What You Buy on CEXs Is Not Really U.S. Stocks: Deconstructing the 94% Liquidation Monopoly and Equity Erosion Across Five Layers of Infrastructure

In 2026, CEXs launched a flurry of US stock trading products, creating a booming narrative of "seamlessly buying and selling NVIDIA with USDT" at the forefront of the industry. However, peeling back the smooth trading interface to examine the underlying legal relationships and liquidation processes reveals that this was far from a simple "RWA asset revolution," but rather a complex game of interests involving spot pricing, ownership of rights, and underlying custody monopolies. TL;DR: Three diverging paths: Cryptocurrency exchanges' US stock product routes have diverged into a three-way parallel landscape of traditional APIs, tokenized, and perpetual contracts. The tokenized model heavily relies on Alpaca: monopolizing 94% of tokenized US stock liquidation, it carries the risk of a time difference between on-chain real-time and off-chain T+1, with users ultimately bearing the hidden costs and black swan liquidity disruptions. The tokenized US Stocks market is still in its blue ocean phase: asset size has expanded approximately 15 times in 10 months, the potential of DeFi staking is emerging, and the traditional API route is rapidly diverting funds. I. The Divergence of Three Paths in US Stocks In terms of capital flows, asset forms, and most fundamental legal relationships, the current CEX US stock trading products on the market are not of the same category. Beneath the highly homogenized front-end trading interfaces, they have diverged into three completely different evolutionary paths based on differences in underlying assets and legal relationships. The coexistence of these three models is not the result of a product design overnight, but rather the product of continuous compromise and iteration within the on-chain ecosystem over the past few years in the face of friction between liquidity efficiency and traditional compliance clearing. Early Exploration and Liquidity Limitations of Offshore Tokenization: The starting point of this field originated from 2021 to 2024 with early attempts at on-chain asset tokenization (Tokenized Securities), represented by Backed Finance (xStocks) and Ondo Finance. The core business at this stage was to establish a special purpose vehicle (SPV) in an offshore jurisdiction, fully collateralize real shares off-chain, and then map and mint corresponding token certificates (such as AAPLx) on-chain. These assets possess the inherent characteristics of crypto assets, enabling them to be withdrawn to Web3 wallets and circulated permissionlessly on-chain, thus successfully establishing a paradigm for asset on-chain adoption from scratch. However, during the window of opportunity before traditional financial clearing giants have substantially entered the crypto ecosystem, this model exhibits severe supply-side scarcity and scale limitations. Due to the lack of underlying liquidity support from mainstream centralized exchanges (CEXs), these tokenized assets can only circulate on a few decentralized protocols or second-tier platforms, resulting in the total assets under management (TVL) of the entire sector remaining low for a long time. As of August 2025, the total on-chain US stock market size was less than 100 million.This characteristic of "asset mapping without transaction friction efficiency" inevitably led to early tokenized US stocks becoming low-liquidity on-chain deposits, failing to truly reach mainstream retail traders. Synthetic perpetual contracts: Pure price derivatives speculation: To compensate for the insufficient liquidity of spot tokenization, US stock/ETF perpetual contracts quickly became the market's main players. In September 2025, Bitget pioneered the launch of US stock perpetual futures and rapidly expanded the number of underlying assets to over 40, with a cumulative trading volume exceeding $15 billion. However, what truly ignited the sector was Hyperliquid's launch of HIP-3 (a permissionless perpetual contract deployment mechanism) on October 13, 2025, completely activating the 24/7 equity derivatives market. As of June 2026, the notional open interest (OI) of US stock-related perpetual contracts had exceeded $2.25 billion. Hyperliquid dominates the market with its HIP-3 futures contracts, holding over $310 million in Nasdaq-100 (XYZ100) and $340 million in S&P 500 perpetual futures. Binance also aggressively followed suit in early 2026, capturing over 56% of the CEX market share in RWA perpetual futures, with peak daily trading volumes for pre-IPO derivatives such as SpaceX (SPCX) reaching billions of dollars. Furthermore, Binance's South Korean stock perpetual futures (Samsung, SK Hynix, Hyundai), launched in early June 2026, saw a cumulative trading volume of approximately $470 million in its first week, with SK Hynix contributing over 90%. Daily trading volumes frequently exceeded $100 million, demonstrating strong interest from retail leveraged traders in globally hot sectors such as AI semiconductors. This reflects a major advantage of crypto perpetual contract platforms: the ability to quickly integrate