that most traders here are seasoned professionals.
• PreStocks (Solana): Market capitalization of $13.4 million, and growing. Offers tokens from xAI, Kalshi, Polymarket, OpenAI, Anduril, SpaceX, and Anthropic.

Actual tokenized assets

Dune's data reveals interesting patterns in which assets people are tokenizing:

• ETFs: SPY, QQQ, etc.
• Large-cap tech stocks: TSLA, NVDA, GOOG, etc.
• Crypto-native stocks: CRCL, COIN
• Long-tail assets: Robinhood has a longer asset tail.

The current competitive landscape has consolidated into what analysts call a "de facto duopoly": Ondo Finance (accounting for approximately 58% of the total market capitalization) and xStocks (accounting for approximately 24%), with platforms such as Backed and Robinhood sharing the remaining approximately 18%.

What this number means: a market penetration rate of 0.07 per ten thousand.

Private Equity: The Really Exciting Place

The tokenization of publicly offered stocks upgrades the underlying trading infrastructure. The tokenization of privately offered stocks, on the other hand, opens up entirely new markets.

The private equity and venture capital market is worth $7 trillion, but due to lock-up periods of ten years or more, entry thresholds of millions of dollars, and cumbersome annual tax filings, the vast majority of people are excluded. However, the market's desire for these private equity entry tickets has never been as frenzied as it is today.

Fundrise Case Study: Proof of a Failed Market Structure

When Fundrise listed VCX on the NYSE, the market did something that alarmed every financial planner and excited every tokenization builder: the stock opened at $42, while its net asset value (NAV) was only $19 at the time.

It briefly touched $540 (a premium of 1900%), and even after Citron Research shorted it and the stock price plummeted by 50%, it was still trading at several times its actual asset value.

Why? Because VCX's top three holdings—Anthropic, Databricks, and OpenAI—account for 48.3% of its assets. These are some of the most sought-after private companies on Earth, and retail investors have virtually no access to them.

As AccessIPOs documented, the fund’s holdings read like a roster of names for late-stage AI projects: Databricks ($28 million, through DBH1 LP), OpenAI ($25.5 million, through Quiet OA Access, LP), Service Titan ($21.3 million), dbt Labs ($15 million), Anthropic ($7 million, through SaxeCap Advisors VIII, LP), Anduril ($6.8 million, through 8VC ANSES PV), and Canva ($6.2 million).

Please note that each private company shareholding is encapsulated within a special purpose vehicle (SPV), and even public funds require an intermediary vehicle.

@NoLimitGains and @AccessIPOs have been closely following VCX's moves—this is a very real case study: what happens when massive demand meets artificially restricted supply.

The LP market is becoming increasingly fragmented.

Fund-level dynamics are also failing. As Allocate CEO Samir Kaji (@Samirkaji) described it: the LP (Limited Partner) market is rapidly fragmenting.

There is unlimited demand for co-investment in late-stage AI projects, but they are rife with unapproved SPVs and exorbitant fees that can destroy returns—one example observed is: 15% upfront fees + 20% carry + 30% of the portion that yields more than double the return.

Meanwhile, the top 10-20 multi-stage brand funds were oversubscribed. For emerging fund managers without a prestigious solo background or strong operator influence, this is the most challenging fundraising environment in a decade.

Molly O'Shea (@MollySOShea), a former venture capitalist who transitioned to hosting a podcast, also highlighted similar dynamics across the private equity market.

SPV Challenges

An SPV (Special Purpose Vehicle) is a separate legal entity established specifically for the purpose of holding an asset, typically a limited liability company (LLC) in Delaware.

You can think of it as a "shell company" whose sole purpose is to hold a particular stock or investment and then package and sell that asset to multiple investors. Investors are not buying the stock itself, but rather a share (LP interest) in this shell company.

In venture capital, SPVs are everywhere: syndicates on AngelList are SPVs; access funds are SPVs within SPVs; every layer of the private equity market stack depends on them.

