Talking with Blockstreet Hedy about US stocks: RWA tokenization is not the end point

By 2025, people will have fully recognized the transformative potential of blockchain and stablecoins, as well as their underlying power in the monetary domain. It can be said that we already have a tokenization blueprint that enables assets to be accessible globally without permission and supports peer-to-peer transfers.

Since stablecoins—the tokenized form of fiat currency—can operate efficiently in the real world, what about the tokenization of stocks?

In the stock market, the pain points that remain to be solved are particularly prominent: the existing securities market is fragmented by region, cumbersome, and slow. Nearly every region has its own Central Securities Depository (CSD)—for example, DTCC in the US, Euroclear, Clearstream in Europe, and numerous others in Asia. Transferring stocks via brokers from one CSD to another can take days or even weeks. Similarly, securities settlement faces many frictions in the corresponding fund settlement process.

How can we replicate the success of stablecoins in the monetary sector to a broader securities market? How can blockchain be used to break down liquidity islands across different trading venues?

To answer these questions, I am honored to discuss with Hedy Wang, founder of Blockstreet, to explore market observations, attempt to address unresolved issues, and delve into the innovative solutions Blockstreet brings to this old and vast stock securities market.

Hedy Wang is the founder & CEO of Blockstreet. After graduating from Harvard with a degree in Computer Science, she built risk management systems for Capital One serving 40 million users, and managed quantitative portfolios at hedge funds like Point72 and Cubist, deeply involved in trading, clearing, and market structure modeling. Blockstreet is building the most critical foundational infrastructure in the on-chain world: a unified liquidity layer across issuers and chains, aiming to become the “next-generation DTCC” in the era of global asset on-chain.

(blockstreet.money)

1. What is Tokenization & Tokenized Stocks?

Here is a statement from the CTO of the US Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC):

Tokenization is the representation of asset value on the blockchain; a token (Token) is a smart contract data reflecting ownership rights to the underlying asset; a wallet is an account that stores tokens, allowing users to hold, trade, and transfer related assets/tokens.

This is similar to brokerage accounts in the stock market, but the revolutionary difference lies in the efficiency of these tokenized assets and values circulating on the blockchain—T+0 settlement worldwide. In financial markets, time is money! Meanwhile, traditional financial infrastructure also faces many friction points and reconciliation costs regarding ownership rights, which blockchain can solve. Additionally, financial innovation in traditional finance will further develop.

(https://www.dtcc.com/digital-assets/tokenization)

Tokenized stocks (initially limited to “on-chain US stocks”) are digital tokens mapped 1:1 to traditional stocks (such as one share of Apple, Tesla, or S&P 500 ETF). They are held off-chain by licensed custodians who custody the real stocks, while the corresponding number of tokens are issued on-chain. Holders can receive dividends, capital gains, and other economic rights, but usually do not have shareholder rights.

They can be freely transferred, staked, or borrowed/lent 24/7 within on-chain wallets, DEXs, or any DeFi protocols supporting the token standard, breaking regional and trading hour restrictions without needing to open traditional US stock accounts.

Currently, on-chain US stocks are divided into two main camps: “Physical-backed” and “Synthetic assets.”

• The physical-backed camp prioritizes compliance: Swiss-backed Finance has issued over 60 tokens like bTSLA, bNVDA, which can be directly exchanged on 1inch; Kraken collaborates with Fidelity for custody, opening trading of popular stocks like Apple and Tesla to non-US users; Ondo Finance has launched the Global Market series on its own Ondo Chain, planning to cover US stocks, ETFs, and bonds. EU users can also hold over 200 on-chain US stock tokens and receive dividends in real-time via Robinhood EU on Arbitrum L2.
• On the other side, the synthetic asset camp emphasizes flexible leverage: Bybit offers 78 US stocks via USDT margin CFDs, supporting long/short 20x without physical stocks; Coinbase is also in talks with the SEC to list spot and futures on Ethereum or Base chain, though not yet launched, but highly anticipated.

A notable trend is that the US SEC has already permitted DTCC to experiment with stock tokenization. As regulatory frameworks become clearer, tokenized securities are moving from “trial” to “mainstream,” providing a lower-threshold, higher-liquidity next-generation capital market channel for global investors.

According to Tiger Research, the current market size of tokenized stocks is about $500 million. If only 1% of global stocks are tokenized by 2030, the market could reach $1.34 trillion, representing a potential growth of 2,680 times, driven by dual improvements in regulatory clarity and infrastructure maturity by 2025.

