Backed Finance’s Tokenized Stock Volumes Top $300M in Under a Month

Backed Finance’s on-chain equities product, xStocks, has surpassed $300 million in cumulative trading volume just four weeks after its launch—signaling growing demand for tokenized exposure to U.S. stocks.

The Switzerland-based platform allows 24/7 trading of blockchain-based representations of publicly listed U.S. equities, with xStocks tokens fully backed 1:1 by underlying shares held by a licensed custodian. The tokens are issued under Switzerland’s Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) legal framework and built on the Solana blockchain using the SPL token standard.

The tokens have gone live on centralized exchanges such as Bybit and Kraken, as well as decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols operating on Solana, offering users seamless access to tokenized traditional assets. In a post on X, the official xStocks account described the milestone as “just the beginning,” suggesting that total on-chain volumes could double in the near term.

Tokenized Equities Signal Growing TradFi–DeFi Convergence

The surge in xStocks activity aligns with a broader trend toward the merging of traditional financial markets with DeFi. Major players such as Robinhood and Gemini have recently entered the tokenized stock space, providing fractionalized exposure to U.S. equities for European users and further validating the use case.

However, not all market participants are convinced that tokenized equities represent a true step forward in financial innovation.

Critics Question Ownership and Utility

Anton Golub, COO at crypto exchange FreedX, criticized tokenized equity products as “synthetic wrappers” rather than actual stocks. “You’re not buying Tesla—you’re buying a token that tracks Tesla,” Golub wrote on LinkedIn. He pointed out that these structures typically don’t confer shareholder rights, such as voting or direct custody, and often rely on offshore legal vehicles.

Golub likened the products to contracts for difference (CFDs), a derivative widely available in Europe that allows users to trade fractional stocks with leverage and deep liquidity. “This isn’t democratizing access,” he added. “It’s just repackaging CFDs in blockchain language.”

Liquidity and Market Depth Remain Concerns

Others have flagged structural concerns related to market quality. A recent note from Parsec Finance warned of early-stage liquidity challenges, especially over weekends, when traditional market makers may reduce activity. “There’s a cold-start problem here—liquidity depends on usage, but usage depends on liquidity,” the note said, cautioning that spreads could widen significantly during off-peak hours.

Despite the criticism, the initial traction for xStocks underscores growing appetite for tokenized financial products. As infrastructure matures and regulatory clarity improves, the tokenization of real-world assets may continue to gain momentum as a bridge between legacy markets and the blockchain-based economy.