SPVs are everywhere: even within mutual funds.

Looking at Fundrise VCX's holdings reveals just how deep the SPV layer is. Of the fund's approximately 25 portfolio positions, at least 7 are held through SPVs rather than directly:

This means that approximately $77.6 million in assets held by VCX, nearly half of the fund, are contained within the SPV packaging. Each layer of packaging adds a layer of fees, a layer of counterparty risk, and a layer of opacity between investors and the underlying company.

This is a public fund with SEC reporting obligations. Imagine how deep the nesting layers might be in private equity instruments that have no disclosure obligations.

The SPV market is experiencing explosive growth.

The number of secondary SPVs has grown by 545% in the past two years, and the total capital raised through them has increased by 1000%. This is a services market of over $14 billion, which is projected to reach $27 billion by 2035.

Every year, tens of thousands of SPVs are established, and platforms such as AngelList, Sydecar, and Allocations make the creation process virtually frictionless.

Who created the SPV and why?

• The most common use case for VC Syndicate leaders is to co-invest. The lead investor seeks deals, creates an SPV on AngelList or Sydecar, and invites their network to co-invest. The lead investor typically takes a 20% carry.

• Selling pre-IPO stock is a use case that most people don't realize. Startup employees with vested options who want liquidity cannot sell directly on Robinhood.

  Instead, a group of investors formed a special purpose vehicle (SPV) to purchase these shares. Employees contributed shares to the LLC and may retain some of the upside potential. This kept the company's capital structure clean, with only one entity now existing instead of 30 new individual shareholders, and also helped the company stay below the historically required 500-shareholder threshold that would trigger public reporting requirements.

• Fund managers who have access to funding rounds (Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceX) often create special purpose vehicles (SPVs) to provide their LP networks with a channel for co-investment. This is where the fee stacking reaches its most extreme.

• Some companies that manage their equity structure prefer the SPV structure in secondary market transactions because it consolidates shareholders and gives the company more control over who gets on the shareholder register.

Standard SPV Costs: Digital Breakdown

The cost of operating an SPV is significant and will continue to accumulate compounded throughout the entire lifecycle of the entity:

Ongoing annual costs:

Standard Carry Structure:

Carry is the percentage of investment profits that fund managers take, and it's a core incentive mechanism in the VC/PE industry. For example, a 20% carry means that if you invest 1 million and eventually earn 2 million, 200,000 of the 1 million profit goes to the fund manager, and only 800,000 is yours.

• Industry standard carry: 20% of net profit
• Setup/management fees passed on to investors: 0-2% of the committed capital at closing.
• Some platforms also add their own revenue share on top of this (AngelList charges an additional 5%).
• The minimum feasible SPV size is $200,000 to $500,000 to keep cost burdens below 3%. Below $200,000, fixed costs (setup fee + annual management fee) will consume too high a proportion of your returns.

Problems of traditional SPV

Fees are cascading. When capital enters a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) through a fund of funds and then into a co-investment vehicle, the fee tiers can be devastating. A worst-case scenario is a 15% upfront fee + 20% carried interest + 30% on any return exceeding 2x, meaning investors in a three-tiered SpaceX SPV might need a 3-4x return to break even.

The platform fees (AngelList's $8,000 + 5% attached rights) are still added on top of the lead investor's 20% attached rights.

The pricing is opaque. When you buy into an SPV that holds SpaceX stock, what price do you actually pay per share? The SPV manager sets the terms, there's no public order book, no price discovery mechanism, and you're completely trusting an intermediary.

Insufficient liquidity. Once you enter an SPV, you're locked in. Most SPV equity doesn't have a secondary market. If you need liquidity in the third year of a 10-year vehicle, your options are limited to "painful discounts" and "can't be sold at all."