2. Blockstreet’s Ecosystem Positioning—Unified On-Chain Liquidity

(Tokenized Stock Market Map: How Tokenized Stock is Reshaping Global Finance)

Web3 Legal Will:

From the perspective of the on-chain US stock ecosystem, the entire stack can be roughly divided into: 1) the underlying traditional financial settlement layer & blockchain settlement layer (L1/L2); 2) on-chain stock issuers; 3) middleware (oracles, liquidity, compliance, etc.); 4) core trading scenarios; 5) and the DeFi layer built on top of trading.

While these layers appear interoperable, in reality, interoperability is very limited. Although it seems everyone is trading Coinbase stocks on-chain, the token standards for Coinbase stocks on different trading venues are likely different. Users may only hold IOU certificates, leading to isolated islands of liquidity across venues, making liquidity cross-communication difficult. This results in users’ direct experience: single venues lack liquidity, trading volume, high slippage, and high fees. This is the current state of the on-chain US stock market.

So, how does Blockstreet view the current market situation, and how do you plan to address these issues?

Hedy Wang (Blockstreet):

Blockstreet’s positioning is as the infrastructure for RWA (Real-World Assets)—a unified liquidity layer. We believe that in the asset tokenization space, what is truly scarce is not the assets themselves, but the infrastructure that connects all assets and all upstream/downstream participants. Its core function is to unify market liquidity.

As we mentioned earlier, issuers are still fragmented (different token standards, ecosystems, etc.), and this fragmentation has persisted. One core reason is the lack of a clear global regulatory framework for issuing assets. Regulations in different regions mostly provide possibilities rather than mandates. As a result, projects rush to pilot and quickly launch assets.

Therefore, we believe the fundamental reason for the current low trading volume is that liquidity is physically fragmented—fragmented across different issuers and trading scenarios. It’s akin to the disconnected traditional stock markets worldwide.

The absence of a unified on-chain liquidity infrastructure leads to poor market experience, scarce real-use cases, and a lack of institutional participation.

(blockstreet.money)

Blockstreet’s vision today is to solve the problem of unified on-chain liquidity, even bridging it off-chain to connect with traditional broker systems, thereby optimizing the entire trading layer. Breaking down this logic:

• Step 1: Direct connection to supply. Engage with issuers directly, rather than collecting liquidity permissionlessly on-chain. Only by integrating the issuer’s “inventory” intact into a unified liquidity pool can the source chips be locked.
• Step 2: Direct connection to demand. Connect with global market makers and institutional order books with one click. These market makers are like “carriers”—they need a unified liquidity pool to trade efficiently. Making this pool the “transshipment hub” for all market makers, with deep liquidity and drastically reduced slippage.
• Step 3: Direct connection to traditional finance. Integrate with brokerages and OTC desks to create a time-closed (24/7) and scene-closed (on-chain/off-chain, all participants involved) environment, ultimately forming a healthy, complete tokenized stock market.

In the end, the RWA market will no longer be a collection of “lame ducks” each going their own way, but a connected liquidity network: issuers focus on assets, market makers focus on depth, users see a single quote, and on-chain/off-chain switching is seamless.

3. Reaching the Market with RWA DEX

Web3 Legal Will:

From my understanding, Blockstreet has built a Liquidity Engine that connects the issuer’s on-chain assets and traditional off-chain assets on the left, and on the right, connects market-making funds and various trading venues to unify on-chain liquidity.

Currently, we see some CEXs listing on-chain US stocks, continuing the CEX trading logic and respecting the product form of the crypto space. Meanwhile, some fintech consumer apps—many of which are already platforms for US stock trading—are also opening up crypto asset trading. Given Blockstreet’s positioning, where do you see your future product direction? Will you embed into these platforms?

Hedy Wang (Blockstreet):

We believe the future market trend, whether in the entire crypto product landscape or in development directions, is that a tacit consensus has formed: CEXs have reached their limit. Although trading volume is still concentrated on top platforms, user growth has slowed. Therefore, CEXs are starting to develop DEX-like products, allowing users to trade in a permissionless manner or offering more flexible, non-custodial trading modes that better meet core crypto user needs.

On the other hand, CEXs face an awkward situation: as markets like the US push for compliance, many fintechs are also eyeing listing and trading of mainstream tokens. For example, Robinhood in the US allows retail investors to trade crypto assets directly. We won’t delve into whether they truly hold assets or have custody mechanisms, but from the user’s perspective, retail investors only care about “where it’s convenient to buy.” Plus, the launch of ETFs and other financial products further dilutes the flow of crypto exchanges.

