The wallet-first rollout lets U.S. users hold dShares backed one-to-one by stocks, with tokenized equities passing $1.7 billion and competition building.
Dinari opened tokenized access to the entire S&P 500 for U.S. investors, letting eligible users trade blockchain-based shares backed one-to-one by the underlying securities. The rollout uses a wallet-first system where traders fund accounts with USDC, the dollar stablecoin issued by Circle, instead of going through a conventional brokerage account, Fortune reported.
Dinari said the launch pairs tokenized equities with stablecoin payments through a partnership with Circle, creating what it describes as a link between the roughly $300 billion stablecoin market and the more than $60 trillion U.S. equities market. Circle declined to comment, citing a quiet period ahead of its upcoming earnings report.
Each tokenized security, branded as a dShare, is backed one-to-one by an underlying stock held in regulated custody. According to Dinari, holders keep the rights attached to the underlying securities, including voting rights, cash dividends paid in native USDC, corporate actions, and redemption at market prices.
Dinari said transactions can settle almost instantly on blockchain infrastructure rather than following the standard market settlement cycle. Tokenized portfolios can also move between supported platforms instead of staying locked to a single brokerage account, Dinari said.
Dinari said its tokenized stock platform is already live across 85 jurisdictions outside the U.S. rollout and supports 6,139 active tokenized assets.
A recent a16z crypto report put the market value of tokenized stocks at nearly $1.7 billion by the end of June, up about 600% from a year earlier. Tokenized QQQ drove 288% of July volume in the broader tokenized-assets category.
Securitize and Figure have built tokenized offerings, Fortune reported. Those products have largely concentrated on private or specialized assets. Securitize, which recently gained SEC adviser status, has concentrated on tokenized funds and private assets.
Dinari co-founder and chief executive Gabriel Otte said his company's model differs by making publicly traded U.S. stocks available through tokenized securities.
Competition in the space is building. Robinhood recently introduced tokenized stock products for eligible European users through its blockchain network. Coinbase and Base have said they are working toward one-to-one-backed tokenized equities using regulated structures.
Dinari's regulatory footprint has grown over the past two years. In July 2024, Dinari joined the Blockchain Association to take part in U.S. policy discussions covering tokenized securities and financial regulation. At the time, Dinari said tokenization should operate within existing securities laws while keeping the investor protections already built into traditional capital markets.
Dinari operates as an SEC-registered transfer agent. Its broker-dealer subsidiary is registered with the SEC and is a member of FINRA and SIPC.
Otte founded Dinari in 2021 with Chas Rampenthal, a former LegalZoom executive, and Brandon Ooi, who started Crunchyroll. Earlier this year, Dinari introduced the Dinari Financial Network, a network designed to connect broker-dealers, exchanges, custodians, issuers, and transfer agents across the lifecycle of tokenized securities. The network supports issuance, trading, custody, settlement, dividend distribution, and corporate actions while letting participating firms keep their existing regulatory responsibilities.
Gemini and BitGo were among the network's early participants, and VanEck joined as well. A separate partnership with S&P Dow Jones Indices and Chainlink brought the S&P Digital Markets 50 Index onto blockchain infrastructure.
Speaking to Fortune, Otte traced the idea for Dinari to his own experience after leaving cancer diagnostics company Freenome, where he had been a co-founder. After becoming a client of wealth management firms, he said he found the traditional investment system difficult to understand because clients often receive limited visibility into how their money is managed. He argued that existing capital markets tend to favor established players and offer limited transparency for individual investors.
Otte also criticized the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation, calling it a centralized system that makes it difficult for investors to move assets freely between brokerages. Blockchain-based ownership, he said, could remove many of those restrictions by letting investors hold tokenized securities directly through digital wallets.
Fortune quoted Otte as saying he expects blockchain-issued tokens to eventually become the trusted record of stock ownership, allowing investors to hold assets directly rather than through multiple intermediaries.
Drafted by a large language model from the source reporting linked above, then screened by automated publishing checks. It is not read by a journalist before publication. Some articles cite our Alpha Score. Verify prices and figures against the original source. Educational coverage, not personalized advice.