The International Monetary Fund’s October 2026 Global Financial Stability Report estimates the tokenized equity market at about $2.3 billion and finds realized volatility roughly 1.5 times higher than in traditional markets. CryptoWatchDesk last covered the sector on 4 Oct, when it reported that Solana trading in tokenized stocks was concentrated on one venue and one product family.
The size is the point. Our 4 Oct figure was trading volume; the IMF’s $2.3 billion is the value of tokens outstanding, so the two are not comparable. Issuance is concentrated: Ondo Finance and Backed Finance together account for more than 70% of tokenized equity value, with products aimed at investors outside the United States, the IMF says. The wider public market for tokenized real-world assets, excluding repurchase agreements, is about $65 billion as of July.
| Segment (IMF, as of July 2026) | Size |
|---|---|
| Public tokenized real-world assets, excluding repos | about $65 billion |
| Tokenized fixed income, outside repos | about $48 billion |
| of which tokenized money market funds | about $17.5 billion |
| Tokenized equities | about $2.3 billion |
Source: IMF Global Financial Stability Report, October 2026, chapter 3, using RWA.xyz data.
Tokenized shares do trade differently. More than half of activity happens outside regular US market hours, and about 80% of trades are below one share, which the IMF reads as demand for fractional ownership. Decentralized exchanges are the least liquid venues by a wide margin.
Prices still follow the underlying stocks. For five liquid tokenized US equities, traditional markets absorbed 87% to 99% of the overnight on-chain move within five minutes of the US open, the IMF found, so the two markets respond to similar information.
The fund says systemic risks “remain limited” for now. It asks policymakers to apply “same activity, same risk, same regulatory outcome”, to settle tokenized securities in safe forms of money, and to design circuit breakers and liquidity safeguards for tokenized trading before the market grows. It adds that its findings should be read with caution, given how early the market is.
Related: What tokenized stocks are and what you own
This article is for information only and is not investment advice.