Thus, returning to our core discussion: we believe DEX remains an important future direction for crypto products. The “CEX” track is becoming increasingly difficult to innovate and create new top-tier platforms.

(blockstreet.money)

The biggest pain point in the current tokenized stock market is the lack of liquidity. On the surface, it appears to be “insufficient depth on exchanges,” but the root cause lies in the supply side: issuers operate independently with inconsistent standards, lacking a native mechanism to aggregate fragmented order pools into continuous depth. Our DEX aims to act as a “water pipe” to facilitate cross-issuer and cross-chain liquidity matching.

If DEXs are more user-friendly for native crypto users, then we are undoubtedly their ideal platform. These native crypto users remain highly loyal, accustomed to self-custody, jumping between ecosystems, and exploring early incentives—familiar gameplay for crypto OGs. Many market makers and issuers can also reach more traditional scenarios through us.

However, we believe that for crypto to truly grow, it must rely on further openness from fintech. They need to provide more listing and distribution opportunities for tokenized assets.

From Blockstreet’s product positioning, we see ourselves as “infrastructure” because we want more fintech companies to open APIs, allowing us to provide behind-the-scenes on-chain/off-chain services. They focus on front-end user experience, enabling users to trade on-chain US stocks and, in the future, more RWA tokenized assets—these assets are not necessarily “on-chain US stocks,” as traditional fintech has already done much in stocks.

Whether the final trading interface is operated directly by Blockstreet is non-exclusive. As long as liquidity is sufficient, we are willing to provide our infrastructure: whether co-developing RWA DEX with large CEXs or collaborating with DeFi and wallet middleware, these are options. But given that current trading volumes are still nascent, RWA DEXs do not need to be built overnight; the focus remains on deepening the underlying liquidity, issuer connections, and institutional participation.

The overall approach is: first, establish a closed-loop for “on-chain US stocks,” creating depth, users, and stories in on-chain secondary US trading; then, expand vertically into assets like Pre-IPO, private debt, real estate, and horizontally into DeFi applications, following a “from easy to difficult” pace.

4. Genuine Needs for Investing in On-Chain US Stocks

Web3 Legal Will:

Based on our observations, there are mainly two types of people with genuine needs to buy on-chain US stocks:

• Those unable to open US stock accounts, such as people in regions with underdeveloped financial infrastructure.
• Those seeking to avoid taxes by purchasing on-chain US stocks.

From my previous experience with CEXs trading CRCL, liquidity during US stock market hours is decent, but once the weekend hits, the so-called 24/7 trading fails, and liquidity nearly dries up. Therefore, we genuinely need an infrastructure like Blockstreet to unify issuers, trading venues, and market makers, forming an ideal 24/7, around-the-clock, high-liquidity on-chain US stock trading market. Very much looking forward to this.

Hedy Wang (Blockstreet):

Indeed, for most ordinary investors, buying a share of Apple token and buying Apple stock through a broker are almost indistinguishable in experience, yield, and risk, but the latter involves additional costs like on-chain slippage, wallet interactions, and regulatory uncertainties, with no extra benefits—this is a critical shortcoming. The lack of wealth effect combined with recent flat stock performance has shifted attention back to high-beta crypto assets; even staying on-chain, retail investors tend to pick only a few globally recognized star stocks, as other “random” US stocks lack brand halo, and retail investors won’t buy blindly.

Meanwhile, investors in developed economies can easily allocate US stocks or funds via local brokers, Alipay, Futu, etc., without going on-chain; smaller countries have demand but limited payment capacity, financial literacy, and knowledge of US stocks, contributing only sporadic trading volume. The combined costs of education and alternative channels mean that the “user pain points” of tokenized securities are mostly at the level of crypto enthusiasts’ curiosity, not the rigid needs of the broader investor base.

Only when the US stock market itself re-enters a strong upward trajectory, bringing significant profit effects, can it transform the “can buy, can’t buy” wait-and-see demand into new account openings and trading volume on-chain—until then, the market still needs to address standardization and deep aggregation of supply, patiently waiting for the next wave of wealth-driven demand explosion.