internationally popular assets that are difficult for traditional brokers to serve or cover, providing global retail investors with timely leveraged trading channels. These synthetic perpetual contracts do not involve any off-chain stock delivery; they rely entirely on real-time price feeds from oracles, completing the long-short game within the crypto exchange. This design brings extremely high capital efficiency and continuity, providing efficient price discovery and liquidity, especially during US stock market closures. In contrast, real tokenized spot trading, due to the need to connect to traditional T+1 clearing, custody, and underwriting processes, often exhibits significant liquidity gaps, large slippage, and price distortions on-chain. This discrepancy—that "derivatives pricing efficiency is superior to spot trading"—becomes a structural pain point that the current tokenized stock model cannot avoid.Traditional API Model: Exchanges Return to Internet Brokerage: Entering 2026, despite the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) ongoing efforts to advance the "Project Crypto Innovation Exemption Framework," aimed at providing a regulatory sandbox for digital assets, mainstream exchanges began to turn their attention to a more pragmatic path due to the uncontrollable delays in the legal definition and full compliance implementation of native on-chain securities (Tokenized Securities). In June 2026, Binance officially announced a deep partnership with Alpaca, a licensed self-clearing brokerage in the U.S., launching U.S. stock and ETF trading services. This "traditional API routing model" is essentially an extension of the traditional retail brokerage architecture to the front end of a crypto exchange. Through its affiliated brokerage, Nest Trading, blockchain technology does not play any settlement role throughout the product's lifecycle—the user's holdings are merely a data mapping within the exchange's app, orders are ultimately executed on the NYSE or NASDAQ, and the underlying securities are held in an Alpaca account. The cost of this model is the sacrifice of all the original characteristics of crypto assets: stocks cannot be withdrawn to Web3 wallets, cannot be transferred on-chain, and are impossible to transfer across platforms; the user's "holdings" are merely a line of numbers mapped in the exchange's app. However, its underlying logic is the most robust: users are legally the "beneficiary owners" of the security, enjoying not only full dividends and nominal voting rights but also the legal protection of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC). This may seem like a compromise and regression for crypto exchanges, but it is currently the only path that allows users to truly own "stocks." The parallel development of exchanges: Looking at the current mainstream US stock product lines, a deeper industry consensus is that most leading exchanges have not completely concentrated their resources on one path but have adopted a multi-mode product layout. For example, platforms such as Binance, Bitget, and Bybit often simultaneously possess multiple underlying layers, including traditional API routing, tokenized assets, and synthetic perpetual contracts. This multi-pronged approach is not product redundancy; its core reason lies in addressing the actual needs of different customer groups within the crypto ecosystem. High-frequency speculators value the high capital utilization and leverage of synthetic contracts, while long-term, large-scale investors (whales) prioritize the compliance guarantees and SIPC legal protection offered by the traditional API model. This hybrid approach also serves as a hedging strategy for exchanges to address regulatory uncertainties. The traditional API model leverages and compromises upon the existing securities compliance framework of Web2, the tokenized model pushes the boundaries of RWA innovation to their limits in offshore jurisdictions, while synthetic derivatives purely absorb risk within the crypto intranet.By preparing multiple channels, exchanges can flexibly adjust their product focus according to the regulatory policies of different regions, thus diversifying policy risks. II. Architectural Layers: Rights Dilution Under Five Layers of Pipelines To understand the essence of on-chain US stock equity dilution, we must shift our focus from the smooth front-end experience and audit the data pipeline downwards. The root of the difference lies not in the token name or on-chain narrative, but in how many layers of intermediaries are involved between the end user and the final underlying asset. The traditional API model can fully preserve shareholder rights because it follows an extremely clean Web2 three-layer architecture: User → Brokerage → Securities Depository and Clearing Corporation (DTCC). In this pathway, the brokerage is merely a conduit for holding shares; the law directly extends ownership protection to the end user, ensuring their legal status as the "beneficial owner." However, the tokenized model, in order to forcibly "move" stocks "on-chain," introduces multiple nested intermediaries in its architecture. It was forced to