The listing of U.S. stocks on the blockchain has become a hot topic in the recently quiet market.

On March 8, Swiss tokenization issuer Backed launched Coinbase stock token wbCOIN on the Base chain.

The listing of U.S. stocks on the blockchain has become a hot topic in the recently quiet market.

On March 8, Swiss tokenization issuer Backed launched Coinbase stock token wbCOIN on the Base chain, which can be traded with USDC through CoWSwap and claims to be 1:1 anchored to the value of $COIN stock and has legal claims. Although Backed emphasized that it has no official connection with Coinbase, this move has sparked heated discussions in the community: Will the tokenization of US stocks usher in a new growth cycle? In the context of the continued sluggish market, can the "old wine in a new bottle" of stock tokenization become a new narrative to build a bottom?

Narratives come first, value comes later: the hot and cold contrast of US stock tokenization

With the pro-crypto Trump administration taking office, the litigation relationship between the US SEC and Coinbase also ended. In early 2025, Jesse Pollak, head of the Base protocol, said at X that Coinbase was considering introducing tokenized $COIN stocks to the Base network for US users. But it will take some time for Coinbase to launch this business in compliance.

Backed's quick action has taken it a step ahead. According to official data, Backed was founded in 2021 and initially received investment support from institutions such as Gnosis and Semantic. Backed's headquarters and operations are mainly aimed at the global market. Its products are issued under the EU regulatory framework, comply with MiFID II compliance requirements, and have passed the EU prospectus.

However, wbCOIN is not Backed's first stock tokenization product. As early as July 2024, Backed launched NVIDIA's tokenized stock trading in cooperation with INX. In addition, Backed has also launched tokenized products for a variety of stock assets such as S&P 500 and Tesla. However, when these products were launched, the market's focus was not on the topic of securities tokenization, and today's market urgently needs some reasonable narratives to rebuild confidence.

But it is not just because Backed's products are not available in the US market or because of the market downturn. After wbCOIN went online, the trading popularity was obviously not as high as the topic popularity. As of March 11, wbCOIN's TVL was about 4.42 million US dollars.

Aerodrome data shows that its trading volume is only $3,352, which is not even as popular as the newly issued MEME coin.

This sluggish performance is not only due to the short time wbCOIN has been online - another product that was launched earlier, BNVDA, has a trading volume of only US$113 and is also not popular.

Despite the hot concept, the current US stock tokenization market is still in its early stages, with limited scale and activity. Perhaps, tokenization products from Coinbase may trigger greater trading enthusiasm.

Tokenized US stocks: old wine in new bottles, compliance is the first hurdle

In fact, putting U.S. stocks on the blockchain is not a new idea. Before the recent wave of attempts, the crypto industry and traditional financial institutions had already explored it, but most of them ended in failure.

The once-popular FTX exchange also provided tokenized trading services for US stocks including Tesla and GameStop between 2020 and 2022. However, the collapse of FTX in 2022 brought this business to an abrupt end. Afterwards, rumors questioned whether FTX's stock tokens held the corresponding stocks in full, further undermining the market's trust in the exchange's issuance of tokenized stocks.

In 2021, Binance also tried to launch tokenized stock products corresponding to US stocks such as Tesla, Coinbase, and Apple, where users can purchase fragmented shares of these stock tokens. However, with the tightening of supervision in various countries, within a few weeks of Binance launching stock tokens, financial regulators in the UK and Germany warned that these products may violate securities regulations. In less than three months, Binance announced the removal of all stock tokens.

In addition, Bittrex Global, an exchange that once featured tokenized stock trading, also chose to close its trading platform and go through bankruptcy liquidation after experiencing regulatory pressure and SEC litigation.

It can be seen that in the last round of attempts, compliance barriers were the main reason for the failure of exchanges to issue U.S. stock tokens. Now the market is again returning to the issue of U.S. stock tokens, and there are several factors:

1. With the Trump administration's emphasis on and support for encryption, the tension between cryptocurrency and regulation has also eased.

2. The market has entered a period of weakness and needs the return of some narratives that are supported by real value.

3. Technology and compliance