Tokenized shares are attracting investors who want to trade outside regular U.S. market hours and buy fractions of stocks, but the market remains small, fragmented and more volatile than conventional equity trading, according to a new International Monetary Fund study reported by CoinDesk.
Demand is concentrated in smaller, after-hours trades
The IMF’s latest Global Financial Stability Report examined the five most actively traded tokenized U.S. equities across centralized and decentralized trading venues. The group included shares linked to Tesla, Nvidia and Alphabet, as well as products tracking the Nasdaq 100 Index.
The study found that more than half of trading in tokenized stocks took place outside normal U.S. market hours. Around 80% of trades involved less than one share. Those findings suggest that users are drawing on two practical features of blockchain-based securities: continuous access and fractional ownership.
A tokenized stock represents an investment linked to a conventional share or equity index through blockchain infrastructure. Unlike a traditional stock exchange, tokenized markets can be designed to operate around the clock. Fractional trading also allows a participant to obtain exposure to part of a share rather than purchase a whole unit.
The IMF also found that overnight price changes in tokenized shares were not simply disconnected activity. More than 85% of those moves were reflected in the corresponding conventional shares within five minutes of the U.S. market opening. That indicates that trading outside regular hours can convey information to the traditional market, even though the tokenized market remains much smaller.
A market with clear limitations
The report’s broader conclusion was more cautious. The IMF said tokenized stocks were about 1.5 times as volatile as equivalent shares traded through traditional venues and were significantly less liquid. Lower liquidity can make it harder to buy or sell an asset without affecting its price, while higher volatility means prices can move more sharply.
Tokenized real-world assets were estimated at about $65 billion as of July 31, with tokenized equities representing roughly $2.3 billion. That equity figure is small beside the global stock market, whose 2025 capitalization was just under $160 trillion, according to the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association.
The IMF described the tokenization market as nascent and fragmented. Activity is spread among private platforms, public blockchains, custodians and settlement systems that may not be compatible with one another. For tokenization to deliver savings in time and cost, the ecosystem needs sufficient issuers, investors, venues and settlement assets operating on systems that can connect effectively.
The technology could reduce some manual processes in financial markets. The IMF highlighted possible automation of record reconciliation, dividend payments and collateral transfers. However, the same automation could introduce new channels for stress. Automated margin calls and liquidations, collateral moving between platforms and continuous trading could make it more difficult to contain a market shock if activity expands substantially.
Trading platforms are expanding their offerings
Despite those concerns, companies are continuing to develop tokenized-stock products. Bullish, a Gibraltar-based cryptocurrency company and CoinDesk’s parent, launched tokenized equity trading in August. Earlier in October, OKX and Intercontinental Exchange, the owner and operator of the New York Stock Exchange, filed plans for a venue offering round-the-clock trading in tokenized U.S. shares.
Coinbase Global, Kraken and Binance also offer tokenized-stock trading, as does Robinhood Markets. The expanding list of providers shows that the concept is moving beyond a purely experimental use case, even though the overall market remains modest compared with conventional equities.
The IMF’s warning is therefore focused less on whether demand exists and more on whether the infrastructure is ready for wider adoption. Legal definitions of ownership, protections for market liquidity, interoperability between platforms and reliable settlement arrangements will need to develop alongside the products.
Moneyiar market picture
Moneyiar data at 09:44 on October 13, 2026, showed declines across three of the listed assets. BAS was trading at $0.0211990443, down 6.45% over 24 hours and 9.87% over seven days. Notcoin was at $0.0004497277, down 4.26% over 24 hours and 8.84% over seven days. Ark stood at $0.1897362187, down 5.51% in 24 hours and 11.99% over seven days.
Infinity Ground was priced at $0.1025293171 in Moneyiar data recorded at 01:39 on September 16, 2026. It was down 31.28% over 24 hours but up 48.1% over seven days. These figures cover separate crypto assets and are not measures of the tokenized-stock market analyzed by the IMF.