lengthen into a complex five-layer structure: [End User] → [Crypto Exchange] → [Token Issuer] → [Security Broker (Alpaca)] → [DTCC]. This increase in layers is by no means a harmless engineering cost; it represents a high-frequency consumption of asset rights during the transmission process. In this structure, each layer intercepts or distorts the legal rights originally belonging to shareholders. Voting rights become idle and evaporate: At the foundation of the traditional securities system, all underlying shares of US stocks are actually registered under the name of Cede & Co., the nominal holder of the DTCC. Alpaca or Apex, as participants in the DTCC, are the actual beneficial owners. This means that corporate actions such as shareholder meeting notices and voting rights guidelines, at the end of the traditional clearing network, will only reach licensed brokers like Alpaca. When the structure is stretched to five layers, the chain of rights transmission breaks directly here. As a standard brokerage firm, Alpaca's legal obligations and system interfaces only connect with its direct clients—token issuers like Backed Finance or Ondo. Alpaca has no legal obligation to develop a complex voting rights penetration system for these crypto entities. The issuer layer also faces a systemic vacuum in terms of technology and compliance: they simply haven't established the infrastructure to securely and in real-time map the daily voting decisions of thousands of underlying stocks to on-chain token holders. As a result, voting rights cease to be transmitted at the bridge brokerage layer and completely evaporate at the issuer layer.The redistribution and contractualization of dividends: Unlike the direct demise of voting rights, dividends, the most attractive economic right, have evolved into an indirect, repackaged distribution mechanism within a complex five-layer architecture. When Apple or Nvidia distributes cash dividends, the dollars first flow into Alpaca's account. After deducting relevant taxes, Alpaca allocates the funds to the nominal owner of the account—the token issuer. From this moment on, the funds are no longer subject to securities laws and become the issuer's corporate assets. Whether on-chain token holders can receive the money, and in what form, depends entirely on the contractual agreements and operational procedures signed by the issuer in offshore jurisdictions. In practice, to avoid the complex cross-border clearing and securities regulatory risks that may arise from directly distributing dollars, mainstream projects such as xStocks and Ondo generally adopt an "automatic reinvestment" mechanism. After receiving cash dividends off-chain, these platforms automatically reinvest them in the secondary market to buy more underlying stocks. Then, by adjusting the multiplier of the on-chain smart contract or the token's net asset value (NAV) price, they reflect this return in the user's token balance or token price in a non-intuitive way. Currently, only a very few platforms, such as Bitget Reality, attempt to distribute dividends directly on-chain in the form of USDT. However, neither of these models is essentially a shareholder dividend granted by securities law; rather, it is a contractual claim between you and the offshore token issuer, dependent on the proper functioning of its technical nodes. SIPC Protection Failure: In the five-layer architecture, the most fatal hidden danger lies in the legal vacuum in the event of extreme risks. In the traditional US securities market, SIPC (Securities Investor Protection Corporation) provides brokerage clients with a bankruptcy protection net of up to $500,000, which is the cornerstone of trust that allows retail investors to entrust their assets to emerging brokerages. However, under the tokenized model, the direct clients on Alpaca's account are special purpose vehicles (SPVs) registered in the Cayman Islands or Seychelles, such as Backed, Ondo, or Bitget, rather than every specific user on the chain. This means that SIPC's protection network can only cover the "token issuer" at most. If Alpaca itself faces a liquidation crisis, the issuer might be able to appeal to SIPC as a client; but if the token issuer itself goes bankrupt, absconds, or is hacked, the protective umbrella of traditional securities law will completely fail. In the current bankruptcy and securities law system, there is no clear legal precedent to support the "penetration" exemption of SIPC's protection to an on-chain end holder who holds Solana SPL tokens on one end but has no record in the securities system on the other.This harsh legal reality is bluntly disclosed in the official compliance documents of various issuers. Ondo Finance's legal terms clearly state that tokens provide economic exposure to the underlying assets, and holders do not have the right to hold or receive the underlying assets. This clearly defines the ultimate physical reality of on-chain US stocks: you are not the owner of the stock, you are merely a holder of a digital IOU issued by an offshore entity that tracks US stock prices. Potential risks under US SEC compliance supervision: In a five-layer architecture with