Tokenized stocks already trade around the clock

By the middle of 2026, tokenized real-world assets onchain were above $30 billion, listed stocks inside that total already trade against USDC after the stock exchange has closed for the day, and the funds around those trades are already large. If you follow a listed stock, you know the exchange has a closing bell, and once that bell rings the official price goes quiet even when the news does not. A headline can land in the evening, and the exchange will not print it until the next morning. Anyone who has watched a stock through a close has already seen that gap. The new part is that a tracker of the same stock can keep trading after the bell, with a stablecoin as the cash, while the official price is dark. The company stays listed where it was listed, and what can change hands after the close is the tracker.

After the close

A tracker priced in USDC is a simple arrangement. The stablecoin is the cash, and the tracker is a claim on a security that a custodian is already holding, so when someone buys it they receive the claim and the stablecoin moves to the seller. The listed company does not add that buyer to its own register, because the company's books did not change and what changed hands is the claim. The stock itself stays in custody, which is why a trade in the tracker is not the company issuing something new, and it is not the buyer becoming a new name on the company's list.

There are two prices for the same name, one that stops when the bell rings and another that can keep moving through the evening, so if you only watch the official close you miss the second price. Someone looking at the stock in a normal brokerage account is watching the exchange, and they are not in the tracker trade. The custodian still holds the stock, and the buyer of the token holds the claim on it.

Most of the stocks wrapped this way are US-listed. The tracker is a claim on the security in custody, so it can trade against a stablecoin after the US close, and a buyer in another timezone can settle that claim before the next morning's open. When the exchange opens again, it prints its own price from its own session. The tracker may have moved overnight, and the two prices can differ at the open because one of them was updating while the other was shut. That difference is the time between the US close and the next open, not a forecast about the stock.

The trackers

Backed Finance issues about 70 of these trackers, covering listed stocks and ETFs, and each one is backed 1:1 by the security in custody. The security stays with the custodian, the token is the claim on it, and when the token is sold the claim is sold with it. A number on a screen through the night is not, on its own, a trade. A tracker backed one for one is a trade, because there is a security behind the token and a buyer on the other side. If the token is redeemed, the security is what sits behind it, and the issuer is not offering a basket that can drift away from the stock. Early in 2026 that book was about $225 million, with more than 80,000 holders and $25 billion in cumulative transaction volume. Volume on that scale, next to a much smaller pool of assets, means the tokens are being sold rather than issued once and left sitting there. The holder count tells you how many wallets already have one, and the volume tells you those tokens are changing hands.

Some issuers use an EU prospectus so they can offer the same product across the European Economic Area. Without that document, a tracker sold in one country stays in that country, and the prospectus is what lets the same offer cross the EEA. The prospectus does not change the one-for-one backing, but it does change where the product can be offered, and a buyer can check the document and the custodian on the same day.

In December 2025, Kraken agreed to buy Backed Finance, which already had holders and volume by then. The earlier raise was a separate event: Backed Finance raised $9.5 million in a Series A led by Gnosis in April 2024, and the Kraken agreement came after it. An exchange would sit next to the company that issues the trackers, but the tokens do not become the exchange's own stock, because they stay claims on the securities in custody. The holders and the volume were already there when the agreement was signed.

The apps

Robinhood and Coinbase are the brokers people already have on their phones, and both are named on the Uniswap V4 boards where tokenized stocks trade. During the day, someone opens one of those apps to look at a listed stock, and after the close the same names are on the board where the token trades, so the after-hours market is using apps people already have rather than asking them to learn a new one. Several of these tokens trade on Base, so the broker someone already uses, the board where the token trades, and the network where that trade happens are parts of one market. Kraken's agreement would put an exchange next to the issuer, and you can see the activity in the holders, the volume, and the apps, with those trades clearing while the stock exchange is closed. ST0x is another venue in this market.

After the official price has stopped, the news can still come out, and here the cash is USDC while the thing being bought is a claim a custodian holds, so the trade can clear before the exchange opens again. The exchange price is still the exchange price, and the after-hours trade is the tracker changing hands. You already know the name from the app you use during the day, and after that session the token is what trades, on a board that is already up.

The funds

The funds next to these trackers are a different business, and the two are easy to mix up because both of them use tokens and both of them are already large.

Securitize administers more than $26 billion across more than 600 funds, which is the transfer records and the positions for funds that other managers already run. BlackRock, Hamilton Lane, KKR, and Apollo issue through Securitize, and that administration book is not the same figure as the onchain total in the opening, so adding the two would count the market twice. In the first quarter of 2026, Securitize reported $19.5 million of revenue, and a SPAC combination with Cantor Equity Partners II was set at a $1.25 billion pre-money valuation, which is the price agreed for the combination rather than a trade that has already cleared.

In May 2026, Securitize's broker-dealer became the first standard broker-dealer cleared to hold tokenized securities and settle them against a stablecoin in the same trade. Minting a token is something a small company can do quickly, but holding the security is a different job. A regulated broker-dealer can keep that security overnight, and in the same trade the security and the stablecoin both move, so the buyer is not waiting until the next morning for the cash. A fund administrator can use that, and being allowed to hold the security overnight is not the same thing as minting a token.

Superstate's tokenized funds passed $1 billion by January 2026, and that same month it raised $82.5 million in a Series B led by Bain Capital Crypto and Distributed Global. The raise and the size of the funds are different facts, because one is money put into the company and the other is money already inside the funds. Invesco took on the treasury fund at about $967 million, Bitwise took on the crypto carry fund at about $259 million, and Coinbase Asset Management launched a fund on the same system. A treasury fund and a crypto carry fund are fund products rather than stock trackers, and taking them onto this system does not turn them into a claim on a listed stock. Invesco and Bitwise took the funds on, and Coinbase Asset Management launched one, on the same rails the records already use.

A stock tracker can trade against USDC after the bell because both sides of the trade are onchain, and a fund can keep a tokenized security overnight because a broker-dealer is allowed to hold it and settle the cash in the same trade. The trackers are people trading a claim on a listed stock after the exchange has closed. The funds are the administration, the custody, and the stablecoin settlement sitting next to that trading. The closing bell still matters for the price the exchange prints, but the tracker does not wait for the bell, and the fund side does not need the exchange to be open in order to keep the security and settle the cash together. The administration book and the May 2026 custody clearance are what let a fund stay on this system overnight.

The stocks and the funds above already trade. A company in this market can still be private.

One comes to WLTH on 1 Oct 2026.

Risk

A Slice is access to a still-private deal. You are not a shareholder in the target company.

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