One of the overarching themes of 2025, outside of its notable levels of uncertainty, is the convergence of traditional finance (TradFi) and crypto markets.
That theme got a shot in the arm this week, with the news Wednesday (July 2) that J.P. Morgan is reportedly developing a new service to tokenize carbon credits, while on Monday (June 30), crypto exchange Kraken unveiled its long-anticipated platform allowing retail investors to buy tokenized versions of major U.S. equities. That same day, Robinhood also announced it was rolling out tokenized stocks to a select cohort of international users.
Crucially, Kraken’s own offerings were similarly available only for eligible non-U.S. clients.
While the initiatives may appear distinct, ranging from environmental credits to fractionalized equity exposure, the connective tissue is the same. Moving traditional financial services onto the blockchain. These moves represent a coordinated push by financial giants to tokenize real-world assets (RWAs), sidestep traditional clearing infrastructure, and begin transitioning toward 24/7, programmable trading markets.
But these rapid developments also raise existential questions for market regulators and central intermediaries. Are tokenized securities complementary to, or competitive with, traditional capital markets? Can existing legal frameworks scale across these hybrid asset classes? And who bears responsibility when decentralized and centralized elements collide?
Read more: The Digital Asset Primer: Why Equity Markets Are Being Tokenized
Reshaping Market Infrastructure Through Tokenization
Tokenization, long the buzzword of blockchain evangelists, has entered its next phase. While initial coin offerings (ICOs) and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) dominated earlier narratives, the current wave of interest centers around tangible, regulated assets — stocks, bonds, commodities and now carbon credits.
Even BlackRock CEO Larry Fink has gone on record alleging that all assets should be tokenized on a blockchain and tradable online, writing in his 2025 annual shareholder letter: “Every stock, every bond, every fund — every asset — can be tokenized.”
Kraken and Robinhood’s own tokenized equities operate through offshore subsidiaries to remain compliant with current U.S. laws. These tokenized shares are backed 1:1 by real stocks custodied by licensed brokerages. The twist? Instead of trading through traditional clearinghouses on a T+2 settlement basis, these assets can now be exchanged 24/7 on blockchain rails, with near-instant settlement and global reach.
For retail investors, especially outside the U.S., this offers fractional ownership of American blue-chip stocks without intermediaries or time zone constraints. For institutions, it hints at a future where securities can be programmed with smart contracts, auto-execute dividends and facilitate compliance in real time.
PYMNTS explored this topic earlier in the month in an interview with Brett McLain, head of payments and blockchain at cryptocurrency exchange Kraken.
“The tokenization of real-world assets [has] long been a holy grail for crypto … making those real-world assets more accessible globally to consumers,” McLain said. “We want to see that grow into other things like real estate and other tangible assets.”
See also: What Treasury Teams Can Learn From Central Banks’ Tokenization Projects
Understanding the Regulatory Frontiers
Still, these launches come amid intensifying efforts by U.S. and European regulators to bring coherence to the digital asset ecosystem. And despite the momentum, the regulatory picture remains murky. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has not offered formal guidance on tokenized versions of registered securities traded offshore.
These assets are typically structured as derivatives or depositary receipts, akin to synthetic products like CFDs and are not true equities in the traditional sense. As with many innovations, there can be a fine line between democratizing access and weakening safeguards.
“These ‘OpenAI tokens’ are not OpenAI equity. We did not partner with Robinhood, were not involved in this, and do not endorse it. Any transfer of OpenAI equity requires our approval—we did not approve any transfer. Please be careful,” tweeted OpenAI’s press account on X (formerly Twitter).
Still, regulatory momentum is gathering in the U.S. and PYMNTS covered how Republican senators at the end of last month (June 24) unveiled a set of principles to serve as a framework for the development of legislation for digital assets and crypto markets.
“Banks are in the state where they are thinking about blockchains as public infrastructure that they need to rely on,” Chainalysis Co-founder and CEO Jonathan Levin said in an interview with PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster published April 7. “Without a federal framework, it is incredibly difficult for financial services firms and international enterprises to really get comfortable.”
