Tokenization firm Securitize has launched tokenized shares of Apple, Nvidia and Tesla on Solana, adding three of the most heavily traded US stocks to a blockchain that already carries much of the market’s on-chain volume. Eligible investors in the US, Europe and other permitted jurisdictions can trade the tokens during extended market hours at launch, with wider round-the-clock sessions planned in a later phase.
The move puts Securitize in the same market OKX and ICE are circling with regulatory paperwork. Last week the joint venture, called OKXICE, notified the SEC of a tokenized stock venue that would carry dividend and voting rights for each underlying share. Securitize is taking the faster route: launch the product on public rails first, expand trading hours as infrastructure allows, and add legal plumbing later.
Why Solana
Solana has been building a routine for tokenized finance faster than most chains. The network launched Solana DvP settlement, which requires full upfront cash for every trade rather than allowing credit. In early October it processed more than $3 billion in daily spot DEX volume in a single day, ahead of Ethereum. Tokenized treasuries, stablecoin transfers and now equities together give the chain a stack that starts to resemble a brokerage back office, at least on paper.
Securitize already runs tokenized funds on other chains, including BlackRock’s BUIDL fund and a range of institutional products. Bringing single-name equities to Solana extends a pattern: the same assets institutions buy through brokers, mirrored on-chain with stricter eligibility rules around who can hold them and how custody works.
The choice of infrastructure also matters operationally. Tokenized shares sit in the same market as stablecoin payments and prediction market collateral, where wrapped dollar assets already handle value moving across platforms. Equities introduce price volatility those products do not carry, and settlement logic that cannot assume the token always tracks its reference price exactly.
How the tokens differ from real stocks
Tokenized shares are not the exact shares. They are on-chain wrappers tracking the price of the underlying equity, issued and managed by a registered transfer agent. That distinction matters for anyone assuming buying the token is identical to buying at a bank: settlement, custody, corporate actions and dividend handling all depend on the issuer’s terms. Voting rights, for example, live with the legally registered holder under the current Securitize structure, not with the Token holder.
Ripple’s Prime unit this week began financing leveraged ETF bets on some of the same stocks Securitize is tokenizing, Nvidia included. The two products serve different appetites but sit in the same gap investors keep reaching for: exposure to big tech without a traditional brokerage account, financed or not.
The timing also reflects a regulatory picture that shifted through the year. US market structure is moving although the CLARITY Act stalled in the Senate. The CFTC opened rulemaking for leveraged crypto, the SEC proposed custody rules for advisers, and the SEC also introduced a five-year Innovation Exemption for venues trading tokenized stocks. Assets that were legally awkward a year ago now have concrete filing paths, however partial.
Coinbase recently launched 15-minute and hourly crypto prediction markets through Kalshi, showing how quickly new market shapes land once infrastructure is in place. Equities on-chain are a bigger step, but the pattern is the same: products arrive faster than the rules settle.
What extended hours look like
Regular US equity trading runs roughly nine part-time hours a day. Extended sessions add early-morning and late-evening windows where liquidity thins out and spreads widen. Securitize is offering extended hours at launch and plans eventually to keep markets open around the clock.
Continuous 24-hour trading requires clearing houses, market makers and risk desks to operate through every session, which is a bigger lift than a smart contract. Market makers on Solana can run continuously, but they set prices off the underlying stock, which itself trades a fraction of the day. Overnight price discovery therefore comes mostly from futures and related instruments rather than the cash market.
That gap produces a familiar trade-off: wider spreads outside the underlying’s regular session, or tighter spreads keyed to whoever is quoting them wanting more compensation. Early price action on the Apple, Nvidia and Tesla tokens will show which way it falls in practice.
What comes next
More stocks arrive before full 24/7 sessions do. Expect a phased expansion: additional names, longer windows, deeper liquidity pools. Solana’s bet is that settlement cost and speed let it undercut traditional brokerages on trading fees without losing custody safety, and the launch is the first test of that claim in single-name equities.
The structural risk is decoupling. If trading gets hard during off-hours, the token can drift from the underlying stock price until the next session opens, and a holder who bought at what looked like a clean price may find the bid pulled away when it is time to sell. Tokenized markets only work as well as the arbitrage connecting them to the assets they track, and that arbitrage does not yet exist on a single continuous basis for US stocks.