IMF Finds Tokenized Stocks More Volatile, Less Liquid — SkimNews
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- Tokenized Tesla, Nvidia, and Alphabet shares led an IMF study of five actively traded tokenized U.S. equities — plus the Nasdaq 100 Index — revealing over half of trades occur outside regular market hours and roughly 80% involve less than one share.
- Overnight tokenized price moves carried useful information, with more than 85% of movements reflected in conventional shares within five minutes of U.S. markets opening, the IMF found.
- The IMF found tokenized stocks were about 1.5 times as volatile as equivalent shares on traditional venues and significantly less liquid.
- The tokenized RWA market reached roughly $65 billion as of July 31, with tokenized equities at about $2.3 billion — compared to a 2025 global equity market cap of nearly $160 trillion per SIFMA.
- Coinbase, Kraken, Binance, and Robinhood already offer tokenized stock trading, while OKX, Intercontinental Exchange (NYSE owner), and Bullish recently launched or filed plans for similar venues.
- The IMF warned that automated margin calls, cross-platform collateral transfers, and round-the-clock trading could make a market shock harder to contain, urging stronger legal and interoperability safeguards before the market scales.
Why it matters: With only $2.3 billion in tokenized equities spread across fragmented platforms, the IMF warned that automated margin calls and cross-platform collateral flows could let a localized shock cascade through tokenized venues faster than manual safeguards can respond — a risk regulators haven't yet addressed for 24-hour markets.
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