Unauthorized vehicles. Many SPVs circulating around popular companies are not approved by the companies themselves. OpenAI publicly opposed Robinhood's tokenized products in June 2025, stating that these tokens "do not represent equity in OpenAI." The same dynamic is playing out across the SPV space, with the hottest companies often having the most unauthorized instruments circulating.

How fees truly destroy returns

The fee structure in SPV transactions can silently destroy your returns.

The mathematical calculation is quite straightforward: in this layered structure, the company valuation needs to increase fivefold for your investment to yield a threefold return. A strong threefold venture capital exit, after fees, only yields about 2.17 times—just slightly better than a public index fund—but for that return, you're taking on the risk of a illiquid, highly concentrated single company.

Worse still, multi-layered nested SPVs increase opacity at each level, making it more difficult to verify whether there is real equity at the bottom of the structure.

The structure itself is part of the investment; this is not rhetoric. If you don't evaluate the cost-benefit structure as rigorously as you would evaluate the company itself, you haven't truly done due diligence.

How people actually buy private equity stocks these days

For the same questions as with publicly traded stocks, the answers are drastically different. Below are real-world experiences with various private equity stock acquisition channels:

Traditional platforms grant you genuine ownership, but charge exorbitant fees, require certification, and take weeks to settle accounts. SPVs give you a ticket to the game, but the layers of added benefits can easily destroy your returns.

Tokenized platforms offer instant, low-cost access, but ownership claims are weak and regulatory uncertainty is real. Synthetic assets like Ventures give you price exposure, but funding rates make long-term holding prohibitively expensive.

Traditional secondary market

Forge Global (@Forge_Global) (acquired by Charles Schwab)

Forge is one of the most well-known names in the private equity secondary market—facilitating over 27,000 deals with more than 600 private firms. Now owned by Schwab, it has access to millions of brokerage clients.

How it actually works: The entire process is done online on Forge's marketplace platform. You create an account, verify your accredited investor status (annual income of $200,000 or more, or net worth of $1 million or more), and then enter the marketplace.

The platform displays real-time buy and sell quotes, provides historical pricing through its proprietary Forge Price index, and contextual market signals. You can submit bids for specific companies, negotiate directly with counterparties (anonymously), and track progress within the platform.

Who are the counterparties? Primarily employees with vested stock, early-stage angel investors, and venture capitalists seeking some liquidity. Sellers list shares at their asking price. Buyers make offers. Forge matches and facilitates the transaction.

Friction is real: settlement takes 30-45 days after the terms are agreed, including the company's right of first refusal (ROFR) period, during which the company can choose to repurchase the shares instead of allowing them to be transferred. Fees range from 2-4% depending on the size and quantity of the transaction. The minimum threshold is typically over $100,000, and all parties must be accredited investors.

Who sets the price? There is no central exchange. Pricing is driven by negotiations between buyers and sellers, and references Forge's proprietary data (last matched transactions, bid-ask spreads, historical trends). It's closer to real estate transactions than stock trading. Forge provides the data and the venue, but the price is determined by the market.

EquityZen (@EquityZen) (acquired by Morgan Stanley)

EquityZen employs a fund structure: investors purchase EquityZen funds that hold shares in specific companies. Fees are 2-2.5%, with a minimum investment of $25,000. Morgan Stanley's acquisition sends a strong institutional signal: private equity access is a huge market. It is now within Morgan Stanley's institutional framework and boasts over 1,000 registered institutional clients.

Hiive (@Hiive_HQ)

Designed to provide a private stock experience similar to a public stock exchange. Real-time quotes, anonymous buyer/seller matching. Displaying real-time pricing: SpaceX ($678.65), Anthropic ($525.37), OpenAI ($608.06).

The minimum investment is $25,000, with sellers taking a 5% fee. There are over 1,000 registered institutional clients. This is the most "exchange-like" experience in the traditional private equity market, but it's still limited to accredited investors and requires manual settlement.

