Transforming US stock access

A major topic at Permissionless was stablecoins and broader tokenization. It was, in fact, one of the main themes of the “Rebooting the Global Financial System” panel I moderated last week.

“Rebooting” could have been replaced with “rebuilding,” a couple panelists agreed. 

But first, from an offstage chat with CoinFund president Christopher Perkins: He told me “stablecoin summer” is going to unlock “DeFi fall.” 

“Tokenization is the new ETF,” he explained. “It’s a new wrapper with superpowers — of instant settlement…and 24/7 access to capital formation.”

Those using stablecoins will want yield, and will seek that out onchain via money market funds, alternatives, etc.  

“So you’re going to see those dollars coming [onchain] translate to second- and third-order implications for DeFi,” he said.

Tokenized public equities are particularly exciting, Perkins added, as it unlocks constant access to those companies for anyone with internet access. 

That sentiment was elaborated on by Inversion founder (and Empire podcast host) Santiago Santos, who took the Day 3 main stage with Blockworks founders Jason Yanowitz and Michael Ippolito.

Crypto has historically tapped into “trapped pools of capital” around the world in part because of the lack of access to the US stock market, he argued. A Chinese investor with such limitations, for example, might resort to holding ETH to express a long position in technology.

“What happens when you now have tokenized stocks onchain?” Santos posed. Capital that previously flowed to layer-1s or memecoins could migrate, he noted.

While we’re on the tokenized stocks subject, Dinari said y it secured Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) broker-dealer approval for its Dinari Securities subsidiary.

Why is this significant? Dinari believes it’s the first company tokenizing publicly traded shares outside the US with an affiliated company now licensed to do the same for American customers, Chief Business Officer Anna Wroblewska told me.

Dinari Securities expects to start offering tokenized stocks to US users in Q3. As this begins, Dinari plans to test a blockchain ledger system for brokerage clients as it continues talking with the SEC about a tokenization framework, Wroblewska explained.

During the aforementioned panel, Ondo Finance CEO Nathan Allman noted the firm’s plans next month to launch a tokenization platform offering exposure to public US stocks, bonds and ETFs. (He called these highly liquid securities the “low-hanging fruit” in my latest interview with him.)

Sitting beside Allman, Apollo Global Management’s Christine Moy noted efforts to tokenize the more illiquid private markets (the firm brought its Diversified Credit Fund on-chain in January). 

On the segment growth evolution front, an S&P Global report published this week addressed tokenization use cases expanding in three phases.

The first (from 2025-2028) centers around cross-border payments and collateral operations. The ability to instantly swap an asset for a cash payment offers tangible commercial benefits to institutions involved with repo transactions and intraday liquidity management, the report notes.

Phase two (2027-2033) would include credit expansion as tokenization connects borrowers to lenders. Corporations using tokenization for cross-border payments will also seek onchain loans, the analysts wrote.

In a third phase (2031-2035), blockchains could support transactions between wallets controlled by AI agents, for example.

The S&P Global analysts conclude: “If the adoption of tokenization increases as expected, it will intersect with other megatrends — such as the growth of private credit and AI — to significantly disrupt the future of capital markets over the next five to 10 years.”

Gradually, then suddenly.

— Ben Strack

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