IMF Report Highlights 24/7 Trading and Retail Demand for Tokenized Stocks as Wall Street Heavyweights Move In

Tokenized stocks may still occupy a relatively small niche within the broader global financial landscape, but the traders driving this emerging market are decidedly ignoring traditional Wall Street operating hours.

According to findings published in the International Monetary Fund’s latest Global Financial Stability Report, more than half of all tokenized equity trading now takes place outside of regular U.S. market hours. This around-the-clock activity highlights a profound shift in how digital asset participants interact with traditional financial instruments, leveraging the continuous uptime of blockchain architecture to trade major equities whenever they choose.

The IMF’s comprehensive study examined the five most liquid tokenized U.S. equities—including digital representations tracking major corporate flagbearers like Tesla and Nvidia, as well as broader benchmarks like the S&P 500—across 11 distinct trading venues over a full 365-day period. Beyond the non-traditional trading hours, the research uncovered another striking metric regarding market participation: approximately 80% of all tokenized stock trades involve less than a full share. This pronounced fractionalization underscores a deep, sustained demand for fractional ownership among everyday retail investors who might otherwise find the high share prices of tech giants and major indices prohibitively expensive.

Tokenized stocks are blockchain-based digital tokens designed to track and reflect the underlying value and price movements of shares in publicly traded companies. Because these assets live on public or permissioned ledgers, they can be transferred, bought, and sold instantaneously at any time of day or night.

According to the IMF’s empirical data, the prices established onchain during overnight and weekend sessions carry genuine informational value rather than existing in an isolated vacuum. When traditional equity markets officially reopened for the standard trading day, traditional shares systematically absorbed between 87% and 99% of the overnight price movements that their tokenized counterparts had already carved out while Wall Street was closed. This suggests that onchain venues are increasingly serving as early price-discovery mechanisms for global equities.

However, the IMF’s analysis also highlights significant structural drawbacks and market risks that accompany this technological innovation. Tokenized equities were found to be roughly 1.5 times more volatile than their underlying traditional stock counterparts. Furthermore, they suffer from significantly lower liquidity, particularly when trading on decentralized exchanges (DEXs). On these decentralized venues, liquidity constraints frequently caused tokenized stock prices to stray further away from the established benchmarks of traditional markets, exposing participants to potential pricing inefficiencies.

The market itself remains remarkably small and heavily concentrated. The IMF estimates the total tokenized stock sector is worth approximately $2.3 billion. Within that nascent ecosystem, offerings from Ondo Finance and Backed Finance’s xStocks account for more than 70% of the entire market capitalization. The IMF notes that both issuers primarily utilize synthetic tokens designed to offer price exposure to the underlying assets without granting direct legal share ownership to the holders.

Given the nascent stage of the asset class, the IMF emphasized that its findings should be interpreted with caution, adding that systemic risks to the broader traditional financial system remain limited for the time being. Nevertheless, the global financial watchdog urged regulators to proactively consider implementing modern safeguards, such as circuit breakers tailored for 24/7 trading environments, and to monitor the growing operational and financial links connecting tokenized assets to traditional markets more closely. Earlier this year, the IMF issued broader warnings cautioning that the rapid expansion of tokenized finance and stablecoins could potentially amplify future financial crises if left unchecked.

This cautionary guidance arrives just as major traditional financial institutions and heavyweights from the U.S. market infrastructure sector are aggressively racing into the tokenization space to capture the surging demand.

Institutional integration is rapidly accelerating across multiple fronts. The New York Stock Exchange has outlined plans to reach crypto-native investors by collaborating with Blockchain.com to offer tokenized stocks and exchange-traded funds. Simultaneously, NYSE parent company Intercontinental Exchange is working alongside OKX to develop 24/7 tokenized stock trading frameworks operating under the Securities and Exchange Commission’s new innovation exemptions.

Other financial powerhouses are carving out their own positions in the evolving ecosystem. Securitize recently expanded its footprint by bringing tokenized stocks representing heavyweights like Nvidia, Apple, and Amazon onto the Solana blockchain, with intentions to deploy across additional blockchain networks in the near future. Meanwhile, major derivatives exchange operator Cboe has struck a licensing deal with S&P for tokenized options products, and Coinbase rolled out tokenized stocks aimed at non-U.S. users on its Ethereum layer-2 network, Base.