The bottom line for traditional platforms: they are effective, regulated, and validated by institutional acquisitions (Charles Schwab's acquisition of Forge, Morgan Stanley's acquisition of EquityZen).

However, they are slow (settlement in 30-45 days), expensive (2-5% fees), have many restrictions (only for qualified investors, with a minimum investment of $25,000), and are essentially manual operations.

Encryption native methods

Ventuals (@ventuals) offers perpetual contracts on Hyperliquid based on private company valuations. $200 million in cumulative trading volume, 5,342 traders. No KYC, no verification required, minimum investment of $1. Up to 10x leverage.

The value of Ventuals lies in providing these functionalities for assets that previously lacked price discovery and trading mechanisms. For venture capitalists looking to hedge portfolio positions or express their views on Anthropic valuations, this is a tool that didn't exist 18 months ago.

However, the issue of funding costs is real. When bullish demand outweighs everything (as has always been the case for OpenAI, SpaceX, and Anthropic), bulls must continuously pay fees to bears.

At typical rates, the monthly cost of holding a long position is approximately 4.5% of the position size, or about 54% annualized. A $10,000 long position would lose approximately $450 per month in funding costs alone.

This makes Ventures a short-term trading tool, not an investment vehicle. You are paying a huge premium for a synthetic exposure that erodes your returns every eight hours.

PreStocks (@PreStocks)

PreStocks is one of the most ambitious players in the tokenized private equity space. Its model involves purchasing actual pre-IPO shares, holding them in an SPV structure, and issuing tokens pegged 1:1 to those shares on Solana.

Currently, it supports 22 pre-IPO companies, including SpaceX, OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, Anduril, Neuralink, Discord, Kraken, and Epic Games.

How it works: You connect your Solana wallet, choose a company, and then buy tokens on Jupiter or Meteora DEX. There is no minimum investment requirement. There are no management fees, and no commission is taken from your profits. 24/7 trading with instant settlement.

These tokens are fully composable in DeFi, meaning you can lend them out, stake them, or provide liquidity in liquidity pools.

Specific data: Cumulative trading volume exceeds $350 million, annualized trading volume reaches $5 billion, with over 1.5 million transactions and more than 11,500 token holders. On-chain market capitalization is approximately $13.4 million.

PreStocks benefits from being rooted in the Solana ecosystem, where tokenized public stocks like xStocks already have frequent trading activity, and the trading infrastructure and liquidity pipelines are in place.

What you need to know is that PreStocks tokens only allow you to move in and out with the price; they do not represent any equity. The platform's disclaimer is very clear: the tokens "do not grant ownership, voting rights, dividends, access to information or other legal rights" and "may result in total loss."

The identity of the underlying SPV operator is not publicly disclosed on the website. Although the team states that it will release regular external audit reports and offer personal position verification (for a fee), detailed custody documents have not yet been made public. It is not open to US citizens.

The lack of transparency is a key concern. While the product design is robust, the fees are reasonable, and DeFi's composability offers a genuine advantage, for this model to gain genuine institutional trust, the underlying SPV operators must be named, audit reports must be published, and users need clear documentation of the entire custodial chain, from tokens to actual shares.

Jarsy (@JarsyInc)

Jarsy takes a slightly different approach. The core concept remains the same: 1:1 asset-backed tokenization, but the acquisition process is more transparent.

How it works: Jarsy assesses investor demand by pre-selling tokens. Once a sufficient demand pool is formed, they use the funds to acquire actual pre-IPO shares. If the acquisition is successful, the pre-sale tokens are converted into official tokens. If the acquisition fails, the funds are refunded. One token is minted precisely for each underlying share acquired.

Custody and Transparency: All assets are held within an SPV structure and can be verified in real-time via the Proof of Reserve page. Transaction and holding records are stored on-chain for auditability. Jarsy claims investors have all relevant economic rights, including dividends and price appreciation, although the legal enforceability of such claims made through an SPV structure remains to be carefully examined.