multiple intermediaries, the outbreak of risk will not follow the traditional securities law compensation path, but will be directly subject to the compliance game between the offshore special purpose vehicle (SPV) and the upstream clearing broker. When regulatory agencies such as the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) conduct penetrating enforcement of cross-border securities tokenization, its potential default and risk transmission path usually presents three distinct stages: First, in order to avoid compliance reputational risks, upstream licensed clearing brokers usually choose to cut off API routing with the offshore special purpose vehicle (SPV). Because offshore issuers lose their actual off-chain clearing and settlement channels, their on-chain smart contracts will be forced to terminate all minting and redemption functions. Secondly, since on-chain anonymous addresses lack compliant ownership records in the traditional securities settlement system (DTCC), SIPC's bankruptcy protection will completely stop at the issuer, unable to extend downwards to end-user holders. Once the issuer goes bankrupt, users' tokens will face the risk of default, with no possibility of recovering the underlying assets. Faced with this legal gap, the current on-chain US stock tokenization spot trading path is gradually evolving towards contractual trust structures. Platforms like Ondo Finance are gradually moving away from the rudimentary form of pure SPV mapping and embracing a more robust off-chain compliant trust fund architecture, legalizing dividends and liquidation rights through contractual monetization. This design, while unable to circumvent regulatory friction, maximizes the preservation of holders' legal creditor status in traditional financial courts, making it the best solution to the legal vacuum currently available. III. Alpaca, the On-Chain Financial Clearing Giant: Its Single-Point Monopoly and Liquidity Disruption. In the current five-layer architecture, if all the pipelines of tokenized US stocks and traditional API trading products are dissected, a shocking fact will be found: almost the entire underground pipeline network of the crypto industry leading to US stocks converges on a single point at the core execution and custody layer—Alpaca.Whether it's Ondo Finance and Backed Finance (xStocks), which focus on on-chain RWA (Real-World Assets), Bitget Reality with its exchange background, or even Binance's traditional US stock trading launched in June, the underlying asset purchase, clearing, and securities custody are all independently handled by Alpaca. According to Alpaca's official announcement on December 4, 2025, Alpaca effectively monopolizes over 94% of the clearing and custody share for tokenized US stocks and ETF assets in the current market. Why Alpaca? Its self-clearing qualifications and the "risk-averse" nature of traditional brokerages: This highly concentrated, single-point monopoly is not due to Alpaca providing irreplaceable cutting-edge Web3 technology, but rather determined by the extreme scarcity of traditional financial supply and the inherent compliance gap. Within the US securities system, brokerages have extremely stringent hierarchical classifications. One type is the large number of introducing brokers, who only have order-taking capabilities and must outsource clearing, settlement, and custody to third parties. The other type is a very small number of self-clearing brokers. Alpaca belongs to the latter; it is a full member of DTCC, OCC, and FICC, capable of independently completing the entire process from order execution to final asset registration. For crypto asset issuers, joining Alpaca means they don't need to separately connect with cumbersome execution, clearing, and custody institutions; one broker can provide the entire service. Alpaca's core competitive advantage lies in the fact that other traditional large licensed institutions are generally unwilling to cooperate with offshore crypto exchanges due to compliance and reputational risks. Traditional listed giants like Interactive Brokers, with market capitalizations in the tens of billions of dollars, have extremely high reputational costs. They are absolutely unwilling to risk offending regulators and partnering with crypto exchanges registered in offshore tax havens for a small API access fee. Meanwhile, vertical giants like DriveWealth have already made a fortune in Web2 traffic pools (such as Revolut and Cash App) and have no incentive to venture into this new territory. For a long time, Alpaca was practically the only licensed brokerage willing to serve crypto tokenization companies and possessing both self-clearing capabilities and an open API architecture. For token issuers, Alpaca not only provides the trade execution, clearing, and custody capabilities required by traditional brokerages but also further reduces the conversion costs between securities assets and on-chain tokens through standardized APIs and the Instant Tokenization Network (ITN). The illusion of efficiency: the “time difference asymmetric risk” of on-chain real-time minting versus off-chain T+1: In order to consolidate its