IMF flags real demand for tokenised stocks but warns on liquidity and legal gaps

A new International Monetary Fund study, published as part of its Global Financial Stability Report titled “Scaling Tokenization: New efficiencies and new vulnerabilities”, finds that tokenised equities are already fulfilling two long-promised use cases: continuous trading and fractional ownership. More than half of all trades in the five most actively traded tokenised US equities, including Tesla, Nvidia, and Alphabet as well as Nasdaq 100 Index instruments, occurred outside regular US market hours, and roughly 80% of transactions involved less than one share. The IMF frames both figures as evidence of genuine investor demand rather than purely speculative activity.

The study also identifies a meaningful price-discovery function in these markets. Overnight moves in tokenised shares carried real informational content, with more than 85% of that movement reflected in conventional counterparts within five minutes of US markets opening. That finding suggests the tokenised layer is not simply a passive mirror of traditional equity prices but is actively incorporating information during off-hours.

Despite the demonstrated use cases, the IMF is cautious about the market’s readiness for scale. Tokenised equities totalled roughly $2.3 billion as of 31 July, set against a global equity market capitalisation of just under $160 trillion. The segment is also about 1.5 times as volatile as conventional equivalents and significantly less liquid. Fragmentation across private platforms, public blockchains, custodians, and settlement infrastructure compounds the structural problem: interoperability is absent, and legal frameworks have not kept pace with the technology. The IMF warns that 24-hour trading, automated margin calls, and collateral moving between platforms could amplify the severity of a market shock rather than dampen it.

Operators considering this space should note that the IMF explicitly positions tokenisation’s promise as conditional on resolving settlement, legal clarity, and interoperability at the same time, not sequentially. Participants including Coinbase, Kraken, Binance, Robinhood, and, as noted in the report’s context, OKX in a recently filed joint venture with Intercontinental Exchange, are already active in the segment, which raises the competitive stakes for institutions still in planning mode.