Crypto’s killer app may be selling stocks after its own tokens failed retail
Delphi’s analysis of 652 CEX listings since Jan. 2025 found severe retail losses: a 12% win rate, 52% of tokens down more than 80%, and a median return of -82%. That weakness helps explain why exchanges are shifting toward tokenized stocks and ETFs as a new growth product. Kraken, Robinhood EU, and Coinbase now offer fractional, near-24/5 access to tokenized or brokered equity exposure, often with stablecoin funding and self-custody or in-app trading. These products already hold about $1.48 billion in distributed value and generate billions in monthly transfer volume. Binance Research argues crypto rails could bring trillions in equity capital and hundreds of millions of users into markets by 2031, especially where equity ownership is low and fractional access matters. The key tradeoff: tokenized stocks can expand access and drive stablecoin, custody, and infrastructure revenue, but they often remain synthetic products without shareholder rights, and they may increase value capture for exchanges and base-layer networks without boosting demand for new altcoins.