infrastructure position, Alpaca launched the Instant Tokenization Network (ITN) in 2025.This system doesn't directly handle token issuance. Instead, it standardizes the traditional securities world's processes of inventory verification, asset transfer (Journal), minting notifications, and redemption settlement, automating these processes via API connections to token issuers. In the traditional model, from stock purchase and custody confirmation to token minting, multiple rounds of manual confirmation between the issuer and brokerage firms are often required. Under the ITN model, Alpaca can verify in real-time whether the underlying securities have been deposited and automatically issue minting or redemption instructions to the issuer, thus compressing a process that originally took hours or even days to near real-time. However, this creates a huge illusion of settlement efficiency: ITN shortens the "information synchronization time between securities and tokens," rather than changing the settlement cycle of the underlying securities market itself. The upper-layer token minting and on-chain circulation are 24/7, measured in seconds; but the lower-layer underlying securities settlement remains locked in the T+1 (or even future same-day settlement) clearing clock of the traditional financial system. This risk of a "fast upper layer, slow lower layer" settlement time mismatch is masked by liquidity support from Alpaca and the issuer when the market is stable, but it exposes a fatal liquidity gap during extreme black swan events. In actual clearing and trading workflows, the resulting price difference and time risk follow a clear path of responsibility and cost transfer. Alpaca, at the bottom layer, has implemented an absolute separation of responsibility: as a licensed clearing broker, its ITN network is only responsible for "second-level inventory verification and order issuance," and securities account settlement fully complies with the traditional T+1 clearing rule. This means that Alpaca is not legally or financially responsible for absolute price differences caused by sharp market fluctuations during traditional market closures or settlement periods. This time difference risk is then transferred to the issuer level. Since the underlying securities are still constrained by traditional market trading hours and settlement cycles, issuers typically manage the time mismatch between on-chain liquidity and underlying assets through mechanisms such as setting redemption windows, delaying settlement arrangements, and suspending emergency permissions for Mint/Redeem. For example, xStocks restricts primary market subscriptions and redemptions to specific market sessions, while some issuers explicitly reserve the right to delay, suspend, or even cancel subscription and redemption transactions in abnormal market conditions in their legal documents. Issuers isolate risks by delaying settlement and shutting down trading at any time, and the resulting liquidity pressure is directly transferred to the front-end market makers.To maintain on-chain 24/7 pricing when the underlying clearing network shuts down, market makers typically convert this time-difference risk into liquidity costs by widening bid-ask spreads, reducing bid depth, limiting inventory exposure, or using related markets for hedging. Ultimately, this interlocking chain reaches its logical endpoint: Alpaca provides the tools without bearing the risk, issuers set rules for emergency hedging, and market makers widen bid-ask spreads to hedge against time mismatch risks; these hidden transaction costs are ultimately borne by retail investors. Therefore, what ITN creates is not true instant settlement, but rather instant liquidity built on top of the traditional securities clearing system. The division of responsibility: a meticulously calculated compliance safe haven: Faced with such structural vulnerabilities, Alpaca's management demonstrated extremely sophisticated compliance calculations. After completing a $150 million Series D funding round in early 2026 (valuing the company at $1.15 billion, with investors including Citadel Securities, Kraken, and BNP Paribas), the capital market priced in its current irreplaceable pivotal role. However, its compliance logic has always been singular: strict separation of responsibilities. Alpaca's compliance logic is not simply about distancing itself from the on-chain world, but rather about strictly avoiding becoming a token issuer while participating in the tokenization process. Through ITN, Alpaca has been deeply involved in key aspects of the on-chain process of securities assets, such as inventory verification, asset transfer, minting notification, and redemption settlement; however, in its legal structure, it consistently leaves the issuance, burning, holder management, and on-chain compliance obligations of tokens to issuers such as Backed and Ondo. Alpaca's responsibilities typically stop at the securities account system. Alpaca is responsible for verifying the existence of the underlying securities, whether the transfer has been completed, and whether the minting conditions are met. However, the issuer and its partners