Bitget Lists US Stock Options Amid Tokenization Questions

A tokenized stock is not automatically a share sitting in a brokerage account. Depending on how it is built, the token can stand for a real share a custodian holds on the buyer's behalf, a claim that tracks the stock's price while granting none of the ownership rights, a private deal that only copies the price movement, or an official record of share ownership kept on a blockchain.

SEC staff defined this in a January 28 statement. Tokenized securities are regular securities recorded, in whole or in part, on a blockchain. What a product actually does, not what it is called, decides how it is regulated, the staff wrote. A share stays a share whether it sits in a traditional brokerage system or on a blockchain. A token that only mimics a stock's price can even count as a security-based swap, a category of contract that US markets keep on a short leash.

Tokenized stocks come with open questions the buyer often cannot see. Who actually holds the underlying share. Whether the holder collects dividends or gets to vote. Whether the token can be traded back for the real share. What happens if the issuer or custodian goes under.

Reuters reported June 17 that the SEC is preparing an innovation exemption that would allow crypto companies to offer tokenized stock trading. Citadel Securities and the industry group SIFMA are pushing back on how well investors would be protected and how the market would hold up. That exemption could move regular stocks onto blockchain systems and force exchanges to answer what token holders actually own.

Bitget claims 125 million users. The announcement names no supported stocks, no list of countries where the product is available, no clearing arrangements, and no volume expectations. The real market is the smaller group of users who get approved, understand the risks, and want US stock exposure inside a crypto account.

Even a small slice of that base could produce real activity. How smoothly the options trade will depend more on the firms that provide prices and fill orders than on the raw user count. A standard listed option, settled through the Options Clearing Corporation, comes with known protections and a clearinghouse standing behind the trade. An option-style product built through other arrangements might behave the same on a good day and very differently on a bad one. Bitget's announcement does not say which kind it is selling. The tokenized stocks carry the same ambiguity. Their value to a holder rests on rights the token may or may not actually grant.

Convergence has made these products easy to buy in a single app. It has done nothing to make them easy to tell apart. That job still falls to securities law. For now, the exchanges that put everything on one screen are the ones saying the least about what lies beneath each asset.

For traders looking to access both crypto and traditional markets, the choice of platform matters. Best crypto brokers offer clear disclosure on asset types.