Fees and Eligibility: No management or performance fees. Minimum investment: US$10. No qualified investor requirements for non-US investors.

The challenge lies in scale. Current holdings are limited: approximately $350,000 for xAI, approximately $490,000 for Circle, and approximately $670,000 for SpaceX. This results in a thin order book, meaning even medium-sized trades can significantly drive up prices.

Jarsy is in an earlier stage than PreStocks and needs to build up significant liquidity to enable the product to handle trading beyond small positions.

Tiger Research's report outlines the key differences between these platforms and traditional platforms: Forge and EquityZen require matching buyers and sellers, and settlement can take weeks. In contrast, tokenized platforms like PreStocks and Jarsy support liquidity pools and automated market makers.

This fundamentally provides better execution through a continuous trading partner, which is why settlement time has been reduced from 30-45 days to instant.

Important warning for all crypto-native private equity platforms: PreStocks and Jarsy tokens do not grant fiat voting rights and are not endorsed by the companies they represent. They are inaccessible to US users. This is early-stage infrastructure, and regulatory risks are real.

The quality of the underlying SPV, who operates it, how the shares are held in custody, and whether the fee structure is transparent—these factors determine whether a platform is a legitimate entry tier or just another opaque intermediary.

Our Viewpoint and Investment Logic

Infrastructure is being rebuilt. On the exchange side, Nasdaq, NYSE, and DTC are all taking action; on the asset management side, BlackRock, JPMorgan Chase, and Franklin Templeton have also entered the fray; Charles Schwab acquired Forge, and Morgan Stanley acquired EquityZen.

These giants aren't conducting experiments; they're investing real money. When the underlying pipeline changes, everything flowing through it will change.

Infrastructure deployment: Securitize (a $1.25 billion SPAC, in partnership with the NYSE) is the most influential private company in the space. Dinari holds the first broker-dealer registration license. tZERO is building its own chain. These are all bets on the "shovel seller" logic.

Ondo Finance (with a market capitalization of over $650 million and more than 200 tokenized stocks) and xStocks (with a cumulative trading volume of over $25 billion) are on-chain leaders that have found product-market fit (PMF). The question is whether the integrated account model is sustainable and whether regulators will push for a shift towards independent custody models.

Berry's logic: Berry's independent custody architecture addresses the risk of omnichannel account risk that is undermining the trust foundation of all other tokenized stock platforms. If the market moves towards requiring independent account protection (as implied by the SEC framework), Berry's "broker-verified position structure" will become the industry standard.

Their focus on the Latin American market unlocked a vast, severely underserved market. The shift towards issuer-first integration was their path to massively upgrading protection levels from Model C to Model A.

Private equity market access: demand is never-ending. VCX's 1900% NAV premium proves this point. Charles Schwab's acquisition of Forge and Morgan Stanley's acquisition of EquityZen validate this investment logic at the institutional level. The $7 trillion private equity market, with a tokenization penetration rate of only 0.0007%, represents the largest incremental opportunity in the fintech sector.

The logic behind PreStocks: We believe PreStocks is one of the more interesting models in tokenized private equity. The idea of ​​participating in pre-IPO companies with investments starting at $0.01, zero management fees, fractionalization, and instant settlement is very attractive. However, the success or failure of this model depends on the quality of the underlying SPV.

For PreStocks to truly operate at scale, the SPV supporting each token needs to be managed by a reputable operator with a very low and transparent fee structure, clean legal documentation, and clearly communicate to users what they actually own (LP interests in a Delaware LLC, rather than direct equity).

If they can get the SPV quality sorted, provide clarity on the ownership structure, and build trust around the custody chain, this will become a powerful entry point for retail investors globally who are shut out of the traditional private equity market. We are bullish on it. But SPV governance is the ultimate solution.

The key question isn't whether stocks will be tokenized. The question is which model will prevail, which platforms will capture that value, and how quickly this migration will happen.