are typically responsible for determining who ultimately holds the tokens, on which chain they circulate, whether they are used in DeFi protocols or cross-chain bridges, and whether on-chain participants meet relevant regulatory requirements. The current model is built on a finely layered responsibility structure: Alpaca provides the securities infrastructure, the issuer provides the tokenization structure, and the exchange provides the distribution channel. As long as regulators continue to recognize this division of responsibilities, all parties can operate within relatively clear boundaries. However, if the SEC later determines that certain on-chain activities during the securities tokenization process fall under the regulatory responsibility of brokerage firms or clearing houses, then the risk buffer currently established by Alpaca will face re-evaluation.In this sense, Alpaca's competitive advantage stems from both the existence of regulatory boundaries and their continued existence. IV. On-Chain Landscape: Real Trading Demand for Tokenized US Stocks As of June 2026, the overall scale of US stock trading through the crypto ecosystem is still in its early stages. Specifically, the total open interest (Open Interest) of US stock perpetual contracts, primarily driven by Hyperliquid, is approximately $2.25 billion USD; the publicly observable TVL of Tokenized US Stocks (RWA.xyz) is around $1.5 billion, exhibiting a highly concentrated trend. Furthermore, from May to June 2026, the traditional API routing model driven by Alpaca has been launched intensively on mainstream CEXs. Binance launched over 7,000 US stock trading and bStocks tokenized products, accumulating trading volume to hundreds of millions of dollars in a short period, but the corresponding open interest and TVL remain relatively limited. In summary, the total exposure of this entire industry, developed over several years, is still less than the daily trading volume of a single leading large-cap stock on Nasdaq. On-chain US Stock Market Size and Structure: According to data from RWA.xyz, as of June 23, 2026, the total size of on-chain US stock tokens was $1.56 billion. Looking at the growth curve, the entire market has grown rapidly, with trading volume and TVL increasing rapidly driven by hot stocks, rising from less than $100 million in August 2025 to its current size, an expansion of approximately 15 times in 10 months. From a time-series perspective, on-chain tokenized US stocks exhibit phased capital game dynamics. According to RWA.xyz data, the total spot TVL reached a high of $1.6 billion at the end of May 2026, and then quickly fell back to $250 million in early June. This outflow window highly overlaps with the concentrated launch of "traditional API US stock products" by leading CEXs such as Binance and Gate, confirming the initial substitution effect—some retail investors seeking real ownership and SIPC legal protection chose to defensively migrate their large-cap stock positions to off-chain real securities accounts. However, with Binance's official launch of bStocks on June 11, 2026, the total trading volume has reached $91.5M (calculated based on official Binance bStocks data as of June 24, 2026). The total size of on-chain US stock tokens has also returned to $1.56B. Tokenized US Stocks as DeFi Collateral: Early Exploration of Lending Functionality: The true potential of on-chain tokenized US stocks goes far beyond trading itself, but lies in whether it can become a programmable asset in DeFi. On June 20, 2026, Venus Protocol officially included Binance-issued bStocks (TSLAB, NVDAB, SPCXB, etc.) in the collateral support scope of the BNB Chain Core Pool, with the Collateral Factor set at approximately 60%, 60%, and 50% respectively.This marks the first time that tokenized US stocks issued by a mainstream centralized exchange have achieved deep integration with the BNB Chain mainstream lending protocol. Users can now use bStocks as collateral to obtain liquidity while maintaining stock price exposure. Although this step is still in the early verification stage, its significance lies in opening a door. Over the past few years, the crypto-native market has developed a mature DeFi product system around BTC, ETH, and mainstream altcoins, including highly utilized staking and lending pools, automated strategy Vaults, and spot-based options products. Now, with the emergence of truly pegged tokenized US stocks, these mature mechanisms are naturally beginning to extend to equity assets. For example, staking lending pools can use tokenized US stocks as primary collateral, allowing users to borrow stablecoins for other strategies without selling their holdings. Strategy Vaults, on the other hand, are expected to package multiple tokenized tech stocks and use algorithms for automatic rebalancing, leverage, or hedging to generate products with different risk-return characteristics. Innovations such as options Vaults and on-chain stock ETFs may allow investors to directly trade "stock baskets" or obtain structured returns on-chain. If these products are implemented on tokenized US stocks, they are likely not simply replicas of the native