This is the direction Blockstreet is working towards before market explosion. Here is a future ideal on-chain US stock market summarized in three points:

• First, liquidity should rival TradFi, with depth, spreads, and settlement speeds comparable to NASDAQ, and asset classes rich enough to make inclusive finance a reality.
• Second, the elements of value, risk, and return should be clearly priced, rather than just price movements. This will push the entire crypto space to focus more on fundamentals and sustainability, encouraging long-term capital to enter and settle.
• Third, with continuous injection of innovation through AI, IoT, and other variables, “everything can be on-chain,” moving some parts of the capital market onto the chain, forming assets and projects with a 5–10 year or longer lifecycle, rather than just a “launch & leave” wave typical of the crypto bubble.

5. Besides Trading, What Else Can On-Chain US Stocks Do?

Web3 Legal Will:

Despite current shortcomings, we see teams like Blockstreet actively addressing pain points—such as building infrastructure like Aqua to connect liquidity, and later reaching end-users via CEXs and DEXs. How can this further evolve?

We already see tokenized money market funds, bond funds on-chain, usable for collateralized loans, margin trading, OTC settlements, on-chain savings, leverage strategies, etc. Beyond trading, what innovative scenarios can on-chain US stock assets create within DeFi?

In fact, Blockstreet is about to launch Everest’s stock lending product.

(blockstreet.money)

Hedy Wang (Blockstreet):

A. Lending Scenarios

The core pain point of lending remains “liquidity fragmentation.” Once tokens are locked, users wanting to lend stablecoins face large spreads and slippage; additionally, the crypto market has not achieved true 24/7 trading, only about 24×5 effective trading hours. After US markets close, prices and experience drop sharply. In black swan events, sudden 5–10% swings are common; triggering liquidations could cause platform inventories to suffer losses, making risks uncontrollable.

Market maturity and liquidation infrastructure are insufficient to support large-scale on-chain stock token lending. Aave remains passive, waiting for the sector to truly explode; early small projects attempting P2P stock lending have TVL only in the hundreds of millions, with low ROI, difficult to form leading effects.

Therefore, we focus first on “unified on-chain US stock/RWA liquidity,” with lending as a subsequent scenario. The ultimate goal is to solve liquidity fragmentation first, then build a more robust trading and lending market on that foundation. Partners or Blockstreet itself can extend lending functions on this liquidity layer, but the timing depends on market conditions.

Returning to the core pain points of RWA, we find that “enabling users to buy” is only the first step; more crucial is “what users can do after buying.” If it’s just an additional on-chain channel that only allows holding or selling, it doesn’t break out of the traditional fintech framework or stimulate the native vitality of crypto.

B. Staking Incentives

Recently, we discussed new ideas with some listed companies: tokens should not just be stock mappings but keys to unlock shareholder rights, business scenarios, and subsequent product issuance. For example, holding a stock token of an energy company could also grant airdrops of future on-chain renewable energy projects or discounts on computing power; holding an AI stock token could offer VIP rates for renting GPUs. These additional utilities are not necessarily provided directly by the companies but can be designed within the crypto ecosystem around the token. As long as on-chain data is verifiable and permissions are programmable, “special channels” inaccessible to traditional shareholders can be bundled into the token, creating extra benefits exclusive to RWA buyers.

Going further, native crypto staking and governance rights come into play. In traditional finance, lending out Nvidia shares for interest involves layers of intermediaries, slow settlement, and high thresholds; on-chain, instant staking and earning, plus participation in DAO voting, can influence company or asset pool operations. This “composability” continues the narrative of “shareholders as contributors” from the ICO era. Blockstreet’s liquidity layer aims to enable these utilities to be liquidated or transferred at any time, without being locked in a single platform or chain.

6. Liquidity as the Core of Tokenized Products

Web3 Legal Will:

Let’s revisit the core of tokenized products—liquidity. Currently, the market has various liquidity needs.

First, the distribution liquidity of tokenized financial products like money market funds and bond funds. After initial issuance, secondary distribution requires enough buyers (liquidity) to support asset preservation and appreciation. Blockchain naturally opens up global distribution channels for these tokens. To achieve T+0 real-time settlement for some tokenized products, market makers may need to provide liquidity to bridge the traditional T+3 redemption period.

Second, the trading liquidity of on-chain US stocks. As Hedy explained earlier, the logic of on-chain US stock liquidity is clear.

Third, the private market between on-chain US stocks and tokenized money/bond funds, such as pre-IPO private equity, which needs both distribution and trading liquidity.

Fourth, after assets are on-chain, combined with on-chain DeFi, there is a demand for DeFi liquidity—for example, Everest’s product launched by Blockstreet to meet stock pledge lending needs.

