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Coinbase is rolling out tokenized versions of US company stocks, fully backed by real shares, for users outside the United States. The products will support trading and dividend distribution, positioning the exchange as a serious contender in the rapidly growing tokenized equities market.
The move is part of Coinbase’s broader “everything exchange” strategy, which aims to make the platform a one-stop shop for both crypto and traditional financial assets. US users won’t be able to access these products, at least not yet.
What Coinbase is actually building
The tokenized stocks will be 1:1 backed by underlying shares. That means for every token representing a share, there’s a real share sitting in custody. This isn’t a synthetic derivative or a perpetual contract dressed up as equity exposure. It’s a blockchain-based wrapper around an actual stock.
You get all the benefits of owning the stock, like dividends, but with the added perks of blockchain infrastructure: 24/7 trading, fractional ownership, and on-chain composability, meaning these tokens can plug into decentralized finance protocols.
Coinbase has been pursuing tokenized equities since at least mid-2025, exploring SEC pathways while simultaneously building out infrastructure for international markets. The company launched conventional stock trading for US users in early 2026, offering 24/5 trading with zero commissions. The tokenized versions are being kept firmly outside US borders due to US securities regulation and the SEC not having fully addressed the gray zone tokenized stocks occupy.
A crowded field is getting more crowded
Robinhood already offers hundreds of tokenized US stocks and ETFs on the Arbitrum network, specifically targeting non-US users. Kraken and Bybit have taken a different technical approach, utilizing tokens issued by Backed Finance on the Solana blockchain.
CEO Brian Armstrong has noted that even capturing a small slice of the equities market could meaningfully boost Coinbase’s revenue beyond crypto trading.
The regulatory tightrope
Coinbase has reportedly been exploring offshore structures for its tokenized equity offerings, operating these products through entities separate from its US brokerage.
Industry observers have pointed to benefits like atomic settlement, the ability to settle trades instantly rather than waiting the traditional two-day cycle, as evidence that blockchain-based equity trading represents a genuine improvement over legacy systems. Legal complexities remain significant, however, including questions about investor protection, custody standards, and cross-border enforcement.
What this means for investors
For non-US investors, tokenized stocks compress the friction of navigating foreign brokerage accounts, currency conversion fees, and limited trading hours into a single on-chain transaction. Fractional ownership lowers the barrier to entry for retail investors in markets where US equities have historically been difficult or expensive to access.
With Coinbase, Robinhood, Kraken, and Bybit all offering variations of the same product, the differentiators will come down to which blockchain networks they support, what fees they charge, and how seamlessly they integrate tokenized stocks with other on-chain financial products.
Tokenized stocks introduce counterparty risk, smart contract risk, and regulatory risk that don’t exist with traditional brokerage accounts. The custody chain from real shares to tokenized representations adds complexity: if any link in that chain breaks, the 1:1 backing promise becomes theoretical rather than practical.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
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