crypto version, but rather will combine stock dividend mechanisms, earnings event pricing, and traditional market volatility characteristics to evolve into new forms that more closely resemble equity assets. From this perspective, the true value of tokenized US stock lending lies in opening up DeFi combinatorial space for RWA, transforming previously isolated stock exposures into productivity tools that can interact with other crypto assets. Of course, these are still in the conceptual and early experimental stages, and actual implementation faces multiple challenges, including oracles, volatility matching, and liquidation security. However, if protocols like Venus can successfully transition from supply to actual lending and attract more developers to build upper-layer applications, this type of innovation is expected to be a key step for tokenized US stocks to move from "trading alternatives" to "financial infrastructure." V. DTCC Tokenization Service: A game-changing, underlying innovation. So far, we have seen a multi-layered, parallel but fragmented market: CEXs are rapidly launching various US stock products (including bStocks) through APIs like Alpaca, providing non-US users with much-needed 24/7 exposure and leverage channels; DeFi is attempting to use tokenized stocks as collateral to improve capital efficiency. However, these innovations are essentially still in the "wrapper" stage—weak regulatory protection, fragmented real ownership, and liquidity highly dependent on incentives, resulting in a relatively small overall scale, far below the daily trading volume of traditional markets.The current boom in tokenized US stocks is essentially a spontaneous attempt by the crypto ecosystem to fill the structural imbalance in global capital allocation. Emerging market and crypto-native users face pressure from currency devaluation, capital controls, and cross-border investment frictions. What they truly need is not just exposure to US stock prices, but also an efficient channel for anchoring dollar assets and preserving wealth. CEXs and tokenized products compress the three processes of "currency exchange—investment—self-custody" into a single account, significantly reducing behavioral friction and cognitive costs. Therefore, users are willing to bear the credit risk of wrappers and regulatory gray areas. However, this model struggles to address underlying structural contradictions: the disconnect between real ownership and economic exposure, the mismatch between off-hour pricing and traditional clearing and settlement networks, and the vulnerability of lacking a centralized risk absorption mechanism. This directly explains why synthetic perpetual contracts are far more likely to experience explosive growth in trading volume—perps completely abandon the collateral requirement of "real assets," focusing solely on price speculation, resulting in higher capital efficiency and continuity; while real spot tokenized contracts always struggle to balance "on-chain convenience" with "traditional underlying anchoring," leading to limited liquidity depth and user trust, appearing lively but lacking substance. The real turning point is likely to occur in the second half of 2026—DTCC plans to launch a tokenized securities pilot in July and officially launch the service in October. This service targets Russell 1000 constituent stocks, major ETFs, and US Treasury bonds, with over 50 institutions participating, including BlackRock, JPMorgan, and Nasdaq. Its core is to achieve tokenization within DTC's existing custody system, allowing the tokenized version to enjoy the same legal rights, investor protection, and settlement mechanisms as traditional securities. If the DTCC pilot is successfully implemented and gradually expanded, it will inject traditional market-level trust anchoring and liquidity access into tokenized US stocks. At that time, CEX/Alpaca-style wrapper products may face a clearer stratification: one group will continue to serve crypto-native and global retail users (emphasizing 24/7 availability and DeFi composability), while institutional and large-scale capital will increasingly shift towards DTCC-supported compliance pathways. This is not a crypto "victory" or a "co-optation" of TradeFi, but rather a gradual integration and long-term coexistence of the two systems—crypto channels cannot obtain traditional-level investor protection and systemic risk buffers in the short term, while traditional infrastructure also needs to leverage crypto technology to achieve greater global accessibility and efficiency. Before this, the current tokenized US stock market wave is still in the verification and boundary exploration stage.Its growth potential is real, but for it to truly transition from a "niche supplement" to mainstream infrastructure, it requires the implementation of a DTCC-level clearing and settlement layer, as well as further clearer regulatory definitions of "economic exposure vs. true ownership." Only when the core infrastructure of traditional markets begins to systematically embrace tokenization can this wave truly move from "crypto experimentation" to "the digital evolution of capital markets." [IOSG]