Hedy Wang (Blockstreet):

Agreed. For money market and bond fund-like products, some projects cleverly package them as “stablecoin-like / interest-bearing stablecoins,” rather than just “tokenized funds.” Because stablecoins in crypto have the advantage of fast capital flow, users are willing to hold, use, and circulate them—this is a clever packaging for distribution, underlying which is a higher-yield, slower-redemption traditional financial asset.

DTCC provides a top-down tokenization standard from the top layer. Whether off-chain or on-chain, this will be a more bottom-layer, chain-agnostic or customized institutional service, indicating that more assets will be compliant and on-chain, especially highly liquid assets in the US. Undoubtedly, Wall Street institutions and listed companies will trust Nasdaq and DTCC’s system more.

However, in the future, the composability of on-chain assets and liquidity still needs to be built. If large capital flows into the market, more infrastructure like this on-chain liquidity layer, Transfer Agents, and ATS are needed to complete the downstream distribution step. Blockstreet is working on this crucial part.

(https://www.dtcc.com/digital-assets/tokenization)

Blockstreet’s initial focus is on the most liquid and highest consensus US stock secondary market—namely, the familiar NASDAQ stocks—first establishing on-chain depth and cross-ecosystem exchange. From there, the asset spectrum will naturally extend: one end is fixed assets like real estate; the other end is private assets, including PE equity, private debt, and today’s much-discussed Pre-IPO shares.

Pre-IPO sits in the “liquidity spectrum” middle ground: more flexible than real estate but far from the instant quotes and market makers of secondary US stocks. We believe it will be the next major category to be tackled after “secondary market tokenization,” and we have already engaged with several US domestic issuers preparing to package original VC equity into SPVs, then on-chain issuance, and building a matching trading platform.

In the Pre-IPO sector, liquidity remains the top challenge. Secondary US stocks have existing market makers and arbitrageurs; if we optimize on-chain routing, slippage can be reduced. Pre-IPO has long lock-up periods and lacks continuous quotes; traditional markets also lack deep order books to “carry.” Valuation is even more complex—each VC round has different prices, terms, and some info is non-public. Which round or price point should anchor the on-chain token’s value? This is a key question for issuers during subscription and trading. Some try to use prediction markets to “discover” the valuation, e.g., market forecasts for OpenAI’s valuation, but this remains somewhat speculative. Generally, top unicorns with high media coverage and large potential buyers are easier to price fairly; mid-tier or tail-end private companies often have fuzzy valuations, and tokenization can lead to “priced but illiquid” issues.

Once giants like ByteDance or OpenAI start, strong buyer demand will naturally “bid” a market price, solving the pricing problem. For lesser-known or wide-valuation-range Pre-IPO targets, the challenge remains in reconciling different VC share prices and rounds into an acceptable fair value on-chain.

7. Final Words

Hedy Wang (Blockstreet):

The true significance of asset on-chain is not just the act of “putting on-chain,” but how to build underlying liquidity and subsequent underwriting systems—this is the core logic for attracting high-quality assets. Just as Nasdaq and NYSE attract global issuers and investors with deep liquidity and mature underwriting, the potential of the on-chain world depends on whether it can provide a more convenient, infrastructure surpassing traditional systems, rather than mere digitalization of assets.

Although many issuers exist today, Wall Street generally considers the industry still in its early stages. Next year’s focus will shift to building underwriting and trading systems. Listed companies are more concerned with optimizing trading processes and truly unleashing blockchain’s potential as the next-generation financial super-portal.

This process essentially involves building on top of the existing financial hegemony, not reinventing from scratch. The dollar’s dominance has enabled traditional finance; now stablecoins have established a global on-chain payment network surpassing SWIFT. Payment is settled, and the next step is to introduce real-world assets, providing underlying yields and trading attributes, deeply integrating on-chain finance with traditional finance.

Native cryptocurrencies beyond BTC and ETH have largely failed to establish substantial links with the real world. To create a new financial order, incremental improvements at the top of the existing pyramid are necessary, not fanciful overhauls. Wall Street’s core advantage is siphoning global capital; future challenge: as on-chain funds become key players, how to maintain their attractiveness? This year, BTC’s yields have stabilized, indicating that relying solely on crypto asset returns is insufficient for long-term capital retention; traditional financial logic of steady yields must be introduced.

Ultimately, we must return to the original intention of blockchain—financial inclusion and global connectivity. The virtual on-chain world needs real-world scenarios off-chain to empower it; payments and finance are the two pillars. The essence of finance is efficient value transfer, and the introduction of RWA is crucial to root this transfer system in reality, truly enabling the global on-chain financial market.