What are the common challenges startups face in equity tokenisation?

The most common challenges include navigating FCA regulatory requirements, selecting the right tokenisation platform, structuring the legal framework for tokenised equity, educating investors unfamiliar with digital securities, and ensuring compliance with the UK Digital Securities Sandbox rules.

What are tokenisation platforms and how do they work?

Tokenisation platforms are regulated technology providers that convert equity or other assets into digital tokens on a blockchain or distributed ledger. In the UK, platforms operating under FCA oversight include those participating in the Digital Securities Sandbox. They handle the technical issuance, custody, and transfer of tokenised securities.

What financial insights should founders know before tokenising equity?

Founders should understand the cost structure of tokenisation (legal, platform, and compliance fees), the valuation implications of fractional ownership, how tokenised equity differs from traditional equity crowdfunding, and the tax treatment of digital securities under UK law.

What investor strategies apply to tokenised equity?

Investors in tokenised equity can benefit from fractional ownership of high-value assets, improved liquidity through secondary market trading on regulated platforms, portfolio diversification across early-stage UK startups, and participation in deals previously accessible only to institutional investors.

What is the UK regulatory landscape for equity tokenisation?

The UK regulatory landscape is governed primarily by the FCA (Financial Conduct Authority) and HM Treasury. Key frameworks include the Financial Services and Markets Act 2023, the Digital Securities Sandbox (DSS), and ongoing FCA consultations on the treatment of tokenised securities. The UK is positioning itself as a global leader in regulated digital securities.

What is equity tokenisation?

Equity tokenisation is the process of converting ownership rights in a company into digital tokens recorded on a blockchain or distributed ledger. These tokens represent shares or equity stakes and can be transferred, traded, or held digitally, subject to regulatory compliance. In the UK, tokenised equity is treated as a regulated financial instrument under FCA oversight.

Tokenised Stocks Have Hit $1.5 Billion in Total Value Locked. The Fastest-Scaling RWA Category Yet Is Rewriting the Adoption Timeline.

Shawn Jhanji
Jun 1
3 min read

The tokenised equity sector has reached a milestone that illustrates just how quickly institutional appetite for on-chain financial instruments has matured. Ondo Global Markets, the tokenised stock and ETF platform operated by Ondo Finance, has surpassed $1.5 billion in total value locked, less than nine months after launch.

Up almost half a billion dollars in three weeks! The tokenised equity sector has reached a milestone that illustrates just how quickly institutional appetite for on-chain financial instruments has matured. Ondo Global Markets, the tokenised stock and ETF platform operated by Ondo Finance, has surpassed $1.5 billion in total value locked, less than nine months after launch.

The growth trajectory tells a story the rest of the RWA market is watching closely. Stablecoins took roughly three years to reach $1 billion in total value. Tokenised US Treasuries took approximately two years. Tokenised stocks reached the same milestone in eight months and have since continued climbing.

What Ondo Has Built

Ondo Global Markets launched in late 2025 and has grown to offer more than 260 tokenised US stocks and ETFs across three blockchains: Solana, Ethereum and BNB Chain. The platform holds more than 70 per cent of the market share among tokenised equity issuers. Cumulative trading volume has exceeded $18 billion.

The $1 billion milestone was only reached on 11 May 2026, within eight months of launch. Total value locked has since grown to $1.5 billion as institutional capital has continued to flow in.

In March 2026, Ondo announced a partnership with Broadridge to bring on-chain proxy voting to tokenised stock holders, allowing institutional investors to participate in shareholder governance without converting tokenised positions back to conventional custody. That functionality addresses one of the structural objections to holding equities in tokenised form.

What Is Driving Demand

The demand for tokenised equities sits at the intersection of several trends that have converged in 2026. Institutions seeking yield-bearing, dollar-denominated assets in tokenised form have already adopted tokenised Treasury products at scale. The transition to tokenised equities follows a similar logic: familiar asset classes with well-understood risk profiles, now accessible via on-chain infrastructure with lower settlement friction.

The multi-chain architecture matters. By deploying across Solana, Ethereum and BNB Chain, Ondo has made its products accessible to the different institutional and semi-institutional communities that have built native infrastructure on each of those networks.

That breadth of distribution is a competitive advantage that single-chain platforms cannot easily replicate.

Ondo's management has projected that the tokenised stock market could reach $2.5 to $3 billion by the end of 2026, supported by expanding regulatory clarity in the United States and the growing integration of tokenised equities into DeFi yield strategies.

The Wider Infrastructure Forming Around It

Ondo is not operating alone. The DTCC, the settlement infrastructure provider for US securities markets, is planning its first production trades in tokenised securities in July 2026, initially covering Russell 1000 constituents, major index ETFs and US Treasury instruments. That institutional settlement layer, when operational, will bring tokenised equities within reach of a significantly larger portion of the institutional capital base.

The pace of development in tokenised public equities has direct implications for the private equity tokenisation market, which remains earlier-stage but is watching closely. If public securities can attract this level of institutional participation in eight months, the argument for tokenised private company equity as an efficient capital formation mechanism becomes more compelling by comparison.

Key Takeaways

Ondo Global Markets has surpassed $1.5 billion in total value locked in tokenised stocks and ETFs, reaching $1 billion in just eight months from launch.
The platform holds more than 70 per cent of tokenised equity market share and operates across Solana, Ethereum and BNB Chain, offering more than 260 tokenised US stocks and ETFs.
Tokenised stocks have scaled faster than stablecoins or tokenised Treasuries at equivalent stages, representing the fastest-growing RWA subcategory to date.
Management projects $2.5 to $3 billion in TVL by year end, supported by regulatory clarity in the US and DeFi integration.
DTCC's July 2026 pilot will bring institutional settlement infrastructure to tokenised securities, expanding the accessible market further and potentially accelerating adoption of private equity tokenisation.

Sources:

CryptoTimes: https://www.cryptotimes.io/2026/05/12/ondo-finance-surpasses-1b-tvl-in-tokenized-stocks-and-etfs/

TheStreet Crypto: https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/markets/ondo-finance-exec-sees-tokenized-stocks-hitting-3b-by-year-end

AInvest: https://www.ainvest.com/news/ondo-finance-tvl-surpasses-1-5-billion-tokenized-stocks-sec-closure-2605/